domain:alexepstein.substack.com
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
21m ago
I have to say that the thought of letting Kamala have her win being the more prudent choice long-term did occur to me.
Well, this entire red-hot and starting to backfire economy is propped up by the laptop class looting federal money to subsidize their lifestyle spending. There's nothing else propping up demand, so if Trump kicks the chair out I suspect we're in for a crash just in time for 2028.
OliveTapenade
30m ago
Your question is a non-sequitur: why do I have to prove anything more? There is clear irregularity in 2020, either give an innocuous explanation for the counting stopped over a water pipe, or concede.
I don't see why a claim of a burst pipe that turned out to be false is proof of fraud? Why should AppleyOrange need to concede anything? There might be many explanations for concerns about a burst water pipe other than deliberate malfeasance. A single bad actor might submit a false report about a burst pipe. A good faith error might have occurred. There might have been a real but small leak that was exaggerated. There are too many possibilities to reasonably jump from a report of a burst pipe to fraud.
But suppose we grant that there was a suspicious irregularity in 2020 worthy of investigation. It's not proof of fraud, but maybe it's something people should look into. Sure.
I think the point about 2024 holds up?
Let's grant hypothetically that large voter fraud in Georgia in 2020 delivered the state to Biden. Let's also grant that Harris outperformed Biden in 2024. There are two possibilities here - either Harris also committed fraud, or she didn't.
If Harris also committed voter fraud, then we should reasonably expect to find evidence of that fraud. Maybe they did it better, sure, but a large-scale operation like state-wide voter fraud ought to leave some evidence. We might also be inclined to ask why, if Harris' campaign is capable of successfully rigging an election in Georgia so professionally, Trump still won Georgia by a decent margin, and why they apparently failed to rig elections in other states, including much more significant swing states.
If Harris didn't commit any kind of fraud, then we'd seem to have to conclude that her performance in the state in 2024 is not prima facie suspicious. If so, then we have a strange question to ask ourselves - why, after rigging it in 2020, would they not bother to rig it in 2024? Moreover, if the Democrats performed better when they weren't rigging it to when they were... that seems strange? That seems like Dick Dastardly stopping to cheat? If Harris didn't cheat in '24, it seems like it just makes more sense if Biden didn't cheat in '20.
Let's consider the four possibilities here: 1) Biden cheats in 2020, Harris cheats in 2024, 2) Biden cheats in 2020, Harris doesn't cheat in 2024, 3) Biden doesn't cheat in 2020, Harris cheats in 2024, 4) Biden doesn't cheat in 2020, Harris doesn't cheat in 2024. It seems like option four just... makes the most sense of the observed data.
HeimrArnadalr
English Supremacist
1hr ago
There are scammers who are aware of Kitboga, so it's certainly a possibility.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1hr ago
Really? "Fail to support" transition, or "try to block their kid from accessing the relevant medical treatments"?
Without doubt, the former. There's a high profile case of a sex-trafficked teenager that the authorities refused to release to her grandparents, because they used her birth name, which resulted in her being sex-trafficked again.
This is without going into the question of whether there are any relevant medical treatments to begin with, or if it's just glorified cosmetic surgery/intervention.
DuplexFields
Ask me how the FairTax proposal works. All four Political Compass quadrants should love it.
1hr ago
The Sigh of Haruhi Suzumiya and rereading From the Mixed-Up Files of Mrs. Basil E. Frankweiler for the first time. I was too young to pick up on it the first time, but the pre-incident life experiences of the latter’s protagonist is described from the start in upper middle class terms. It feels like she’d easily become fast friends with Rudy Huxtable from the Cosby Show.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1hr ago
There is written record of the Secretary for Health demanding that the WPATH removes minimum age requirements from their Standards of Care so that the Biden administration can better pursue their goals related to trans issues. WPATH did comply, in violation of their own procedures of how the SOC is supposed to be determined.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1hr ago
If we were talking about media broadly, I'd agree, but I think the broadest category that can be used fairly for the purposes of this conversation is "satirical publications". Is the any cathedral satire that matters at this point?
SteveKirk
1hr ago
Washington State literally passed this fucking law last year, stop lying to our faces that it's not happening (and also it's good)
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
1hr ago
Even the trans community has been somewhat bothered by the "pronouns in bio/email" stuff,
So howcome they did absolutely nothing about it for all these years? Why did they participate in dogpiles on anyone who did voice their concern (including the occasional trans person, funnily enough)?
benmmurphy
1hr ago
The Babylon Bee was serving an underserved market. The Babylon Bee might individually be more relevant than the Onion but not so relevant when compared to all the Cathedral media. Of course that is an unfair comparison, but if you compare Cathedral vs anti-Cathedral media then Cathedral media in total is more relevant.
mrvanillasky
1hr ago
This will fail eventually as you get votebanks that become crystalised. What benefits does the average heritage amerikaner get from having Indians or Chinese becoming a permanent resident?
Why would you not defect, why do you get called names the moment anyone brings up dual loyalty?
India itself became an unfixable hellhole because fo too many ethnicities, China tried to fix it by imposing things on everyone.
This is an incredibly naive idea. If this is so, then should Israel or Saudi not also import people by the millions? Most people migrating or getting refugee status are completely incapable of being productive money wise. Large sums of money still don't justify the permanent issues demographic changes cause.
WhiningCoil
2hr ago
Every peer nation in the world has "done the science" and decided transitioning children leads to worse health outcomes. Except in the United States, where a 2 hour telehealth appointment gets you fast tracked, and schools staffed by hysterical activist will go behind parents backs.
I would rather parents have an iron clad right to exercise their own judgement with respect to their child's medical decisions, than let weird fads like electroshock, icepick lobotomies, methamphetamines or sterilization drugs get pushed on them because of "the science".
ABigGuy4U
2hr ago
Yeah, I don’t know if it was a particular quirk of hers or just the writing style of the time. But the way she just summarizes entire conversations without putting any of the dialog feels weird.
FirmWeird
Randomly Generated Reddit Username
2hr ago
That was in no way a joke. He was already facing down a prosecution for not employing enough illegal immigrants for a job that has requirements which can only be met by legitimate citizens, his compensation payout being declared too high, etc. The lawfare was already happening, and I think there's a very good chance he would have been extradited abroad and prosecuted for misinformation/hate speech if Trump didn't win.
ArjinFerman
Tinfoil Gigachad
2hr ago
The bigger issue is that the barrier to entry is so low publishing online now that theonion.com doesn't hold much value.
So why did the Babylon Bee manage to overtake them in terms of relevancy?
Silverdawn
It's a DOGE eat DOJ world.
2hr ago
You really just have to put your foot down and tell these people (the men, in this case) that they're not welcome. And when they inevitably respond with accusations that you're being sexist, transphobic, and exclusionary, you say: "yes I am sexist, yes I am transphobic, yes I am exclusionary, yes yes yes, it's all true; now please, the door is that way, if you don't mind."
On social media, you get banned at this point. If the moderators controlling the forum in question don't bend the knee, they get removed.
IRL, these conversations don't really happen. Presumably there are a lot of legal things happening behind the curtains but you only find out when you're already being sued.
And frankly, 'trans' advocates were never interested in having a real conversation in the first place. They only act like they want to talk because they think that will get them the most influence. They don't actually believe there's anything to discuss, they already know they're right.
anti_dan
2hr ago
I think the suspect counties still generated about the same number they always do. Slightly less probably than 2020 because that was the easiest its ever been, but sometimes 100k doesn't cut it. See, e.g. the 1980 and 1984 IL presidential elections.
jkf
2hr ago
Yes, and those options are equally available to good and bad people alike -- indeed I suspect that Bad People are usually a little better at them.
DradisPing
2hr ago
I wonder if its decline is related to it becoming just another mouthpiece for the democrat agenda, or if I'm totally off track.
The bigger issue is that the barrier to entry is so low publishing online now that theonion.com doesn't hold much value.
The pay for writers isn't that great either afaik.
So a talented funny person is better off doing their own thing. YouTube used to be easy to monetize. I think it's more streaming and podcasts now.
HalloweenSnarry
2hr ago
To add onto the other replies, pronouns on the modern Internet contain much more information than the literal direct conveyance of gender identification. It's a potent nugget of information if you're willing to read between the lines...or letters, in this case.
cartman
2hr ago
Right, but these 'malicious actors' could be anyone, even the parents themselves. I don't think parents should have a special right to make these decisions for their children if their interests are not aligned with their child's. I can't remember the exact details, but there was a news story a year or two ago about a couple whose child died because they refused to get a basic medical treatment for religious reasons.
In such a case, do you think the parents have the moral right to refuse treatment for the child? (I believe in the case I'm thinking of the child was a newborn, so the question of consent was obvious).
If you answer negatively to the above (as I do) then we switch from having a discussion about what is absolutely allowed or not allowed to one in which we must judge the pros and cons of taking away agency from parents depending on what the issue is.
I largely agree with you that children can be convinced of anything depending on the right context, but here is my main contention with your points: The key difference between a groomer targeting a child and a doctor performing a surgery is their interests; the latter is doing so based on what they believe to be in the best interests of the child based on medical/scientific literature, the former is doing so for personal reasons.
Malicious actors can convince children of things, but that does not mean any expert telling any child about a solution to their medical issues is grooming them. You might want a parent to sign off on antibiotics, but I hardly believe that if a doctor came up to a severely sick child and recommended they start antibiotics, you would label them as a groomer.
jake
2hr ago
The justification for this ruling was that unstable people listened to Jones, right? So Jones is culpable. I don't even agree with prosecution under "incitement of imminent lawless action," it goes against our entire philosophy of law. If a person who would not otherwise commit a crime, would do so if told by the right person, they can't be held accountable. If for no other reason than the continued function of civilization, we are required to hold all adults as solely responsible for their actions.
To maintain civilization we must also be free to challenge all "established" narratives, at any time, for any reason. The United States owes its continued existence to its foundational documents assuming the worst. 1A assumes that unchecked, the government will lie, so people must have legal protection for calling out those lies. 2A even more so, which accounts for the possibility and need for violent revolution. i.e.; "1, so you can shed light on their tyranny, 2, so you can kill them if all else fails." It assumes bad actors will appear and so enshrines the ability to fight them, while holding the spirit of the whole, the whole of the people in good faith in vesting the power to fight them with the people.
It's also why, and you can call it wasted rebelliousness, I consider this as absolute moral mandate to call Sandy Hook a hoax. The government conspired to destroy a man for questioning it, downthread there's debate about "He would have had to pay less if he'd done it/well actually he might be sued for more if he'd done it," yeah but not much more, and that's the point. His punishment for questioning appears to be in the realm of the monetary punishment for having committed it. It's a hoax. The system is a hoax, that it's unquestionable is a hoax, everything about it could be true, and it's still a hoax.
Gun control is never happening. So the masses laugh as in this ruling the families make the short lives and most violent deaths of their children part of nothing greater than a soon-forgotten joke. It's disgusting.
SlowBoy
3hr ago
Your question is a non-sequitur: why do I have to prove anything more? There is clear irregularity in 2020, either give an innocuous explanation for the counting stopped over a water pipe, or concede.
There could be all sorts of trivial reasons why Harris would grow from Biden:
- They learned how to cheat better
- Population Growth
- Demographic Change
- Georgia flipping blue in 2020 excited more blue voters to vote in 2024
Comparing two different numbers from two different moments in time without any context is, pardon, complete apples to oranges.
One certainly doesn't expect to hear about Buddhist rebel militias in the news, that's for sure.
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