Tuco

You have to respect the stamina. And at his age. Impressive.

52k tuition. 15.4k room and board. Granted, they wouldn't charge room and board for remote learning, but that is part of the lost revenue. If 1000 students (~11%) didn't enroll because they didn't want to spend 52k for telecourses, that's $50M in lost tuition revenue. Let's say half of the students normally live on campus, that's $65M in lost room and board revenue. Money decisions are overriding medical ones. That's certainly not just at Notre Dame.

If Trump doesn't concede by the end of the week, I'd like to see a House resolution on a simple statement telling him to abide by the Constitution. Time to get some Congressmen on record, one way or the other.

I've said it previously: I don't think Ukraine was the only place that Trump was using foreign policy for personal gain. Kush was running that shit for a while. We didn't even have an ambassador to the Kingdom of SA for over half his presidency. (The Kingdom murdered Khashoggi on 10/3/2018; John Abizaid was nominated on 11/13/2018, confirmed in April 2019.) There is so much weirdness that happened in that area over the last four years, and I don't have much faith that it was all for furthering American interests.

What I thought was the funniest: And then they show the graph of the data. It's a huge, fuzzy point cloud. Sure, you could model it as a line. Or a polynomial. Or, maybe as exponential curve. The only reason it is a line is because someone did a linear regression on the data. And, just to be clear, this nutcase did not invent email. But he did fuck Fran Drescher.

Shit, with Trump's people planning it, they'll probably end up in a White Castle parking lot.

Something that gets lost in this is that there is a difference between a failure to concede ("...we want to make sure all votes are counted...", "...we are looking for a recount...") and the absolute insanity of claiming victory ("WE WON BIG", "there will be a smooth transition to a Trump second term.") Even now, the media has a problem covering Trump because they are still using traditional, relatively neutral terms to describe shit that is just completely fucking bonkers.

He needs to not have access to guns. Ever.

Yeah, he's not using money to buy influence over the GOP. He's using influence over the GOP to raise money. It's not like he has some broad legislative agenda he is pushing. The great things about PACs, compared to campaigns, is that it is a lot easier to utilize the money for personal usage. For example, Devin Nunes: Nunes is awful, for some many reasons

Money. Any discussion that deals with Notre Dame's (or any other college's) response to Covid needs to have money at the center of the discussion. Notre Dame was not going to be able to charge ~70k per year for telecourses. Tradition is what they sell, and that includes a beautiful campus and a cool football experience. Without it, they'd lose a significant portion of their enrollment. 10%? 30% Who knows. But the math is ugly regardless.

He understand statistics better than psychology.

So, what's the lawyer cabal's opinion on the merits of the case?

Nate seems to think that people answer polling questions based on deeply seated beliefs. They don't. They are just parroting whatever right wing is saying. If right wing media started saying that China is our friend, you'd see huge poll swings that way. Just like you saw with "conservative" opinions on Russia.

It’s an elected position. He won as a Republican. I would be more disturbed if he didn’t acknowledge his bias. And it provides context for the importance to having loyalty to the system over loyalty to a political preference.

The fuck it was.

Yeah, check out their on-line headlines: "Pence on 2020 race:"It ain't over til it's over..and this AIN'T over." "Nev poll worker claims anti-Trump voter fraud, intimidation in sworn statement." "McConnell supports Trump legal fight, says he has a right to request recount." "Trump 'not backing down,' campaign manager says, urging staff to 'have patience' amid legal battles."

I would imagine they have the power to investigate. I doubt they have the power to deny certification (something out of the executive branch) without a new law.

No, they are still afraid of him. It was never the Presidency that gave Trump power ove the Republicans. He can still send out a a critical tweet and significantly hamper many Republican candidate's chance of winning. He could tell his supporters to stay home in the Georgia runoff and deliver the Senate to the Democrats. "The beginning of the fall..." No, we've been in decline for a while. This is just another milestone along the way. This is not America at the top of our game.

When Trump got it, I hoped he would recover because I think it's a bad thing for a sitting President to die in office, even Trump. A sitting Senate Majority Leader don't mean shit.

Particularly since the guy you are siding with just lost the election in the state you are attempting to win. Sure, barely, but he is barely unpopular.

Why is this a surprising question from a black person? If the answer was obvious, there would be a higher black turnout. I think this is a blindspot that many progressives have. I remember I was canvassing in a predominantly black, low income neighborhood with my wife. We knocked on a door. The person who answered said that he doesn't do politics. As we walked away, my wife fumed. But it shouldn't be surprising. Decades go by. Elections go by. Politicians go by. That neighborhood doesn't change. Part of that is due to the stability of the system. If Republicans had their way, social programs would get drastically cut and the neighborhood would suffer. But, the Dems are able to hold the line. It's not easy to explain to the person answering the door how we need his help to hold the line. But that success, such as it is, hides the importance of the elections. Snacks doesn't live in that neighborhood. There are plenty of professional black men who I imagine ask the same question. Yes, I imagine it sucks to have an obvious racist for a President, but does it materially impact him? I don't know.

I've tried this approach. Try to focus on a very narrow, easily provable set of facts. Anything that relies on media reports will not be sufficient. You need original quotes, preferably by Republican sources. The theory is that if I can get them to agree that something out of their echo chamber is false, maybe that will drive enough of a wedge that they will stop listening to the echo chamber. It's like the Miracle Worker, where if I can just teach them to sign W-A-T-E-R, everything else will fall in place. I haven't been successful yet. I've been able to convince them of a single item, but they quickly change the subject. They don't want to examine why they believed the bullshit in the first place. Still, I will continue to try this method on people who are at least trying to appear like they are engaging in a conversation. I've done this approach, mostly on random social media. The idea is that if you get them to show their ass enough, they won't enjoy it, and maybe they will be more reluctant to post bullshit. It does nothing to help change their mind, but at least it can slow down the rate in which they post misinformation. I've had some success in this. This is what I have discovered when challenging them on human rights issues. As long as they can pull out a "both sides" argument, there is no reason to address the basic problem. It's not important whether kids are in cages, causing trauma that will haunt them for the rest of their lives. The only thing that matters is whether the Obama administration also put kids in cages. Because the political point is more important than ending the cruelty. Because the cruelty does not bother them, it only bothers them that it might hurt Trump.

Campaign staffers were quoted as saying, "we're still getting paid, right?"

Folks need to slow their roll. As I understand it, Pfizer just released an interim report that indicated things are going pretty well. Cool. But that report has not had peer review yet and there are still ongoing trials.

Well, those tweets are fucking disgusting, and painfully unsurprising.