Drudge Retort: The Other Side of the News

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Israel's government has approved a plan to encourage the expansion of settlements in the occupied Golan Heights

For those who don't understand, Golan Heights is a mountainous, very inhospitable to human life, area that currently has less than 8,000 families, mostly Druze - yet from military perspective it provides a strategically essential area and a buffer zone, for Israel's and Jordan's security. Living in the Golans is no picnic and, being a buffer zone, is extremely dangerous.

Most Druze have long left the area to live better lives in Israel or Lebanon when Israel took over the area after the 1967 war (one of several existential wars they fought against Soviet Union-backed Arab coalition countries) and those that remained have been safe under Israel's protection. The last time they came under attack was when Hezbollah's rocket killed 12 Druze school students playing soccer in July 2024.

Now that Syria has been taken over by IS branch, and Turkey has taken over and occupies about 18% of Syria, presenting growing threat to Kurds (and oil fields) as Erdogan pronouncing that "Allah wants Turkiye not to be confined to its borders and wants us to expand beyond" **, and severely weakened Ayatollah in Iran is trying to destabilize Jordan by forging alliances with HTS and new substate Islamist terrorists and smuggling weapons to and through Jordan, Israel needs to expand a buffer zone to protect itself and Jordan from the kind of attacks that happened on 10/7 and was planned by Hezbollah in the north, before their leadership, munitions and tunnels were destroyed by IDF.

Syria is being carved up anew, and Israel is taking security measures appropriate to new circumstances and new threats, in light of new leaderships and alliances in the region.

**
|------- ... In Ankara on Wednesday, President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Turkiye cannot be leashed and "escape its fate."

"We will be in a much better place in the future. Turkiye is not just a place confined in an area of 782,000 square kilometers. History has a mission designated for us and we have to act in line with this. Some people cannot grasp it. They cannot grasp what we are doing in Libya or Somalia, they are not unaware of our mission. Those unable to see the transformation of Turkiye cannot see the course of developments we went through. We won't waste time with them and will focus on our goals. I believe you will undertake your responsibility in this sacred journey."
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UnitedHealth Is Strategically Limiting Access to Critical Treatment for Kids with Autism

#1 | Posted by oi_veh at 2024-12-14 05:49 PM
It seems that the more inoculations we give them, the more health problems occur.

Oy vey, more of the thoroughly debunked RFKjr "Vaccines cause autism and..." conspiracy theories nonsense. Just like COVID vaccines "#diedsuddenly" anecdotes keep popping up.

No, the US children, on average, are much healthier today, and have lower mortality and acquired disability rates from genetic and acquired diseases than in pre-vaccines era, in large part due to post-partum and childhood vaccinations... until they get to school age and get overweight/obese.

#2 | Posted by oi_veh at 2024-12-14 05:50 PM
It seems that the more single mothers we give them, the more health problems occur

Kardashians single mothers strongly disagree. Kardashians think it's not because "mothers are single," but because a large percentage of "single mothers" are relatively poor and have to juggle childcare and work, food, shelter, etc.

Marriage, as it turns out, has not been a solution to "single mothers" problem - "Risk of poverty is higher for women after divorce and separation. Studies show that women fair worse financially after divorce, and getting primary custody of the kids actually increases risk of poverty for them."

---

OT, but somewhat related to UnitedHealthcare: when I heard that Luigi Mangione was caught at Altoona, PA, it immediately brought to mind movie "Diamond Men" with Robert Forster.

www.rogerebert.com - Diamond Men (2002)
FTA: Bobby takes it as his personal assignment to get Eddie laid and after various schemes... Bobby takes Eddie to the Altoona Riding Club, which is a discreet rural brothel...

"And that's all I have to say about that."
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#4 | Posted by censored at 2024-12-08 09:04 AM
Hopefully he keeps protecting the Kurds, as we have been...

Trump has sold out Kurds before:

www.pbs.org - 'Trump betrayed us': Fleeing Kurds condemn U.S. decision to leave Syria - NPR, Oct 21, 2019

apnews.com - Trump defends decision to abandon Kurdish allies in Syria - AP, Oct. 8, 2019

|------- Trump declared U.S. troops would step aside for an expected Turkish attack on the Kurds, who have fought alongside Americans for years... Even Trump's staunchest Republican congressional allies expressed outrage at the prospect of abandoning Syrian Kurds who had fought the Islamic State group with American arms and advice.
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As for the rest, let the people of Syria develop their own government as they see fit...

Not possible under califate, or narco-terrorist regimes - see Taliban, Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad etc.

www.hstoday.us - Iran's Narco-Terrorist Network: How Iran, Hezbollah, Hamas and Other Proxies Use Narcotics to Fund Their War Against the West. - HS, March 1, 2024

Another issue is that Syria has chemical WMDs, which Assad has used on Syrians, and some time ago has been developing nuclear bomb, with the help of North Korea.

IDF took care of Syria's nuclear weapons program before, and is trying to deactivate chemical weapons factories and storage now:

|------- IDF conducted a series of raids around Damascus, targeting advanced weapons systems and warehouses before they fall into the hands of HST rebels who have ended the Assad regime. IAF bombed a chemical weapons storage facility and a chemical weapons factory belonging to the regime of Bashar Assad to prevent the rebels from seizing them. IDF deployed tanks and infantry to the Golan Heights to prevent an incursion by Syrian rebel forces. The military also stated it would not get involved in any internal occurrences in Syria, provided that no forces in Syria endanger Israeli security.

Israel's position has always been to avoid direct conflict with Syria, but not to permit developments regarding advanced weapons, and it has carried out thousands of air strikes within Syria since civil war started. These attacks intensified in recent months after the IDF decapitated much of Hezbollah's leadership and started to also eliminate significant Hezbollah and Iranian interests in Syria.
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en.wikipedia.org - Operation Orchard / Operation Outside the Box - September 6, 2007 - Strategic bombing run to destroy the Syrian nuclear site

www.youtube.com - Operation Orchard: The Explosive Raid on Syria's Nuclear Facility - YT video doc (48 min) explaining planning and details of operation and the role of North Korea in development of Syria nuclear program
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Amnesty International: Israel Is Carrying Out Genocide

Amnesty International knows on which side its bread is buttered, and is a broken record, just like Russian/Putin's influencers here and other social media.

Even Israeli branch of Amnesty Int'l (actually on the ground there) disagreed with their parent org "declaration":
Israeli section of Amnesty International does not accept the accusation that Israel is committing genocide, based on the information available to us...

Germany joins US in rejecting Amnesty's 'genocide' accusation against Israel

But that doesn't make "mainstream" news, just like report retracting previous UN's declaration of "Israel starvation of Gaza" didn't receive any time in US media, while the initial declaration of phony "Israel's policy of starvation" was shouted far and wide... and yet "starvation" was cited in stupid ICC decision.

At the same time Hamas stealing food supplies from Gazans for themselves and their loyalists, right after trucks go through checkpoints, and Hamas keeping people from leaving buildings and areas that Israel warned them to evacuate (to prevent civilian casualties) has been well known, but kept silent, all this time

People who hate Jews and Israel (for being their homeland) are still unwilling to connect the dots between Russia-North Korea-Iran and their proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and dozen other terrorist orgs that all had a nice "coordination" meeting in Moscow a few months ago) using Palestinians as their pawns and inflicting as much pain and suffering on them, to blame Israel, the US and fracture the West.

Despite clear facts to the contrary, Russian paid trolls and "influencers" heavily promote, and many Lefties (particularly very old and very young ones) still believe, ridiculous Soviet-era KGB propaganda about Israel/Jews "stealing the land" / "colonizing" / "apartheid" / "genocide" etc., ... just as they feed Righties with lies about Ukraine "Nazis" / "not democracy" / "Zelensky and wife stealing millions" and denials about Russian disinformation, misinformation, influence and election interference campaigns - "not Russia, Russia, Russia" etc.

www.rawstory.com - Bait-and-switch ad campaign carefully planned to trigger potential Harris voters - Nov 15, 2024

|------- With 25 focus groups and $45 million, political advisors to X owner Elon Musk pitted people against each other to cause a rift in the Democratic party and depress turnout for Kamala Harris'...

The Washington Post ... uncovered what it called a manipulation effort that resulted in protest votes and pulled down Democratic excitement.

... Muslims were bombarded by ads promoting Harris' backing of Israel, while Jewish voters were told she was supportive of Palestine. Left-wingers were told Harris has "abandoned the progressive dream" while more conservative voters heard of her liberal agenda.

Ryan Tyson told the Post that it was clear that many people hated Trump and would never be persuaded to support him.

"But once you get past White progressives, every other historical demographic stronghold from the Democrats just started to drop off. What did exist was a tremendous amount of voters on the left that were disaffected. And the only persuasion question was whether they could be persuaded to vote."

... Their effort "worked in concert with a separate project by the Trump campaign to depress turnout for Harris - knowing that Trump would be unlikely to drastically expand his vote totals."

A Trump campaign advisor confessed their goal was to "push her numbers down."
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Amnesty International: Israel Is Carrying Out Genocide

Amnesty International knows on which side its bread is buttered, and is a broken record, just like Russian/Putin's influencers here and other social media.

Even Israeli branch of Amnesty Int'l (actually on the ground there) disagreed with their parent org "declaration":
Israeli section of Amnesty International does not accept the accusation that Israel is committing genocide, based on the information available to us...

Germany joins US in rejecting Amnesty's 'genocide' accusation against Israel

But that doesn't make "mainstream" news, just like report retracting previous UN's declaration of "Israel starvation of Gaza" didn't receive any time in US media, while the initial declaration of phony "Israel's policy of starvation" was shouted far and wide... and yet "starvation" was cited in stupid ICC decision.

At the same time Hamas stealing food supplies from Gazans for themselves and their loyalists, right after trucks go through checkpoints, and Hamas keeping people from leaving buildings and areas that Israel warned them to evacuate (to prevent civilian casualties) has been well known, but kept silent, all this time

People who hate Jews and Israel (for being their homeland) are still unwilling to connect the dots between Russia-North Korea-Iran and their proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and dozen other terrorist orgs that all had a nice "coordination" meeting in Moscow a few months ago) using Palestinians as their pawns and inflicting as much pain and suffering on them, to blame Israel, the US and fracture the West.

Despite clear facts to the contrary, Russian paid trolls and "influencers" heavily promote, and many Lefties (particularly very old and very young ones) still believe, ridiculous Soviet-era KGB propaganda about Israel/Jews "stealing the land" / "colonizing" / "apartheid" / "genocide" etc., ... just as they feed Righties with lies about Ukraine "Nazis" / "not democracy" / "Zelensky and wife stealing millions" and denials about Russian disinformation, misinformation, influence and election interference campaigns - "not Russia, Russia, Russia" etc.

www.rawstory.com - Bait-and-switch ad campaign carefully planned to trigger potential Harris voters - Nov 15, 2024

|------- With 25 focus groups and $45 million, political advisors to X owner Elon Musk pitted people against each other to cause a rift in the Democratic party and depress turnout for Kamala Harris'...

The Washington Post ... uncovered what it called a manipulation effort that resulted in protest votes and pulled down Democratic excitement.

... Muslims were bombarded by ads promoting Harris' backing of Israel, while Jewish voters were told she was supportive of Palestine. Left-wingers were told Harris has "abandoned the progressive dream" while more conservative voters heard of her liberal agenda.

Ryan Tyson told the Post that it was clear that many people hated Trump and would never be persuaded to support him.

"But once you get past White progressives, every other historical demographic stronghold from the Democrats just started to drop off. What did exist was a tremendous amount of voters on the left that were disaffected. And the only persuasion question was whether they could be persuaded to vote."

... Their effort "worked in concert with a separate project by the Trump campaign to depress turnout for Harris - knowing that Trump would be unlikely to drastically expand his vote totals."

A Trump campaign advisor confessed their goal was to "push her numbers down."
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Amnesty International: Israel Is Carrying Out Genocide

Amnesty International knows on which side its bread is buttered, and is a broken record, just like Russian/Putin's influencers here and other social media.

Even Israeli branch of Amnesty Int'l (actually on the ground there) disagreed with their parent org "declaration":
Israeli section of Amnesty International does not accept the accusation that Israel is committing genocide, based on the information available to us...

Germany joins US in rejecting Amnesty's 'genocide' accusation against Israel

But that doesn't make "mainstream" news, just like report retracting previous UN's declaration of "Israel starvation of Gaza" didn't receive any time in US media, while the initial declaration of phony "Israel's policy of starvation" was shouted far and wide... and yet "starvation" was cited in stupid ICC decision.

At the same time Hamas stealing food supplies from Gazans for themselves and their loyalists, right after trucks go through checkpoints, and Hamas keeping people from leaving buildings and areas that Israel warned them to evacuate (to prevent civilian casualties) has been well known, but kept silent, all this time

People who hate Jews and Israel (for being their homeland) are still unwilling to connect the dots between Russia-North Korea-Iran and their proxies (Hamas, Hezbollah, Houthis, Palestinian Islamic Jihad and dozen other terrorist orgs that all had a nice "coordination" meeting in Moscow a few months ago) using Palestinians as their pawns and inflicting as much pain and suffering on them, to blame Israel, the US and fracture the West.

Despite clear facts to the contrary, Russian paid trolls and "influencers" heavily promote, and many Lefties (particularly very old and very young ones) still believe, ridiculous Soviet-era KGB propaganda about Israel/Jews "stealing the land" / "colonizing" / "apartheid" / "genocide" etc., ... just as they feed Righties with lies about Ukraine "Nazis" / "not democracy" / "Zelensky and wife stealing millions" and denials about Russian disinformation, misinformation, influence and election interference campaigns - "not Russia, Russia, Russia" etc.

www.rawstory.com - Bait-and-switch ad campaign carefully planned to trigger potential Harris voters - Nov 15, 2024

|------- With 25 focus groups and $45 million, political advisors to X owner Elon Musk pitted people against each other to cause a rift in the Democratic party and depress turnout for Kamala Harris'...

The Washington Post ... uncovered what it called a manipulation effort that resulted in protest votes and pulled down Democratic excitement.

... Muslims were bombarded by ads promoting Harris' backing of Israel, while Jewish voters were told she was supportive of Palestine. Left-wingers were told Harris has "abandoned the progressive dream" while more conservative voters heard of her liberal agenda.

Ryan Tyson told the Post that it was clear that many people hated Trump and would never be persuaded to support him.

"But once you get past White progressives, every other historical demographic stronghold from the Democrats just started to drop off. What did exist was a tremendous amount of voters on the left that were disaffected. And the only persuasion question was whether they could be persuaded to vote."

... Their effort "worked in concert with a separate project by the Trump campaign to depress turnout for Harris - knowing that Trump would be unlikely to drastically expand his vote totals."

A Trump campaign advisor confessed their goal was to "push her numbers down."
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Maybe continually allowing concentration and giving more and more power(s) to President / Executive Branch isn't such a good idea, as it promotes "legal / institutionalized corruption," more and more naked with each administration... unless, of course, the party out of power (and especially their rich funders) think "we want to have ALL of it when our term comes."

Which is why "fine people on both sides" will bitch and moan about more and more egregious displays of abuse of such power, but won't lift a finger or even talk about changing "the system."

You get Clintons, Trumps, Cuomos, Kennedys et al who are/were would-be kings, because parties need to perpetuate their power - because their money and their "rights" depend on it, the lives and freedoms of "ordinary" people be damned.

Instead of stripping the government and bureaucrats of some powers, the parties in power keep adding to them, hoping they will help them to entrench and advance their own interests, political and personal.

Be careful how much power you want the "government" in general and, in particular, the individuals at the top of the pyramid to have.

For example, pardons and impositions of tariffs should not be allowed to be in the hands of single individuals. (BTW, Sen. Ron Paul wanted to introduce legislation curtailing the tariff powers of Presidents)

"Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely. ... still more when you superadd the tendency or the certainty of corruption by authority. There is no worse heresy than that the office sanctifies the holder of it." (Lord Acton)

"Stroke of the pen, Law of the land. Kinda cool." (Paul Begala, an aide to Bill Clinton, said of executive orders)

"It's good to be the king." (Mel Brooks / King Louis, h/t Niccolo Machiavelli, author of The Prince)

"Of course the president's not the king. The president's far more powerful than the king. The president has the power that kings have never had." - Alan Dershowitz

law.stanford.edu - The President Who Would Not Be King: Executive Power and the Constitution - Michael McConnell, Director of the Stanford Constitutional Law Center, June 26, 2019

"This couldn't happen here!" ?
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The heads of government efficiency want to try a plan that has already been tested and rejected.

It's not pointless. Maybe "tested" but not "rejected" - the real issue about the "permanent" time is not whether to do it, but how - settle on "standard time" or set it to DST.

There are pros and cons for each, from ag industry to ed and med industries, so the decision will affect enough people to complain... for a while, until most adjust and will think nothing of it, but previous failure and quick reversal led to half-measures like extending DST for more "sunlight":

US Congress tried to settle on "permanent" DST in December of 1973, for an experimental period of 2 years - to see if it would really save energy - but reinstated biannual time change just 8 months later, because people hated dark mornings. Vox populi vox Dei! So instead, DST was expanded to 7 months in 1986, and to 8 months in 2007, from March to November - the usual rationale being to "stretch the daylight" as far as possible without having the negatives of late sunrises in the winter.

www.npr.org - Changing our clocks is a health hazard. Just ask a sleep doctor - NPR, March 2023

|------- Senator Marco Rubio (R-Fla.), who has introduced the Sunshine Protection Act of 2023, says the ritual of changing our clocks twice a year "makes no sense," and is "stupid." He's joined by a bipartisan group of senators including Ron Wyden (D-Ore) and Edward Markey (D-Mass).

The Senate unanimously passed a similar measure in 2022, but it did not get enough support in the House of Representatives. ... The key argument is, more light in the evening can prompt people to go out and spend more money at shops and restaurants.

... Many doctors and scientists agree it's time to stop the twice a year time change, but they oppose legislation that would make daylight saving time permanent. Instead, the American Academy of Sleep Medicine and the American Medical Association both favor permanent standard time, which preserves morning light.
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This may have better chance now that Musk-Rama-Don mafia can take credit for "doing something" quickly and "efficiently" - it's a low-hanging fruit for Elon-Vivek / "government efficiency commission" to try and take credit for ephemeral "$$ savings" by flipping a coin and getting an early "win" by recommending one or the other.

Hey, look what we've done! Veni, vidi, vici!

www.theweathernetwork.com - Five ways life would be better if it were always daylight saving - pro-DST arguments

www.theweathernetwork.com - Why sleep experts say it's time to ditch DST - pro-standard time arguments
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It was certainly an unsuccessful battle by Democrats to convince voters that the economy was actually pretty good over the last couple of years.

Dems got practically NO help from corporate media, determined up until the election to parrot Republican feelings instead of reporting actual economic data.

This is exactly backwards and explains a total divorce by Dems "elite" from economic and other realities of people and everyday life of what they think as "deplorables" if they

I don't know what you've heard or read from "corporate media" (?) but it was ad nauseum all about trying to convince people how the "economy and inflation direction is actually good, based on actual economic data" and only at the end some started talking a little about people not feeling the NUMBERS of the "economy" provided by the Fed, BLS, Treasury etc.

The problem, as I have posted a few times here (not "corporate media" but ignored anyway) is that reducing the "economy" to one compound / average number doesn't take into account the "people" and their "feelings" about their current economic circumstances and future prospect and ability to pay the bills. As it stands, at least 2/3 of the people, mostly in lower economic quintiles, have financial troubles and thought that the country and the economy is "on the wrong track" - IOW, "their economy" was very different from Janet Yellen's economy, the corporate economy etc.

Try this: watch "The Big Short" but this time pay attention to how some/few sharp individuals decided that many triple/double-A mortgage-backed loans portfolios (MBS) were rotten inside and what financial instruments they chose before they bet on their collapse in 2007-2008 - it didn't suddenly blow up with the demise of Lehman Bros. on Sept 15. - that should give you an idea of how something looking so good on the outside, based on single number/letter/rating can be so deceiving.

Trying to convince them that what they are "feeling" (in their "pockets" / bank accounts, credit cards) about the "economy" and telling them that going after "gouging" is going to improve their finances and that raising minimum/"living" wage will set them on a "path to generational wealth" was condescending and ineffective, at best, and offensive and insulting, at worst.

What was needed instead was telling them "I feel your pain and here's what we can do / are doing to improve your economic picture," not "would change nothing."

Re "corporate media," what would you call NYT, WaPo, LAT and bunch of other "celebrated" media outlets? NYT has about 11 million subscriptions, even assuming WP (2.5M) and others are not overlapping - that gives you ~15M "elite," mostly liberal subscribers who can afford and are willing to read the "elite" news. If they wanted to reach a wider, less affluent audience, they would "tear down their paywalls."

As it is, most people get their news from "free" social media where they commiserate with those with similar circumstances, and get their views shaped accordingly - real info or not.

Kamala's digital campaign was abysmal - repeating TikTok-style videos about abortion and name-calling:

www.wired.com - The Manosphere Won

www.rawstory.com - Bait-and-switch ad campaign carefully planned to trigger potential Harris voters

www.marketwatch.com - Election leaves U.S. consumer sentiment frozen. Republicans are excited, Democrats dispirited.
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Two years ago, the FBI raided Donald Trump's home to retrieve government records he had refused to return, including hundreds containing classified information.

Yet, national security and foreign policy [implications and dangers] (Iran, North Korea, Russia, Russia, Russia) - the issues where the President actually has the most power and Executive branch apparatus, mostly unencumbered by Congress - weren't visible at all on Harris campaign's agenda... neither were Trump's numerous business failures and utter incompetence (except for making billions selling worthless DJT stocks before bankruptcies), and that Trump and family profited far more from politics and Presidency than he ever did as a "businessman," to counter and blunt his "[Great Businessman] will fix it" / "He made trains run on time" bulls**t...

Outside of "talking to the choir" issues, no dots connected between foreign policy and danger of criminality and recklessness in governance and post-governing ... and implications of someone having a "get out of jail free card" handed out by SCOTUS potentially acting in his own interest instead of country's.

If you have to ask "Why is THIS GUY even close?" it means that what you've been doing isn't working and it's time to find out why and change course, not keep telling people that the NUMBERS look good and they are "ignorant/stupid/deplorable" and should just wait until our "medicine" starts working... any day/week/month now - "you'll see it in the next BLS and BEA reports!"

She never even tried to have a Sister Souljah moment. She ran a nearly substance-free ("I am not Trump" / "I am pro-unions" / "I am against price-gougers") national campaign the way that may work in California, against marketeer who [bought and] sold value-free things his entire life.

Outside of snowflakes - like Washington Post and LA Times editors having hissy-fits about endorsements - people in general, even those who don't like their jobs, do not hate the "rich people" who sign or make it possible (often at a lo$$ for owners, like WaPo's -$77m in 2024 alone) to get their paycheck. They also understand, unlike Whoopi, that "cracking down on price-gouging" and "the rich paying their fair share" are phony "solutions" to their problems. "Bernies / Robin Hoods" are not going to win majority.

Most people generally don't "hate on the rich" and see a hypocrisy when Dem candidates are endorsed, surrounded by and pal around with the glam "rich and famous," including billionaires - talk about "happy happy joy joy" campaign "not listening/hearing, not seeing, not speaking" about real issues for most people... while Trump was trolling them at MickeyD's.

There is only so long that a party can keep selecting crappy candidates (who have to pander to the far left/right in primaries) and then switch course in general because majority of people keep rejecting either/both, when they are unhappy.

We had a choice between two (three?) "failing-up" candidates, who kept being rewarded for/despite their failures, one as politician, another as businessman and politician:

www.bbc.co.uk - 'Failing up': Why some climb the ladder despite mediocrity
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#19 | Posted by Idependant97 at 2024-11-10 02:07 AM
Democrats need to be looking into exactly what it is that minorities are needing.

Wrong solution to the wrong problem(s). They tried to do just that for longer than the last 4-8 years - relying on "identity politics" and keep trying to give more and more "rights" to more and more "minorities" - often at the expense of other "minorities" and that's exactly the mess they find themselves in now.

You have it backwards - Dems need to spend less time figuring out how to "protect" / give new "rights" to some "minorities" while ignoring or even intruding on the rights of and pissing off other "protected minorities" - including women who are not real minority class - and many who want to be treated as just "Americans" and have a robust middle and upper class, like Black, Hispanic, Asian millionaires and billionaires, small and large business owners etc.

They have the same issues other "Americans" have - unlike Dems trying to identify/classify everyone except "rich white male" as a minority that needs "protection" and "special rights" - their "communities" are like any others, they don't [any longer] need to fall in line with whatever other issues the Dem party wants/needs, to expand.

Treating them like children or second-class citizens, telling them they should have grievances against the "Whities" who they work, play, partner with, or employ, and that they need Dems to "protect" them, no longer works - "they're all grown up" now, and resent and reject pandering. They want a piece of the full pie, but Dems can only offer them scraps off the table, like "historic appointment of first 'minority' to the 'position' in administration" etc.

Same, BTW, applies to another "minority" but this one is shrinking instead of growing - unions, now at only about 6% of private sector, and whose membership is not in any way politically united or aligned with their leaders/bosses/capos - they are no longer the "influencers" they were decades ago. Yet Biden and Harris campaigns spent a lot of time (ads and rallies/interviews) to let us know they were endorsed by unions' bosses - with the same effect as celebrities or newspapers endorsements.

Building, and especially, keeping, a "majority minority" is tricky - you start having "inter-minority" conflicts... like trans rights vs women/girls rights, Arabs/Muslims vs Jews, Black/Native men/women vs White/Asian/Hispanic women, working poor vs business owners/professionals, well-educated vs less-/un-educated, LGBTQ+ vs straight, "protected young" vs "protected old" etc., etc., etc.

IOW, the more "minority" groups Dems take under their wing, and/or the more things/"rights" they find they need to "give" them, the higher the chances of conflict with other, likely larger, minority groups exist, and less the chances of amicably resolving them. Possibilities (of conflict) are endless!

Look at the exit polls link in #7 - see how "Moms class" voted (or DID NOT vote) - they have daughters who may not say it out loud in school ("intolerant," "ignorant"), but don't want to share their bathrooms with or compete against trans-women. Minor or non-issue to you, but to them it's a huge overreach and makes no sense... and an example of "class/group clash."

In effect, the "majority minority" coalition is always going to be subject to sort of political blackmail that's similar to social democracies in many countries - you need several parties to form a government and they all want to exact the price / concessions for doing so and joining the plurality winner - see France 2024 elections.
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2020 Trump - 74.2m - 51%, 306 EC

2024 Trump - 74.2m - >50%
2024 Harris - 70.3m - 48%

11m deficit is enough for a dozen "Blue Walls" - that's the real story.

www.nbcnews.com - National Exit Polls: Election 2024 - NBC

Contrary to all the commentaries, Trump didn't "outperform" his 2020/2016 numbers - Harris bigly "underperformed" Biden and Hillary numbers in Dem areas, so percentages show it as Trump's relative "outperformance." It's clear that millions stayed home rather than vote FOR Harris - IOW, she royally f'd up for that to happen.

Mistake #1 - hubris: "Transitional" President declined to "transition / exit" in time and decided that he was "the best one to beat Trump."

Mistake $2 - hubris: Nationally, people keep rejecting "woke"; they barely elected "moderate, normal" Joe Biden, hoping he would be a centrist. after he selected Kamala to "balance" the ticket to appease "Bernie / Warren" wing. Dems keep forgetting it election after election and, after a win, think that people love them and ALL their policies.

Mistake $3 - hubris: Harris, already saddled with "Komrad Kamala" baggage in San Fran and CA, decided to ignore the safe and best choice to "balance" the ticket and secure the PA and likely other "Blue Wall" states votes... and chose someone even further left. The only way that could work if she started to speak "centrist" yet that didn't really happen - as she tried to fake it and avoid any substance. So what was the point? (Corollary: Never pick as VP a guy named "Tim")

Mistake #4 - hubris: Telling people that NUMBERS show "economy is good" (ignoring that 60%-70% have trouble paying bills and rising debt; steady 65+% of likely voters polled "on the wrong track") or claiming credit for subsiding inflation which is the result of the Fed and other Central Banks raising rates and slowing economies everywhere.

Mistake #5 - hubris: Doubling down on Bernie and Warren's "greedflation" and "gouging" and proposing usual left-wing "solutions" like price controls - that even most mainstream Dem economists said would be a disaster - and "no new ideas" ads continued until Nov 5th.

Mistake #6 - hubris: Not seeing forest for the trees. Taking for granted and relying on "Dem 'protection' lock-in" votes of women, "minorities" (LatinX, Black, Asian) and flaky "yoots" and pushing marginal yet largely unpopular issues like trans in women/girls sports and bathrooms **, forgiving student loans etc., while pissing off huge parts of even the same constituency to feel abandoned, ignored, looked upon and called "intolerant," "deplorable" etc., when they disagree.

IOW, just like Hillary!, hers was a "not listening, not hearing" campaign, with celebrity endorsements and repeating to the choir known facts about Trump (like Biden reminding us about 34 felony counts in a "debacle") but little about her (except "nothing different" ?), in a world that shifted away from and cares little about new "woke" acronyms (DEI, ESG, GND...), yet anyone with different opinion is disdained, called names and/or just ignored.


** www.usatoday.com - Harris lost because she was a bad candidate. Don't blame white women for that - USAT

www.nbcnews.com - Young men's economic prospects are shifting, along with their politics - NBC

www.theguardian.com - 'A fatal miscalculation' - Guardian

You can ignore reality, you can't ignore the consequences of ignoring reality
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** BLS explains: "The CPI does not necessarily measure your own experience with price change... A national average reflects millions of individual price experiences; it seldom mirrors a particular consumer's experience."

"Average" is a key word here, but it's actually even worse: some of the components are "weighted" higher, some lower; others, like consumer's credit interest payments, some property-related expenses, some insurance costs are not included, use of subjective "hedonic regression" etc.

Also, depending what "weighted basket" of goods and services you are in, your "personal inflation" ("particular consumer experience") may be higher than headline or core CPI.

Neither BLS CPI nor Fed's PCE are perfect at measuring even "average" inflation:
The pricing challenges aren't unique to the CPI. ... The personal consumption expenditures price index, produced by the Bureau of Economic Analysis, also has some quirks when it comes to measuring certain expenses like health care.

So neither the CPI or CPE are ideal, one-univariate-fits-all indices, and both understate inflation. That's one reason why Social Security checks (and/or other "fixed income") even "adjusted for inflation" usually fail to keep up with the actual COL.

*** www.pbs.org - Driving retail spending, wealthier Americans are powering US economy - PBS/AP, Oct 18, 2024

www.bloomberg.com - The Mighty American Consumer Is Powered by Higher Earners - Oct 15, 2024
|------- By many measures, Americans appear to be tapped out: Credit-card delinquency rates are on the rise, millions are falling behind on student-loan payments and the explosion of "buy now, pay later" apps suggests shoppers are racking up billions of dollars in "phantom debt" that can't easily be tracked by economists.

A new study by the Federal Reserve puts data behind that K-shaped spending theory, showing that the recent strength in spending has been driven by middle- and high-income families.

Among key findings:
* - In the two years before Covid, growth in average retail spending was roughly the same across income brackets
* - In the two years following the pandemic, low-income families boosted consumption much faster, helped by government stimulus programs
* - In the past two years, higher-earning households were the main drivers. The Fed researchers speculate it may be because they are enjoying a wealth effect from soaring stocks and home values as well as higher interest and investment income

Wells Fargo economists argued in a recent note that lower rates may not provide much lift for consumer spending. At the macro level, they say, the lost interest income will likely be larger than the savings from households who will be spending less to finance their debt.
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Drudge Retort
 

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