mtutiger

Absolutely - part of why I shared the piece above. If you take RFK Jr.'s ideas on ag policy to their logical end, it would be an existential event for large ag producing economies. As someone who lives in large ag producing state, that concerns me. And again, I go back to this point: to the extent there was a "mandate" on November 5th, it was around inflation and the price of goods.... a number of Trump's picks so far suggest that he doesn't understand nor does he care about inflation and, if anything, would be fine to reignite it for everyone.

https://farmpolicynews.illinois.edu/2024/10/trump-confirms-rfk-jr-would-tackle-food-and-health-policy/ "Trump did it so it has to be good, right?"

Really interesting piece and concerning if anything like that occurs here. People don't understand how bad it would get for normal people.

Dude, I could care less about whatever beefs you have with romad or Sue or whoever. If you want to engage on any of my points, fine. Otherwise, leave me out of whatever other extracurriculars you got going on.

In other words, Fife is correct, you completely mischaracterized what he said. Thanks for confirming.

Wow, a party trying to learn from their mistakes and not screaming voter fraud, launching lawsuits left and right and fighting to nullify the votes of millions of Americans? The horror.

To be clear, there's truth to it. It's certainly easy to recognize in the abstract. But I don't think the public understands how inflationary some of his beliefs would be in practice, and this again comes off an election that more than anything else was decided on... Inflation. It's a running theme with all of his picks so far... To the extent that he has a "mandate", it's on the prices of goods. And when you look at the picks he's made that touch on the price of goods (Lighthizer, Kennedy Jr.), neither of these guys have prescriptions that would reduce the price of anything

The stance on vaccines, understandably, gets all the attention with RFK Jr. But with respect to his views on food and agriculture, theres something darkly humorous about a President who won election due to inflation backlash giving such a prominent role to a person whose ideas, if taken to their logical end, would cause significant increases in the price of food His stance on seed oils is a good example...

https://x.com/JacobRubashkin/status/1857160447151255587 Good and hard...

Touché, Hank, Touché... way ahead of your time.

It's the easiest hanging curveball for any of the Dems on the Senate Health Committee, but when he's questioned, I would tick down a list of conditions addressed by vaccines (ie. polio, tuberculosis, etc.) and get him on the record as to whether he thinks they should be banned or not. Don't put on a show, just ask him the questions point blank. And don't let him evade. Make sure everyone knows what they signed up for.

Unfortunately, I have a feeling this post will age like a 20 year single malt scotch when it's all said and done.

RFK Jr. likely gets the nomination for HHS Secretary.

People associate Twitter with politics, but like cable, it's the sports content that gives it it's power.

There's a lot of truth to this.... large brands are large brands.... until the market says they aren't.

Not actually Larry Sabato, fwiw... but still, the same is kinda true of Fox News where people are shamed if they don't use or consume the product under the guise of "understanding" the other side. Life is short and discourse on Twitter, while never great, has become really really toxic. Particularly if you end up on the "For You" tab, which the app seems to push me toward every time on log in. The ability to use the product to the product as a news aggregator for things that aren't politics has steadily gone downhill in the time since Musk has owned the product, undoubtedly in large part to changes made (such as eliminating blocking, among other things). Maybe the explanation is as simple as the product just sucks and has gone downhill, just as has happened to many brands over the years. And maybe alternatives are picking up steam because they provide a different experience for users who don't have time or inclination to wade through all the BS that the current environment that Twitter throws at you. In other words, the market is doing what the market does.

https://x.com/notlarrysabato/status/1857062141213204633 I've seen about eight versions of this argument over the past 2-3 days (vis a vis people migrating over to Blue sky) and it remains equally uncompelling every single time. It really isn't about politics or exposure to ideas, it's about wanting to follow different subjects including politics, but also sports or movies or music) without having one's feed turned into a constant stream of angry BS. Maybe people are just tired of it, and maybe to the extent that Twitter (or X) loses usership, it's just the market at work.

A lot of noise about this House Ethics report possibly breaking containment....

Looks like Matt Gaetz to me.... but YMMV

Gaetz looks like the Mom from Brazil... Way too much plastic surgery going on or something

Also find all the AI imagery that seems increasingly associated with RW Twitter accounts (including Elon's) to be both strange and revealing.

We're going to find out. Either way, as much as we bend over backwards to blame campaign strategy, the inconvenient truth is that the voters are the one who walk into the booth and pull the lever or fill in the box. And much of what we saw today was broadcasted ahead of time.

Days like today really make the preening and concern trolling from some about the campaign (and decisions that the campaigns made) seem so much more meaningless. Campaigns obviously have a responsibility to fight for every vote and do what is effective obviously. But I'm not a member of a campaign, so I'll say this, whether it's politically correct or not: This is what Donald Trump was broadcasting he would do this entire time. He couldn't have been any more clear. His opponent actually did highlight this stuff as well (even if some feel "that stuff doesn't matter") At some level (or even most level), the voters have to bear responsibility for this. We all tiptoe around it, but it's reality. And we are all collectively going to live the consequences. It's hard for me to even be mad at it honestly... He put it all out there.

15 minutes on BlueSky and it already seems more low stakes and fun than Twitter is... makes me wonder whether this is what Twitter was at the beginning (I didn't get more involved until 2015 or so)

He only needs 50.... Higher chances than Robert Kennedy for sure.