Rex
4mo ago
Former President Trump has picked JD Vance to be his running mate.
I must say that this is probably the best pick he could have made if we restrict the selection to just the people on his short list. Vance is the most populist of the potential picks. He has some obvious strengths with a demographic that cost trump his victory in 2020 (white males). The left seems to hate him more than any of the other potentials. He is certainly the most MAGA of the bunch, however it's hard to tell just how mercenary he is. I like that he at least had a life before politics and was a successful person before he came on the scene.
Haley, Rubio, Scott, Burgham, Youngkin. MAGA sees them all as neocon swamp creatures. They were the more moderate choices that would have put the VP just one more assassination attempt away from getting things back to business as usual.
There is a lot to digest here. Trumps statements since Saturday indicate that he wants to run on a Peace, Unity, and Love platform. I think this is a great idea, especially with Vance as VP. He should offer the country an opportunity to unite on his (our, MAGA) terms. It would be a tricky thing to pull off and Trump would need some softer language and a perfect delivery, but I think it's do-able. Let the left reject the call. Trump is perhaps in a unique position to pull this off right now. Vance gives him cover to do this.
It's also been said that VP picks rarely or minimally affect the race. I tend to think that is true which also is a reason to double down on MAGA with Vance. If its not going to be that important to the vote count, might as well go for someone that is ideologically aligned.
Rex
4mo ago
I dont know if anyone here knows the answer to this, but i was browsing x and saw this picture.
Is trump carrying? I assume the pistol on the left is a shoulder strap for the SS agent. But the one on the right looks clipped to his belt under his jacket.
Rex
4mo ago
I keep going back to what Rob Costa said a week ago and retweeted this afternoon:
https://x.com/costareports/status/1807080990067576943
"Spoke this morning to a couple people close to President Biden. Hard to overstate how much he dismisses the political class and media in private. Believes many of them haven’t understood him for decades, don’t get his appeal. Cares what elected Ds with real power and voters say."
There is a decent chance that Biden is just stubbornly going to hold on at this point. The pundit class is certainly going to try to manifest Biden withdrawling, but it seems to me that the average person on the street is not there yet and remains unphased by the debate.
I think it also reveals just how weak the biden campaign infrastructure is. Even if biden doesnt have the ability to get out there and prove it was just a bad night, you'd think they would be able to bootstrap or astroturf a social media campaign to get a counter message out there. Even if its transparently fake, the fact that I havent seen a trending hashtag for #RidinWithBiden is pretty pathetic. I thought they had $90 million in the bank and just bought a $50 million ad campaign? They couldnt afford some fake follers and an influencer campaign? Of course they could. They just have no vision.
I agree. I've been glued to the news after having been checked out for months. I recall a discussion on here several weeks if not months ago related to Biden and his age and competence. Someone said: "Call me when /r/neoliberal/ is ready to change horses". Well, that day has arrived.
The only observation I can offer that I havent seen discussed much is related to Jill and Hunter's role in all of this. It seems to be widely speculated that those two are the most vehemently against him dropping out. It would make sense considering those two perhaps stand to lose the most in the event of a Biden withdrawl. There was news today that Hunter is now sitting in on all of Biden's meetings. It seems very clear that Hunter's plan is to stick to his father like glue so that noone else can whisper in his ear that its time to quit.
What's been reported about Hunter's life is widely known, but it seems that Jill is being utterly exposed right now. There was another report that the Biden's have declined the White House mansion's resident staff. This is apparently extremely unusual. I dont know how this all works, but it sounds to me like this means that the Bidens do not let any cleaners or cooks into the residence, lest they might observe some damaging behavior by Biden.
I go back and forth on what I think will happen in the next few weeks, but as of right now, I think that Biden will not be withdrawing - mainly because his wife and son are making sure he stays on.
edit: here is a supposed internal poll showing stat of the race as of Sunday and alternative candidate polling. the full PDF is in the replies.
Rex
7mo ago
This guide is really good - you dont really spoil things but give some nice context. I think im going to get this tonight.
How did you guys hear of this? This is really under the radar but looks awsome.
Rex
7mo ago
I just bought a new PC after not having one for nearly 10 years. I went sort of nuts getting games: Total War: Rome; Dyson Sphere; Ultrakill; Satisfactory, Elden Ring, EU4, Monster Hunter World; Trails of Cold Steel 3 (difficulty mod); Cyberpunk; Witcher 3; and a few others I cant even remember. Kerbal space program too. Its my first go round with that and its not too bad. I wish the career mode had just a little bit more...production? I dont know, it seems like the edges are unsanded.
Noting has really drawn me in. My go to at the moment is Elden Ring, im maybe half way through a replay on that in advance of the DLC coming. I was really hoping Dragons Dogma 2 was going to be good since I really loved DDDA, but it seems to be a bust. I;ll wait till the DLC comes out and hopefully they get a hard mode.
As an adult, I really need complexity or extreme difficulty in games. Stellaris is really evergreen for me and I havent done a campaign in a while. I might download a new version with all the DLCs and give it another go. That game can really suck me in.
Rex
9mo ago
I've seen people make the argument that the liberal ideology is universalist. Its not enough for California to totally conform to leftist ideology - the whole country must conform. Better yet, the whole world. I dont know how to square this with cultural relativism, but now that I think about it, that's not something you hear a whole lot about these days despite the fact that I recall it being a big part of the political conversation from the left about 20 years ago. The universalism of the left does ring true to me. It seems to me that they cannot tolerate pockets of red tribe anywhere they might exist.
Rex
10mo ago
I’m suggesting that the nypost article about the report is a routine psyop. A journalist who either 1) sees which way the wind is blowing re:China and writes a clickbait article, 2) is following a general policy that was implemented by a IC asset in the media and explicitly designed to shift our attitudes on China, or 3) is a bonafide IC asset following specific instructions to write this story.
I’ll assume my first post was unclear. Hopefully this helps. And to be clear, I think it’s likely option 2 or 3.
Does this sound outlandish or convoluted to you?
Rex
10mo ago
Ok preface this saying I think GOFR should be banned for all the reasons listed in these replies.
That said, these kind of stories strike me as IC psyops designed to paint China as an enemy. EcoHealth Alliance, Fauci, and the rest of the government (including that same IC) are just as much to blame as China. And given that these people are opening out of the USA, we theoretically have more recourse against them than China.
Is China continuing GOFR? I have no doubt that they are. But this story sounds like bullshit for all the other reasons listed in the replies as well.
Rex
10mo ago
I’m suggesting something beyond the status quo. A continuation of more videos being released, more government officials making statements, perhaps a formal declaration by states.
That’s my whole point. I suspect that there is perhaps no sequence of events that could happen that would convince the Science crowd that NHI exists.
Rex
10mo ago
After occasionally reading NHI/UAP posts on X and 4chan, and of course in here when it comes up, I’ve had a thought that I’ve not seen expressed.
The conventional take is that any disclosure will have earth shattering ramifications for the religions of the world. That evidence of NHI would result in people doubting their faith, their religious leaders, and their belief that humans have some primacy in the universe. Basically that it would have catastrophic results for religion.
I expect the exact opposite would happen. I expect that materialists, “Scientists”, the “IFL Science” crowd, debunkers, and Atheists would be the ones that will be least likely at accept a new paradigm.
Religious people by definition are more open to metaphysics and they’re also quite used to a world where we have beliefs in opposition to the mainstream. I have no doubt that any NHI as a concept would be integrated into existing religion without all that much trouble.
As for the Science crowd, the existence of NHI would necessarily mean that the story they’ve defended for their entire lives is either wrong or incomplete. We’ve seen how that’s worked out on other topics recently. I expect no amount of evidence presented would ever be enough. I supposed that this would depend on exactly what is being disclosed and what beliefs are violated. Learning that FTL travel is possible would be quite different from the inter dimensional travel that’s been suggested lately. It would also depend on the exact mechanism of disclosure. If TPTB were to get the prestigious journals and community influencers on board first and in a systematic way, people would just get their normal software update so that’s they’re on the right side of The Current Thing. No different than if the Pope told us Catholics that NHI were fully in communion with the Church.
Long story short: I believe the conventional thinking that NHI would kill religion is severely outdated. Perhaps this was true at one time when religion was the dominant societal meme. No longer.
Rex
11mo ago
He’s been allegedly walking around NYC for the past 6 months harassing Russians as well. This dude literally lost his mind over The Current Thing. I wonder if we’ll be having a conversation about how the MSM encourages stochastic hate crimes?
Rex
1yr ago
50k more than were there in 2016.
I’m not sure what your point is. Is it hopeless? Maybe. Likely. But what have we got to lose?
I trust trump more than desantis. And Nikki Haley might as well be a democrat in my opinion.
Rex
1yr ago
First, there are reports that certain Republican orgs have been doing the work to assemble a large list of mid level staffers to install in the federal government for the next president. See NYT article. https://archive.ph/0uVQq
This should have existed in 2016, but clearly that was not the case.
Second, trump has an EO ready to go to reclass a huge percentage of federal enployees as contractors, making them much easier to fire. https://www.govexec.com/workforce/2022/07/trump-reelected-aides-plan-purge-civil-service/374842/
Third, a trump term would distract my political enemies and forestall whatever terrible agenda they are planning to implement. The dystopian liberal democratic order is coming for all of us in the west no matter what at this point. I’ll take four more years of wailing and grinding of teeth from the establishment as a nice sideshow in the meantime.
Rex
1yr ago
You are right about the Republican Party and perhaps even the Republican base (depending on how you define that). It would have described me 10 years ago when I considered myself a republican.
I don’t know if that is true of Republican voters though. I vote Republican out of necessity but loathe the party. I suspect you comments do not ring true to a significant portion of the MAGA voters out there. My parents will never give up on loving Israel. 60 years of propaganda is extremely sticky. Myself, my peers. There is no mystical allegiance there. They’re shitty allies and a waste of money.
Rex
1yr ago
Reading your post, I gave it maybe 50:50 odds of being true. Reading the cspan source below, I’m adjusting that to 99:1 odds of being untrue.
Aside from the reference to the current battle in the first sentence, this has every buzzword from the standard Ukrainian narrative I’ve read a thousand times over the past two years. Russians executing their own soldiers. Human wave. Untrained. Under equipped. Massive RU casualties. Etc. I see nothing of value here.
Rex
1yr ago
I’m no expert, but I heard Jocko’s take today and it seems he was more surprised at the overall coordination of the attack as opposed to individual tactics. Multiple teams attacking by truck, gliders, and boats across a decently wide area. All hitting their targets within a few hours. It seems like that level of military sophistication and coordination is beyond what many thought Hamas was able to achieve.
He also suggested they may have some more heavy weaponry such as AA guns and rockets.
Rex
1yr ago
No. But it allows the NYT, “the paper of record”, to publish:
The guilty plea entered by Mr. Epps showed that he was being held accountable for his crimes and undercut the narrative that he was being protected by the federal government.
No doubt the DoJ or some other government organ explicitly directed them to publish this. We just saw last week that this is exactly how it works. No doubt some federal official will now quote the NYT saying that this clears up the Epps saga. It’s the same playbook from the Iraq War, Russiagate, and I’m sure many other examples.
Rex
1yr ago
Rex
1yr ago
Is it the Atlantic that first published his identity and ethnicity? There seems to be a trend of mainstream legacy media outting public personalities that publish under a pen name. BAP, Libsoftictock, Scott. They clearly have an axe to grind here, even though they hide behind the some notion of journalism and a fig leaf of newsworthiness. What is there to be done? Nothing. Its asymetrical. Add it the list of reasons I find journalists lower than lawyers and slightly higher than pedophiles. I hope to one day be introduced to a journalist so that I can laugh in their face when they tell me their profession.
Rex
1yr ago
Thanks for answering. I’d suggest that cynicism does seem warranted after the past few years.
Someone downthread suggested that there’s not a lot of difference between the superstar researcher and the median researcher. I really have no way to know if this is true or not. Your response talks about all the benefits of university research. I’m not suggesting that there is zero benefit to university research. I’m just highly skeptical that the marginal benefit of this spousal hire policy is realy worth the cost. Of course academics will defend the policy. From the outside though, it sounds like bullshit.
I'm not sure how this got in my feed, but I've seen a lot of videos on X of police radically escalating situations beyond what's necessary. It often includes legal commentary on citizen rights and self-defense. Things like a police PITing a pregant woman and flipping her car for not pulling over fast enough during a stop. Police harassing a guy working on his car in a auto-shop late at night because its "suspicious". Cops bodyslamming a dad who's taking his autistic son for a walk at 6am and not carrying his ID. Surely there is a sampling bias here, but I do get the general sense that this closer to the norm than not.
I'm not sure exactly why people on right in the USA are till on the "thin blue line" team. Perhaps its because the median cop is more conservative. Perhaps its being more comfortable with authority and generally being more conscientious - leading to less altercations. Either way, I think theyre in for a rude awakening in the coming years. This doesn't strike me a stable equilibrium. The state pays the police. There is a chain of command. The state has a lot of tools. They can make the job miserable so the right leaning cops leave. They can implement vaccine requirements. Look at the UK police system for an example of where I think we're going. It seems like a total historical accident that this hasent happened already. The UK practically has political commissars enforcing western liberalism on anyone who sticks their head up. I have no doubt that TPTB want that for the USA. The only reason it hasnt happened already is that theyre dealing with thousands of individual police departments as opposed to like 10.
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