I've wanted to talk for some time about a dynamic I've observed here at Common Sense but never knew when to bring it up. I guess I should raise it before the nukes go off.
The majority of the writers on this site are people who have historically voted Democratic. And while this site is clearly critical of moder progressivism, I haven't seen any writers come out to say they will vote Republican now or in the future. Yet it's increasingly clear the vast majority of commenters - and it can be assumed then that the vast majority of readers - are conservative. I wonder how the writers feel about this, and if this shouldn't be a cause for concern for anyone, writer or reader, who like me look to this site as a sign of hope that my Democratic-voting friends and family will finally be exposed to the type of stories that have led me to forsake voting Democrat since 2016.
Common Sense recently gave me the opportunity to share a 1-month free subscription with three friends. I shared it with three friends who all vote Democrat. They all accepted, but when I asked about a month later what they read it was clear they really hadn't read anything and they all said something along the lines of "yeah, it's good but I think it misses the point of what Democrats are trying to accomplish". There is such a strong mindset among Democrat-voters these days that the Democrats are simply the good guys and Republicans the bad guys that the levels of ignorance around truly important stories - Hunter's laptop and business dealings in China/Russia, Joe's dementia, the Democrats' overall "means justify the ends even if the means destroy our system of governance" attitude - are truly frightening to me. And while I enjoy the commraderie I find in this comment section, I fear that, like just about everywhere on the internet these days, Common Sense is yet another place where only like-minded people go, the only difference being the writers still think they have a chance at getting their messages through to the side they felt they once belonged to, when that ship sailed a long time ago.
I don't really know what my point is with this, other than that I love the work featured here, but fear the people who really need to read it never will. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
I’ve had similar thoughts, but more along the lines that the audience seems composed of dissatisfied moderates and conservatives who lost their taste finally for legacy media as it’s gone increasingly woke.
It’s a hard pill to swallow to acknowledge the Democratic Party no longer stands for the interests of normal people, and the legacy media functions to propagandize a ‘progressive’ ideological agenda with Truth as collateral damage if required.
From a reality based perspective the idea that I would be considered any kind of conservative or right-winger is crazy. And yet apparently that's how I would be labeled today. I'm pro civil liberties, pro limited government, pro capitalism. Used to be I was a middle of the road voter.
"'m pro civil liberties, pro limited government, pro capitalism"
You are an EXTREME Right Winger dripping in White Supremacy and Colonialism. And, I'm only saying this because you did not bother to inform us of your pronouns, let alone remind us that you are typing on stolen native land.
And thus the extremely disgusting labeling of folks like us at this point from the radical Left. We didn’t change really, the Dem party especially the most progressive members has redefined the party so much that having centrist views is now akin to being Nazis. I’m sure not one of us resembles anything like that evil ideology. And while it’s generally been my policy to live by the ol’ sticks and stones saying, one cannot abide this given how this demonization is playing out. The suggestions of what should be done with or to us as a result is pretty frightening.
The Left likes to pretend that nationalism is the defining characteristic of fascism, and anyone who cares about America is therefore automatically fascist.
But the reality is that fascism can use *any* centralizing ideology as a means of creating unquestioning devotion to authoritarian leadership. Woke ideology serves the purpose quite well. The key is noticing that anyone who questions the centralizing ideology is labeled "an enemy of the state."
Beautifully said! Never imagined in a gazillion years that my center right political leanings would ever get me confused with de fuhrer but welcome to America 2022…
Yup. I was called a racist POS the other day on IG because I dared to suggest that Amy Cooper being unemployable for the rest of her life was not a good thing. 🙄
Maybe Trevor Noah's act of defiance will inspire other entertainers and journalists to cover things fairly. The fact that they all completely ignore the signs of dementia and that no one would comment on the border until the border states pulled a stunt says everything. Fox News has put a drone up everyday for at least a year showing thousands entering the country EVERY day. It hasn't been a secret but my friends that only watch MSNBC etc didn't even know about it. The selective one sided coverage of everything is tragic.
Please don’t believe Trevor Noah’s about turn, there is nothing defiant about him, it’s about the bucks and the ratings. Watch his shows he uses the N word so often you wonder how nobody has called him out yet. He hated President Trump, and while President Trump occupied the WH Trevor had a show, with Brandon and Kamala there is nothing funny, only madness. We have to dig deep and vote them out of power come November!!!
I have always enjoyed (though often didn’t agree with Maher). I have definitely noticed that he is more willing to step out and call BS on many troubling things on the Left.
What I find interesting is that Common Sense obviously does the research and actual journalism lost in almost every mainstream media outlet. And yet there are areas that they won't go. Like revisiting the Central Park Karen? Or Hunter's lap top? Or the connection of Biden to China, Russia, Ukraine. And Commons Sense obviously doesn't, for a lot of issues, like the more liberal policies that are impactful and harmful to them. The resulting censorship, crime rates, inflation etc are all evidence of what isn't working and they go into these topics.
But what I think I hear you saying, is that despite their written word, it still seems they too in ways want more of what we have? And if the well-studied, researched and highly educated and intelligent truth exposing Common Sense can't vote differently, then we will get more Joe and his group's policies. You just have to wonder what would it take?
And as gas rises again, I actually am willing to have gas go to $6/gallon in the East coast. The Dems keep saying we need to be uncomfortable, so maybe that would be enough heading into winter for people to wake up to "climate change", ESG toxicity, racism, misinformationism....pick from a list...and get cold to wake up.
I believe the climate is changing, as it always has because climate is not static. But I think it is folly to believe that we can or should change that. I think it is bigger folly to be forced to follow the faux Green Agenda which is harmful to society at large and is enriching the powers that be.
Yes, the world has been warming up for the past 20,000 years or so as we come out of the last Ice Age. A perfectly normal thing.
Interestingly, some scientists are predicting a new mini-Ice Age beginning around 2030, because of a recurrence of solar activity that apparently caused a similar such cold snap around 1645 (and lasted for 60 years).
It's not the fact that the world is warming that is abnormal, it's the SPEED with which it's happening What used to happen over tens of thousands of years is now happening in a span of hundreds or even decades. THAT is unusual.
It's arrogant to think we can pump endless fossil fuels into the atmosphere, from billions of sources, and not have any effect at all on the atmosphere.
There are some steps in the right direction. For examples, homes with solar still kept some electricity in Florida after the recent hurricane. If you can put a relatively cheap panel on your roof and get electricity then why not? Will it meet all our energy needs--of course not but it's SOMETHING.
And yet every prediction made by the alarmists has failed. The famous "hockey stick" was massaged data. In fact, we don't have reliable temperature data for a long enough period of time to make the kind of sweeping assessments that are being made.
But the key to all of this, as I see it, is the continuing opposition of Warmists to nuclear energy. If our planet is in so much peril that we need to stop using fossil fuels completely by 2035 (only the latest in a long string of last-chance deadlines that have been set and passed without the predicted disaster), then why the opposition to nuclear, which is the only power source that can replace fossil fuels on the necessary scale and with the necessary reliability?
Speaking of Florida, I wonder how many solar panels were destroyed by wind and falling debris. And how evacuations could possibly have been accomplished if everyone were driving an electric car.
Agree completely that we need to re-nuclearize the nation. Modern reactors don't have nearly the safety issues as the earlier generations, they don't need massive amounts of freshwater to cool themselves, and the amount of nuclear waste they produce can be safely locked up in Yucca Mountain---already constructed, currently unused---until future scientists find a bacteria that eats radiation and poops rainbows. Even if we built a thousand reactors, the fuel waste that has to be stored is far, far less significant that the pollution and waste we dump into the air, sea, and land now.
Modern nuclear plants situated in most of our population centers would eliminate significant fossil fuel pollution while letting science make solar and wind generation more efficient and less wasteful. And birds won't die from hitting the windmills.
Actually, homes with solar in the wake of Hurricane Ian had power for one day. The day of the storm and the day after, there was not enough sun to charge anyone's battery banks, so no more power. Our propane generator, however, purred away for the better part of a week until the power came back to our neighborhood. The belief that you can sell your excess power back to the grid, while somewhat true, only gets you 8% payment compared to what you pay the power company.
We are alive at an anomalous time in earth history. Look at any historical geology text. The vast majority of the time over the course of the last 900 million years the temperatures were much warmer than now and the oceans were on the order of 100 to 200 feet higher than now. CO2 has been 10-20 times more concentrated in the past than it is right now. We are barely above an all time low. When the dinosaurs were roaming the earth it was 10 times denser. Before that it went through a period of decline where it dropped below the levels it is now and plant life and photoplankton were basically asphyxiating for lack of it. Oxygen is a toxic gas to many forms of life. That was also one of the coldest periods and terminated in the biggest mass extinction event ever (end of the Permian). We're alive now during this little blip of time after a major ice age. It's still warming up from that - ice is still melting. Sure, we may be speeding that up a little bit, but apocalypse? Really? Why didn't a runaway greenhouse effect take off when CO2 was 3000ppm or 6000ppm if it's the driving factor. It's barely over 400 now. We should be careful what we wish for. We just might get it.
I hear as little from the Left about planting trees as I do about nuclear power. Both are more meaningful actions than strip-mining lithium for electric car batteries.
But human life did not exist until this not-too-hot not-too-cold period. If CO2 levels went to 6000 ppm and the mean temperature added ten or 20 degrees, the planet would survive and adapt as it always has. But humans would go the way of the dinosaurs.
The apocalypse would be to human existence, not Planet Earth.
That said, I don't know that we can avoid that apocalypse even if we sent mankind back to the 15th Century. We may literally not be able to stop it, because Nature Always Wins.
I agree with much of that. But I think the gamesmanship being employed to force compliance with the Green Agenda is exceedingly arrogant. I also think if the covid mandates had not received so much blowback the new green mandate would have been implemented at the national level. At this point I don't think the federal government, and many state governments, can effectively administer anything, much less a global climate emergency. I do like your one person at a time example though. We are investigating the possibility of having one or two panels on a trailer so we can move them around to various sites on the property and see what works where. I also think the one-size-fits-all scenario is foolish. Wind only works when the wind is blowing. Solar only eorks if there is enough sun. And the components are produced in China. Remember the chip shortage?
Each area primarily should use what is readily available there and supplement that with what is next most readily available. For example, Washington state is considering the ban of fossil vehicles. Fine, that is what they vote for. But EVs require electricity, and Washington state cannot effectively use solar, at least not along the coast. And hydro, which they have an abundance of, is being attacked as environmentally unkind. So nuclear? I do not want to see nuclear anywhere there are earthquakes or tsunamis.
I think solar panels on residential and commercial rooftops makes a lot of sense. Every building in America should have it, ideally.
In other countries (Turkey and Israel are the ones I know about), there's solar hot water on every rooftop. It's just common sense.
We have solar photovoltaic panels on our house, but I only agreed to it if my wife was willing to pay back the loan. I made the initial payment out of my 401k, then paid it back in full from the tax credit, so it cost me nothing. She has to pay $500 a month for the next few years.
She's the one who wanted the thing. I wouldn't have done it; it's far too expensive, and it doesn't even help us if the grid is down. An interlock cuts off the solar power in the event of an outage, to prevent danger to electrical workers up on the poles doing repairs.
The ideal system would be totally off-grid, solar recharging Tesla PowerWall batteries or similar, so that you are totally self-sufficient. However, this is still fabulously expensive and impractical in cloudy/rainy/snowy climates. It's a good idea for someone in an isolated area in Arizona or New Mexico, though.
We're talking about the emission of huge quantities of CO2, NO, methane, and other gases that is supposedly messing with the upper atmosphere and causing a greenhouse effect. At least that's what we're supposed to believe.
Much more plausible is the effects of deforestation and ocean pollution. The Amazon rain forests alone account for some 10-20% of oxygen production, and 60-70% of oxygen is from ocean algae. Both sources are threatened.
The Amazon is being deforested by hundreds of acres a day... staggering scale and incredibly irresponsible behavior by criminals, abetted by ignorant public and corrupt governments.
The ocean is being filled with microplastics which kill algae and harm other ocean life in ways we are only starting to understand. It's also being over-fished, harming the ecosystem. Most of this destruction is caused by China and a couple of other Asian and African countries which have zero concerns for the environment.
Meanwhile, North America has had massive RE-forestation during the past 30-40 years, it has vastly cleaned up its air pollution, and dumps very little plastics into the sea.
There's basically nothing further we can do about the problem without impoverishing ourselves, which Biden's puppetmasters are accomplishing very well (the only thing they're good at).
“The ocean is being filled with microplastics which kill algae and harm other ocean life”
Ever wonder how those plastics got in the ocean? My guess is that it was the Chinese dumping our plastics off their returning cargo ships rather than losing money recycling them like they claimed to be doing. Now that they have refused to take any more, it will be interesting to see if the volume decreases.
Read Outlaw Ocean. Written by a left leaner who is adamant that a goverental fix is viable and IMO that is stupid, but the reports are stunning and well-written.
I read an interesting article many years ago. I can't cite it, but basically if enough fresh water hits the Gulf Stream it will trigger another Ice Age.
Yes it’s an interesting theory. The thing is, if the Gulf Stream cools off, massive and unpredictable climatic changes may result. It does seem like we’re due for a cold snap.
They did revisit the Central Park Karen story via the Honestly podcast. It's yet another great piece of journalism from Weiss et al. \
That wasn't the main thrust of what I was trying to say but I've made that point in the past. There is still always at least a hint of "both sides" to stories critical of Democrats here, which, while often valid, is to my mind always an attempt to appease their envisioned Democratic reader. But you're right in that at the end of the day, none of these writers are coming anywhere close to saying, "Ya know what? Enough is enough. I'm going to *shudder* vote for a Republican who thinks Big Government can f*&# off". They're connecting all the dots but refuse to describe the picture they are painting, in my opinion.
Republicans thinking Big Government can f*&# off hasn't been true in decades. Government grows just as much under Republicans as under Democrats. Democrats are tax and spend, while Republicans are borrow and spend. Both sides only reign in the things their constituencies don't like.
Both parties try to control people rather than allowing them to be free, as we're supposed to be. Republicans come from more of a Christianity bent and think everyone should follow Christian principles whether they're Christian, some other religion or not religious at all. Democrats come from more of an overeducated, hypothetical academic mindset thinking they can engineer people into behaving a certain way.
Sadly, both parties now are just mouthpieces screaming at each other so they can get elected while it's the courts that are pretty much making the laws (which wasn't supposed to be their role).
Well.....this was surprisingly cogent and pretty accurate. However, here, on this board, you have to bash Democrats because CRT, transgender stuff, "Cancel Culture" etc. are the greatest threats America has ever faced.
It's interesting that any Republican 'who thinks Big Government can f*&# off' will also be waiting, cap in hand, when a part of the state is destroyed by a Category 4 hurricane, looking for federal funds.
Witness Mr. DeSantis shaking hands with Mr. Biden.
Yeah, it’s almost like there are certain things the Fed is suited for - national defense, natural disaster relief, securing borders - and other things it’s not - paying off your debt, “solving” racism, forcing high schools to allow boys to ruin girls’ sports, etc.
There's no good reason that any of us should know the names Christian Cooper and Amy Cooper. Two self-righteous, unpleasant people got in a pissing match that ended uneventfully. It barely should have been local news. But outlets like NPR and social media made it national news, under the insinuation--or, sometimes, the outright assertion--that calling the police on a Black man is just short of a death sentence. If that were true, events like the murder of George Floyd would be happening several times a day, every day, all around this country.
They both had reason to be upset with one another as the encounter unfolded, and they both handled it poorly, and in the end nobody was actually hurt (at least not until some people made it their business to hound A. Cooper out of polite society). It should have been a line item in the local police reports, not a supposedly canonical example of Karens run amuck and the precariousness of Black lives.
And your friend, the Birder, who threatened Cooper saying "I'm going to do what I want and you're not going to like it" can get by Scott Free with threatening a woman just so long as he is black. Now (cause and effect anyone?) white women everywhere need to lie back and take whatever a black man dishes out or otherwise lose her livelihood and reputation.
And this is how I nearly got raped by a black perp -- I got away somehow but really should have crossed the street --instead I thought: It's racist to cross the street when a black man is approaching.
100%!!! I used to live in Oakland CA and loved to walk everywhere until the street harassment by black men got to be too much. So many comments from black panhandlers calling me a "white bitch" when I wouldn't give them money, assholes on the corner menacing me and hollering, blocking my way on the sidewalk.If I crossed to street to avoid them, I got sneers and called "white bitch". Then I got mugged and in a separate incident, almost raped, by black men. I stopped walking anywhere while still living there and resented SJW's and media's vilification of white women as "Karens" who are apparently the ones putting black men's lives in danger by calling the police. Efff that. I no longer care if people think I'm racist for avoiding black men on the street or calling out the fact that the vast majority of violent crime in Oakland is being done by black men. And I moved from CA to PA in the middle of the pandemic and started voting Republican!
My wife is afraid to go walking in our new neighborhood. She even asked about going to a concealed carry permit class. She says she does not want to get a gun, but...
My wife is a true blue progressive who thinks that the Democratic party is too conservative and who listens to NPR religiously. Yet she is afraid the people in our neighborhood. She won't put it into words, not yet.
Funny thing is, I judge threats more by gait and posture than by skin color. I've seen progressive women freak out in terror at a group of school children who are bouncing with happiness. I was like, "ok."
1. Not my friend. Why would you assume that I'm friends with him?
2. What should he have been charged with?
3. No one said anything about "white women have to lie back and take whatever a black man dishes out." Sounds like you have some issues.
4. "A black perp" - interesting - rare to hear women talk that way....unless you're not a woman. Not making an assumption there, as men can be sexually assaulted, too.
5. Well, good for you. Now you can be more "racist" in order to protect yourself? I feel the same way. Which is why, I personally, don't really interact with 99% of white women. Well, except for the ones at work - and as little as possible.
Comprof: If only you had the dignity to realize that your "arguments" are low class: ad hominem. You miss the nuance, the cause and effect. Consider taking a Rhetoric course with a person of color given your blatantly stated racism.
But the characteristics you bemoan, or doubt, are the platform's strength. By and large, that's honesty-- no matter which side screws up. I've no patience with double standard reporting, which is why I haven't watched MSNBC in years and read the Times only sporadically, largely for the archives and my work. If something's wrong, it's wrong, no matter who does it. What's the point if everything is a set piece for a single point of view? Granted, the implacability on the left to, say, crime- is maddening. The pat excuse is that crime is "guns" when in NYC, good, old-fashioned pushing, punching, beating, kicking, and stabbing are also in fashion. Stealing is an epidemic. No guns! Could it be that allowing sociopathic thugs to get away with it is the problem? Allowing the mentally ill homeless to call the shots? Monticito is suddenly plagued by "professional" burgling rings, or gangs. How'd that happen? Obstinance is also on the right. It's pretty clear we're seeing climate change. The issue at this point is how we deal with it, not if it exists. Denial of crime, of a planet in flux, is a turn off to people in the middle. It's those people who have no political home. Decades of forcing oneself to make a choice between two evils has brought us to this place.
I am on the right. I have lived long enough to witness that the climate is changing but my lifetime is a drop in the bucket of climate existence. Climate changes. It always has. I think it unwise to think we can change that. What we need to be facilitating is how to ADAPT to it. Because while climate changes, humans ADAPT. Or at least we did until the onset of the Great Hive Mind myth. And anyone who chooses between two evils is choosing evil. What the mayhem of the last [insert your preferred term] has demonstrated is that there are not governmental fixes to everything that ails us.
Study the history of the planet. Climate change happens all the time and the world adapts. The real question is, "how much is human activity contributing to climate change?" The answer is, "we don't know." There are too many complex variables. Michael Crichton gave some excellent speeches on this topic.
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA An historical approach detailing how over the last thirty years scientists have begun to intermingle scientific and political claims.
ENVIRONMENTALISM AS RELIGION
by Michael Crichton | September 15, 2003
Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, CA – This was not the first discussion of environmentalism as a religion, but it caught on and was widely quoted. Michael explains why religious approaches to the environment are inappropriate and cause damage to the natural world they intend to protect.
THE CASE FOR SKEPTICISM ON GLOBAL WARMING
by Michael Crichton | January 25, 2005
National Press Club, Washington DC – Michael’s detailed explanation of why he criticizes global warming scenarios. Using published UN data, he reviews why claims for catastrophic warming arouse doubt; why reducing CO2 is vastly more difficult than we are being told; and why we are morally unjustified to spend vast sums on this speculative issue when around the world people are dying of starvation and disease.
Michael Crichton was a genius whose life was too soon cut short. Global warming is a leftist hoax.
Three of the top polluters, Russia, China and India will never stop polluting.
When the GW myth was first started, it was estimated that ungulates cause 85% of carbon emissions and termites caused about 10% of carbon emissions. An erupting volcano puts more particulate matter and carbon gasses out in one day than all of mankind in a year.
When Mount Saint Helens erupted it covered the Earth in a cloud. Geologist believe the Earth has had at least five ice ages. Some of these glaciers were two miles thick and then all of a sudden, the Earth got warmer and the glaciers melted. The automobile had nothing to do with the Earth cooling or warming.
This cooling and warming was because, I know this is going to shock you, don't panic, the sun! Who would have thought the sun could do this? I was stunned when I found this out. The sun did it! Amazing!!
Real scientists say the sun actually goes through warming and cooling cycles. It is all natural and man had nothing to do with it. What a surprise. I guess these scientists aren't Marxists intent on destroying the economies of the Industrialized nations. The Democrats/Socialists sure are.
Almost no one denies that the climate is getting warmer. At issue is the question of how much of this is due to the natural forces that have caused warming many times in the past, or is it due to a very small part of atmospheric carbon dioxide emitted by human activities.
You need some different sources of information about climate, which unfortunately are not provided by Common Sense. I suggest
All fixed...gotta love my cell phone's predictive text...and not rereading my work. I did reread and apparently flatiron made sense to my early morning brain!
Me too on the gas prices. I don't drive that much, so I guess it's selfish, but I want them to skyrocket to prove my point. Sadly, I realize, that is what the Dems want. For things to blow up, to get their way. :(
Well yearh - that will be the case for everyone with one, when electricity prices skyrocket and states like CA have brown outs....how do you square this "everyone should get an electric car"....with this "don't charge your car between these hours..."
I have always lived on or within a few hours of hurricane prone coasts, so I am familiar with formal evacuation protocols. My comment was actually two-fold. Were those people who wanted to evacuate in EVs efficiently able to do so given charging limitations? Are those people who rode out the storm, survived, are now without electricity, and wish to evacuate (common meaning of leave) stuck if they have EVs?
“Common Sense obviously does the research and actual journalism lost in almost every mainstream media outlet”?
I think that is true with Nelli, Bari, and the times Suzi appears. But these guest, fill-in authors? Nah, not so much. I’m not even sure they are tethered to the CS editorial staff.
Dude. Bari did an entire podcast trying to rehabilitate Amy Cooper - she called 911 twice and falsely claimed she was being assaulted....cause she had "unresolved childhood trauma."
Also, apparently there is some recent news about Hunter Biden?
She didn’t claim she was being assaulted. She said she was being threatened. She called 911 twice because the connection was bad and she couldn’t hear the dispatcher.
Don’t take Comprof’s bait Beeswax, jt tried and it wasn’t successful. I think this is one miserable human who seem to take great joy in the fact that Amy Cooper’s life was totally ruined by what happened. The fact that she had a bad experience with a male made no difference to Comprof because she was white just shows what type of human he is.
Is this the same jt that says I'm stupid because I have a "black/brown fetish?"
Amy Cooper's life was totally ruined? Well....maybe she should have thought of some things beforehand and that wouldn't have happened.
Like, "Y'know, you're right. I should follow the rules, have my dog on a leash and keep them out of the protected foliage. My bad."
But is seems like she didn't think the rules applied to her and became enraged/threatened. I wonder if she would have responded differently if it were someone else she were more comfortable with?
Are you daring to insinuate that I somehow enjoy when people are caught on video engaging in belligerent "Karen activity" and suffer consequences when for 99% of American history that behavior was encouraged, socially validated and rewarded?
I love it!! You apparently don't. Ok. No big deal. Different strokes, right?
My white wife has yet to be filmed being a Karen...I honestly don't know how she does it! She's amazing!
Chris Cooper was correct in that dogs are a danger to birds, and that area of Central Park is famous for its birding. But his social skills suck. He previously got into a fist fight with a man over the same issue. There's a way to talk to people when you have something important to say.
Amy Cooper made no false claims. Chris Cooper is a large man who attempted to lure her dog. She felt threatened. It was just the two of them in this wooded area. Deal with it, or don't. Feeling wary and threatened by a stranger is not an uncommon experience for women. And, to add fuel to the fire, yes indeed, it appears that Amy Cooper had been a victim of violence in the past. This often causes a fear-based response to otherwise benign situations. But this situation wasn't exactly benign.
Facts. Other facts. etc.
The bigger issue of this story, which was investigated and reported by black journalist Kmele Foster, not by Bari Weiss, was that Amy Cooper's life was destroyed by this event. She lives in hiding. This is a disgusting outcome. It wasn't America that was mean to her. It was a specific subset of self-righteous social justice warriors whose cruelty knows no bounds. But don't worry. As long as you plant yourself in the middle of the mob, keep your head down, raise your fist and take a knee, your reputation and livelihood will remain intact.
"...the Democrats are simply the good guys and Republicans the bad guys..."
It's long been the case that conservatives think liberals are wrong, but liberals think conservatives are evil. It's gotten much worse, though.
In the past couple of weeks Biden's DOJ conducted a SWAT raid at the home of a pro-life activist terrifying his wife and children. Several more pro-life protesters were indicted for nothing. And Chase bank closed the account of an ecumenical group that lobbies for the first amendment right to free exercise of religion.
Democrats are weaponizing not only government, but the financial system too.
Really good comment. I for one have had the scales fall from my eyes; call the 2020 election an outright fraud (which I believe it was) or just say that it was an experiment that failed, but the consequences of Democrats ever again taking complete power are there for all to see. They are making heroic attempts to convert the entire nation into the large American cities they already control and so very competently run, <sarc> and knowing that it is not what Americans want, they are perfectly comfortable using Whatever Force Is Necessary to do it. (waving at the FBI)
No, I'm quite comfortable saying to you that I cannot foresee a circumstance where I will ever vote for a Democrat again. I wear my "Save America" hat everywhere, and have kept track of the comments: 45 pro, 2 con. I suspect that much of America has learned its lesson, too. Let's hope so.
I agree with the above comment. Absent but relevant to this conversation is the recent expansion and arming (yes, real guns and bullets), turning the Internal Revenue Service into a federally-backed militia. I don't know about most Common Sense readers, but I pay my taxes, have never made or sold illegal moonshine, and do not trust the intention behind an internal "army" that has unfettered and weaponized power against its own citizens using "whatever force is necessary". The Redcoats are coming?
I find it amusing that an increase in the staffing of the IRS was approved (close to doubling if not more), but in the latest budget continuation Border Patrol funding for policing was cut....but they did get more money for cell phones to provide to those unfortunate temporarily displaced travelers
It’s much like the Michael Parkinson interview with Elton John
Michael “ What kind of reaction did you get when you came out the closet?”
Elton “I found a lot more people waved at me”
I found the same reaction when I took my MAGA hat out the closet recently, very favorable comments perhaps November will be the change we all looking for after the rig of 2020 God willing!🇺🇸🇺🇸
Agree. And I have to wonder how many progressives read sites written by conservatives because they want to understand better how we think.
I was listening to a podcast where Jonathan Haidt, a lefty, claimed to know how Republicans thought, and what he said was just wrong. Does he talk to all those “Republicans” in NYC?
Funnily enough, after Trump won in 2016, I'll admit I had given in to the media-induced panic and couldn't believe a man like him had won. So I started reading National Review to try to understand the conservative perspective. Cut to 2022 and I'm fully prepared to vote only Republican from now on.
And we're proud of you for that. It's the lesser evil. Churchill famously said words to the effect that democracy is a terrible, nasty, messy form of government. It's also far better than whatever's in second place.
Rewind to early in 2016, and to the Republicans (conservatives) running against Trump in the primaries, and they couldn't believe Trump was winning either. They hated him (and most of them still do). And that was before the media induced panic began (because no one took Trump seriously prior).
You say who will vote Republican from now on - but this is not the Republican party of six years ago - it's Trump's tent (unless someone in the GOP - anyone - has the cajones to publicly defy him).
I don't care for Trump the man. He's not someone I'd particularly want to have over for dinner and cocktails. Comes across as abrasive and obnoxious. But there's no question in my mind where his heart is: when he gets a cut, he bleeds red, white, and blue. He's exactly the kind of guy we need in the White House. The country flourished while he was there.
But would he win in an election against someone good [I don't consider Biden to be any good]? Maybe not. And that's why I'd rather De Santis run than Trump. Hopefully by '24, the electorate will have been so definitely fed up with the dems that we get the trifecta: WH + Senate + House. The play would be for DeSantis and Noem to run, make Trump Secretary of State--just in case. Unless, that is, he could get elected to the House with an a priori agreement that he's the Speaker. Which prolly won't happen.
He bleeds red white and blue? Is that why he took Putin's side over American intelligence? A draft-dodging traitor who tried to overthrow our democracy is the last guy who "bleeds red white and blue."
TimCast, my favorite political/social podcast (as it's specifically for disaffected classical liberals - though I consider myself a classical-anarchist, more than a classical liberal, as even classical liberals have been consumed by the glut of giant government) touches on the dynamics underlying your point quite often.
The data is VERY clear that conservatives/libertarians/classical-liberals/etc... WANT a diversity of opinion. They "follow" a broader set of voices, read much more widely, and generally seek out a broader variety of opinions than does the left. The modern left, and specifically people identifying as "democratic voters" live in, and actively seek out, as small an echo-chamber as possible. This data is visible in multiple places including tracking things like who they follow on twitter, polling on news sources they frequent, etc...
One of my favorite quotes is from Ben Zoma "Who is wise? One who learns from every man. As is stated (Psalms 119:99): "From all my teachers I have grown wise, for Your testimonials are my meditation." No stated political leaning can claim this as fully true today, but one side is trying, and one side is actively doing the opposite.
With that in mind, the divide on Common Sense makes perfect sense, and isn't likely to change. Many conservative, libertarian, and centrist readers come here specifically because it's of the left, but liberal enough (the real meaning of liberal, not the modern leftist bastardization that just represents "leftist"; liberal meaning actually pro-liberty) to at least be consumable. The writers are here specifically because it's of the left, but liberal enough to allow them to write as they actually see the world without having to hit a quota on the number of times they use "racist" in each article. But the writers are still of the left, and they are still here specifically because Common Sense is also of the left.
Long story short, we should appreciate that the readers are here specifically for a look into the left, without having to be of the left, and we should be sad that the left still prefers to only ever interact with the left, for fear they may have to explore outside the confines of their echo-chambers and risk actually being happy (https://twitter.com/BradWilcoxIFS/status/1577693300932362240)
Well done. This represents me and comports with my observations. I'm old, and a lifelong, left-of-center person. Only since Trump did I distance myself from my party and its organs of propaganda. Civil liberties and free speech matter to me most of all. When the NY Times became an anti-Trump political screed and the Dems started talking about the need to censor "dangerous misinformation," that's when I left. I still consider the ACLU's defense of the nazis' right to march through Skokie to be one of America's finest hours. Try explaining that to anyone under the age of 70 and see where it gets you.
I'm no Trump fan...far from it. And as corny and out of favor as it is to say this now, I want the United States of America to survive. I don't think we should throw Thomas Jefferson's statue in the river. I don't hate my Republican neighbors. I don't believe that the world is a battle between good people and evil people. One of the reasons that I subscribe here is that I want a plurality of views in my life. Ironically, Ihat makes me a bigot in the eyes of the "left."
My Democratic friends and family members seem to be in a permanent state of terror-filled hyperventilation over January 6. Their worldview has shrunk to the size of an iPhone and they all repeat the same words as if hypnotized.
I completely concur regarding the ACLU... there was a time when the vast majority of society actually believed in the value of the constitution and the importance of liberty. This might even still be true today - we're just too blinded by our own ignorance to see it being swept away under the guise of being kept "safe" from the evil of the other side.
But Trump accomplished exactly what the Left hoped he would - he not only enabled, but, by their definition, forced, the big D democrats below the equator and back into the authoritarian hemisphere where they have always longed to be.
The big R republicans used "Muslim man bad" to drag the republican voter into the authoritarian hemisphere and allow constitutional blasphemy like the patriot act and "no child left behind," and the big D democrats are swimming in the glory of "Orange man bad" to trap democrat voters in the authoritarian hemisphere and allow constitutional blasphemy like vax mandates, forced business closures, 2A restrictions, and nuking the first amendment and sixth amendments all together (closed churches, active interference in free speech through big tech, J6 non-violent political prisoners still in jail, etc...)
The only way out of this is voter forced term limits on both parties (like republicans? great, when your rep is done serving two terms vote for the next republican - but not that same republican) and the complete unwinding of the bureaucratic state. It's a pipe-dream, I realize, but if we start at the most local level and work our way up "up," I can at least pretend there's a chance.
I am considering for the first time in my life about voting Republican, as a protest. I live in a blue state and my vote would probably be symbolic, but it would express my feelings. On the other hand, it's possible this election will surprise us.
There's probably a lot of arguments to be made here, and I would argue that the 16th amendment is the worst thing the US government has done, by a mile, as it formally transitioned us from a Union to not just another "democratic" oligarchy, and the creation of the Fed goes along with that, as it was the foundation for our shift from a mostly free-market economy to a statist economy, but in modern Republican history you're probably right. Though, I'll be honest, it's a toss up for me between The Patriot Act and No Child Left Behind.
The difference between the two, and what makes it a challenge for me, is that the Patriot Act, if used appropriately, has merit. However, no government in human history has ever used any power appropriately, so it's outlandish that Republicans believed "this time it will be different." On the other hand, No Child Left Behind has no merit no matter how it is used. Centralization is always a failure, and centralization of something as complex as education had no option but to fail. Socializing anything guarantees its demise, and if there's ONE THING you'd like to see not demise in society, it's education.
While the 16th amendment turned us into an oligarchy, and the Fed turned our free-market statist, the centralization of education is what, ultimately, turned us into a Banana Republic. With no diversity of education, our entire economy homogenized around the single skills of learning to borrow money and learning to write sh***y software code. Today, there's a VERY good chance you either work for the government, borrow money, write sh***y code or support people who write sh***y code. Most people don't realize it yet, because poor monetary policy and a lack of self worth mean a lot of boomers are still working, but we're VERY close to an economy with no laborers - and with every single other thing wrong in our economy, the lack of anyone that actually produces any real thing (or fixes those things) is BY FAR our biggest future economic issue.
It was hardly our finest hour. I'm 100 percent for free speech but the march through Skokie by Rockwell and his morons was deliberately calculated to be painful and cruel given the number of Holocaust survivors who lived there. There had to be a better way to vindicate free speech without giving the Nazis what they wanted
You may never agree with me on this point, which is fine. However, I’d like to point you towards the reasoning of the Jewish attorneys who ran the ACLU at that time, some of whom probably lost relatives in the Holocaust themselves, and how first principles compelled them to defend even the rights of nazis. I encourage you to watch the inspiring and entertaining documentary “Mighty Ira,” available on Amazon for a couple of bucks, which focuses on the life of Ira Glasser, president of the ACLU from 1978-2001. Produced by FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, it offers an expansive history of the United States beginning in the 1930s, with considerable focus on the events in Skokie. Glasser is in his 80s and still active. He eloquently explains what led the ACLU to defend the case all the way to the Supreme Court. Interestingly, the Skokie ruling had a direct bearing on a group of Black civil rights activists who were denied a permit to hold a march. Nothing exists in a vacuum.
The Supreme Court does not side with free speech every time it takes up the issue. And not everyone always agrees with their decisions. First Amendment law is a fascinating area of jurisprudence. Yes, speech has its limits.
But in this instance, the Court sided with the ACLU, not with the nazis, but with the principle of free speech. As I said above, I consider this decision an example of America at its best.
I get where she is coming from on this. Free speech is absolutely critical and sometimes that means hearing completely vile and repugnant speech. I think the expression that I may disagree with your opinion but am willing to fight for your right to express it is apt.
My Democratic ship has sailed full speed with the never ending Covid circus.
The red wave is coming. Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi are both exceptional in this crucial moment, still doing journalism and showing composure and compassion. Matt discussed the bombing of the pipeline by the Biden Administration, too! Still waiting to hear Bari’s thoughts on that one.
We will see what November brings. Republicans have a big chance to fill the void, but by picking idiots like Herschel Walker(whom I’ll vote for I don’t care at this point, I just want Novak to play the US Open next year) I’m afraid they gonna fuck it up.
Don't vote for the Democrat, I get it. But. Daniela, please do not vote for Mr. Walker. He is a simpleton. At some point, intelligence has to rise above party allegiances.
I imagine it is a combination of things. His legendary status in the state of Georgia from his CFB days, him being conservative and I suspect him being black helped here as well. The powers that be figured that these attributes would be enough to get him elected. We shall see if they are correct.
This nails it for me as well. I talk to people constantly that agree we have taken an absurd direction since Trump's election in all sorts of ways - cancel culture, censorship, Big Tech, Dems becoming the party of war, COVID, etc. I think lifelong Dems struggle with pulling the lever for a Republican. In my view it's a protest vote, to make the Democratic Party BETTER.
2016 was such a massive missed opportunity for the left to have it's own ugly internal Civil War and understand how 63 million people voted for Trump. There seemed to be genuine interest in that for a week or two - trying to understand folks unlike themselves, flyover country, the Silent Majority, etc. Then it all turned to Russia and white supremacy, largely driven by our Corporate media.
I'm not sure the left will ever have that conversation that needs to happen, but voting Republican is the only way to give it a shot
Agreed in every way. These days I've been thinking that in truth, I would rather see Democrats clean up their leadership than come over to the Republican side. But that leadership has a vice grip on the minds and hearts of their voters, and that power has reached a level of almost spiritual possession.
Dave Rubin talks a lot about this. Many people realize things are broken, the border and the price of gas are just two examples of how bad leadership and good intentions can destroy a country. But none of them follow the breadcrumbs to the point of saying “maybe I shouldn’t vote that way anymore,” including the authors on this site. No matter how bad it is, being a dreaded republican is far worse, apparently.
I agree. But I get more out of the comments than the articles (particularly this one) and I have engaged in several discourses with other commentators that have brought me some enlightenment of the other side's position. Which is saying something because I am every bit entrenched as they are and things will not improve until we as a society can achieve compromise(s). I am disturbed though to see more and more trolls because I think that type of thing only reinforces entrenchment and division.
Agree about the comments section. I really appreciate the actual discussion and civil conversations that happen here. Most other comments sections quickly devolve into personal attacks and name calling. After reading comments here, I am left feeling better about our ability to find common ground and real solutions, and I often learn something. (I also like that people don't tend to engage much with the couple of trolls on here. There's nothing like "crickets" to shut down those who want to create an argument)
A good comment, Lynne. I agree that I enjoy more the interaction with the commenters than at times reading the articles themselves.
To admit that you can be entrenched will allow me to admit that I am as well. I lean more left. But open minds, of which I hope I have, will open others. And that's why I stick around here - to see, to understand.
Listening, engaging, pondering - and eventually some form of nascent compromise begins on threads like these..
I agree about the comments too! Someone recommended Shelby Steele’s White Guilt so I read it. Best book I’ve ever read, completely eye opening, can’t believe I had never come across it before!
It depends on what you mean by "conservative." Lower case "c," sure: the majority of subscribers probably think that the current American left is reckless in advocating for wholesale change at the expense of myriad unintended consequences. But, if you mean upper case "C" conservative, I'm not so sure. I think the audience is probably diverse within certain limits. I can't see either a left-winger or a right-winger saying that Common Sense regularly speaks to them and lands at their conclusions -- but I can see anyone from center-left to center-right regularly doing so.
I think this is a rather widespread phenomenon. I see it in the comments sections of many lefty-but-open-minded creators, oftentimes pretty hardcore lefty. Almost all of the comments are from right-of-center. Pretty much all of these creators are now described as "far right" in the corporate press, which may have something to do with the lefty mainstream now avoiding them.
But there is an irony and a tension here. The writers at CS are clearly all on the left, with a small smattering of regime-approved solidly anti-MAGA Establishment Republicans. Their intended audience is the woke left, which they hope to moderate. There's a general presumption in the writing that shines through that the audience are elite types, and a not-particularly-hidden air of condescension towards "ordinary" people/conservatives. But the actual audience does appear to be mostly conservatives. So we have a situation where the creators don't particular like their audience, and may actually actively dislike them. The audience is here to get out of their own echo chamber, so won't leave. But I wonder what impact it has on the writers. Do they eventually give up on the wokes and retool the operation into trying to convert the audience over to the Dark Side? But that would require actually getting to understand the non-Establishment conservative mindset, a prospect that I think they find terrifying.
They underestimate that some of these plebian conservatives may happen to have Masters degrees, a wealth of travel, multidisciplinary skills, large salaries, and far more culture than the cloistered metropolitans understand.
There's a world of difference between living in New Yorkifornia, and actually seeing the world.
Bari Weiss is a moderate. I don't consider her on the left. She used to work for the Wall Street Journal. On her podcast, she has interviewed Republican icons like Condoleezza Rice and Mike Pompeo, whom she speaks of with great admiration. I'm neither criticizing nor endorsing this, simply noting it. But as a matter of fact, I found both conversations interesting, especially since I would never have sought out these people otherwise. Hence, the value of Substack.
Bari is also religious, which should not necessarily mean anything, but in the current political climate, it leans her right. However, she's a married lesbian, which makes her an outlier in another way.
I do notice the right-leaning tone of the comments, which for the most part don't jibe with my views, but I'm not unsympathetic some of the time. I'm getting what I paid for, which is the journalism, which I don't always like. But that's to be expected when consuming heterodox media.
To put it simply, Bari is an intelligent person that doesn't limit her thinking to a political ideology. I'm not sure that most guest writers on this site are like that, but many are, and most of the comments seem to reflect that type of person too.
If this substack has a theme, its that we need more of this type honest debate in society, a debate free of R-vs-D, left-vs-right, reductive talking points. The world is a complex place. Most issues have nuance and no political ideology is always right or wrong.
That's right. She left the WSJ to work for the Times because they claimed they wanted to open up the opinion pages to diverse views. After several years of anti-Semitic harassment by her fellow journalists for her views on Israel, which her editor refused to address, she jumped ship and now does her own thing. So we can thank the NYT for something.
You should go over to Sasha Stones Substack where she admittedly leaves the leftist plantation. It would be kind of interesting to see if Bari has had a similar experience. It wouldn't change my subscription in any way, just curious.
A great observation I have noticed for some time on Substack as well. Alex Berenson is one who appears to resent or actively dislike his new conservative audience.
Tell your liberal friends that their main information sources are all owned by billionaires with global interests.
It's true, and it makes them extremely uncomfortable because they think of themselves as opposing the billionaires. If you can do this in person, watch their facial expressions as they confront the cognitive dissonance. It's fascinating!
It seems true that many traditional Democratic voters have an unreasonable hard time switching their votes, but that may be also a function of what “the other side” offers them. If the Republicans would offer moderate candidates or at least solid, reasonable conservatives, this election should be a landslide that would teach the Democrats the cost of moving to the extreme left (or whatever the woke/climate catastrophism is). Instead, just as the story about the Georgia Senate candidate shows, we’re getting a lot of highly questionable Republican candidates whose only qualification is that they’re pleasing Trump by endorsing the Big Steal idiocy. The Republicans are wasting this opportunity in the most ridiculous way and deeply disappoint centrist voters, unaffiliated or willing to switch.
Andy, I don't disagree. With "interesting" individuals like Marjorie Taylor Greene pushing her pedophile pizza parlors and Jewish space lasers, it can be difficult to take Republicans seriously. On the other hand, the liberal media is so good with its propaganda campaigns, that unless a Democratic voter is already open to a change, they have no incentive to question the lies. For example, as an essentially liberal person, I've found Ron DeSantis' policies on school choice, parents' rights and protecting kids from the insane excesses of gender ideology to be quite admirable. I agree with his avoidance of mask mandates during COVID. I found his idea to send immigrants to Martha's Vineyard somewhat outrageous, but also ingenious, because it focused a harsh light on the hypocrisy of the Democrats regarding their supposed care and concern for the people they're allowing to flood our open borders while doing absolutely nothing for them. Yet, the liberal media paints DeSantis as every sort of monster you can imagine, from racist to nazi to transphobe, etc. etc. And the Dems accept that without question. I don't agree with DeSantis on everything, but I would take him over just about anyone else at the moment.
So, I agree with you that it's very important that the Republicans offer decent, solid, reasonable, conservative candidates if they hope to win over more voters from the left. But I think you get my drift here. The quantity of bald-faced lies spun daily in the liberal media about Republican policies and politicians makes most Democrats completely unwilling to look across the aisle. On the other hand, they're in love with that miscreant, John Fetterman. Go figure. We always love our own team. It's a flaw in human nature, and something we're all guilty of at one time or another.
This comment perfectly encapsulates the quagmire, as the “space laser story” is completely made up. Go listen to MTG on the TimCast podcast tell the story. It’s hilarious. But, as you said, is a perfect illustration of the characters the media creates in place of the actual person, and their policies, to their own political ends…
Wow, see? I will definitely check out MTG on TimCast... I have often been the one to point out to my liberal friends, much to their annoyance, how they've been scammed by their own side, e.g.: horse paste in Oklahoma hospitals, whips at the Southern border, Rittenhouse the militia man crossing state lines with a gun to kill black people...and on and on. So now I can add Jewish space lasers to the list! Thank you. This actually makes me very happy, because I happen to be Jewish and stuff like that really depresses me. ; )
It is the “trump says inject sunlight into your body” story. They’re discussing legitimate technology that she doesn’t fully understands (and admits that) and asks questions about it - the group, which she had no idea of at the time - ends up being Jewish , and a few questions in a discussion later, plus a little beautiful liberal media spin - and now she was “scared of Jewish space lasers” like trump said to “drink bleach.”
It’s amazing what you can do with purposefully out of context half quotes and an imagination lol
I miss living in a high trust society - but at this point, regardless of side, I assume I’m getting 10% of any story - and that’s at best…
Ooh please add to the list the "white supremacists murder" of BLM protestors in Seattle, which was actually a young black immigrant who hit them on accident while they were having a completely illegal protest on the highway.
Many Seattleites to this day believe it was a white man Trumper who killed them on purpose, because Twitter announced that version immediately, with no evidence, and never corrected the record.
The West Coast as a whole has a totally delusional view of the world.
Like other people have noted here people need to reach out to several different venues for information other than letting a rabid media give their interviews 'context' to create or further a narrative favoring their democrat masters(or perhaps it is the other way around :-D). MTG is a normal American businesswoman who has flaws like anyone else and 'they' just can't have that. Trump had many flaws, but was a great president overall working on behalf of all Americans. The media NEVER gave him a chance and he returned fire and that just can't stand. Love these discussions rather than yelling at people.
I agree completely. One of the primary influences of whether or not a POTUS passes good policy is whether or not the media allows it to happen (i.e. "give them a chance.")
I think the important thing to remember is that the Democrats have been completely taken over/led by one of the most radical Presidents ever, Joe Biden. If Democrats want to be successful, they'll have to move back the the moderate center exhibited by MTG, Boebert, Herschel Walker, Louie Gomert, election-denying GOP politicians, MAGA, etc.
You mean like the media cometely hid Joe Biden and his sons laptop in Oct 2020 with the help of the FBI. Yeah, no help there. 18% of democrats said they wouldnt have voted for SleepyCreepy...
Did you not read the Common Sense article on how Democrats are directly funding those Republicans you call "highly questionable"? The Dem strategy right now is to paint their opponents as extremists in order to normalize their own extremism.
Also, if you actually look at Trump's policy positions, he absolutely was a moderate. The leftist mythology surrounding that man has nothing to do with the reality.
Of course the Dems are doing everything they can to capitalize on the mistakes of the Republicans. If the extremist (or let’s call them “low chance to be elected”) Republicans would not enjoy genuine support among Republicans, then the Dems would have no way to interfere, would they? I agree that Trump’s policies (weather really his or pushed by the people around him) were moderate; what’s extreme is his obsession with wrecking the chances of the Republicans to stop the woke tide just to heal his bruised ego.
See that's the lie the Democrats feed you because they don't want to hear our outrage over 2020 and they will not be held accountable for their fascist abuses.
Ignore everything because Trump. Vote Blue, no matter who, no matter what we say or do.
The single most important thing the uni-party has accomplished is getting us to care about others’ elected officials. EVERYONE cares about AOC. EVERYONE has an opinion on MTG. Those people represent tiny constituencies but convincing people they “represent a party” the uniparty distracts people from the only tool they have which is ensuring THEIR representatives are the best they can possibly be. They’ve turned the concept of representative government, where your local officials and your local reps are meant to be all that matters, into a team sport where we spend all our time screaming about the GM of the other team.
Do I think Herschel is a great candidate? No, but who the hell cares, I’m not voting for him anyway. We all need to spend infinitely more time worrying about our local school board and infinitely less time caring who Georgia elects if we ever want actual meaningful change…
True, I don’t live in Georgia and I don’t vote for the Senate candidate there, but if the Republicans loose that easy race because they’ve chosen an unfit candidate who got his position just by pandering to Trump, that will have very serious consequences at the national level. You can’t just take the view “let people in Georgia decide”, it’s true to some extent only.
Solid and supposedly reasonable conservatives have been in Congress for many, many years (see Lindsey Graham) and very little changes. I don't disagree about quality candidates, it's just that I don't see many courageous, intelligent conservative candidates out there who are willing to keep throwing themselves against the political brick wall that is the Democrat machine.
Unfortunately, Republicans have the ability to win the olympic freestyle snatch-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory competition. We went to the "big tent" philosophy a long time ago. It's time to make the tent smaller. A ~lot~ smaller.
Well....it all started with Goldwater and eventually got to Trump. Funny how that works. Republicans have moved to the extreme right, but their supporters don't think so. Trump , and his acolytes, will be the is the ideological leaders of the GOP and will be for a long time.....and everyone will keep pretending it's the OTHER people who've gone loony.
I do not agree with your point about Georgia but I think.the rest is very well-reasoned. I would respect, admire, and vote for anyone of either party who articulated takng the high road so long as I believed it was the truth. I don't know about you but I am flooded with requests to donate to out of state candidates. I find that annoying. I want Georgians to decide Georgia, Arizonans to decide Arizona, Texans to decide Texas, and so on. IMO the fix is to limit campaign contributions.
Personally, coming from a former communist country, I am totally freaked out by the direction in which the progressives/wokes/Dems/Biden administration is taking my adopted country. It’s like a bad horror movie I’ve already seen. So as an independent, I’m looking to vote for somebody to stop this madness. Sure, each state decides, etc., etc., but if the Republicans in too many states nominate unelectable candidates just because they’re great Trump boot-lickers, we’re all hosed. It’s as simple as that.
People who say things like Trump boot lockers are every bit as problematic as those who say the election was stolen. Each are divisive. Neither bring about an end to the no sense.
Supporting a lie that has been proven to be a lie by a long list of elected, bona fide Republican officials (not to mention the US Attorney General), just to sooth Trump’s narcissism, is more than divisive, it’s putting personal interests or personal madness above the interests of this country. In case you don’t like the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, just remember who gave the Americans the burden of an extra half-trillion dollars of debt. It’s Trump and his cultists, who caused the loss of two Senate seats by claiming
the election was stolen and that there’s no point to vote.
I know a lot of people who question the validity of the 2020 presidential election. Most of them.think.it was the ballot harvesting, Zuck bucks, and covid related changes, etc. that impacted the results. If you are referring to former AG Barr he said that there was not evidence of fraud to support not certifying the results in Congress. However each state certifies its own results and he did not have jurisdiction to investigate state matters. I have heard that the election came down to less than 25,000 votes. It is undisputed that information was suppressed deliberately by social media regarding the Biden family and its foreign business ventures in the weeks leading up to the election. FBs Zuckerburg says that was done at the behest of the FBI claims about a dump of (mythical) Russian disinformation. As a result of these shenanigans, and others, we have a President whose policies have created skyrocketing inflation, a dependence on dirty foreign oil and gas, a stock market in decline, supply chain shortages, rising crime (although that is largely a result of underlings who espouse his values), an open border resulting in a fentanyl crisis, and on and on. In addition he is telling his fan club that we are on the verge of Armageddon. As a result of a war in Ukraine which he has poured untold monies and military equipment into. Purportedly without accountability therefore. Do you not find it curious that he sees fit to do this for the country which had a well-connected energy company lots of money for nothing? There are many abuses of human rights around the world, so why get involved in this one? To this extent? I am not a member of any cult. Nor is anyone I know. I intend to vote. As does everyone I know.
Absolutely Andy. Well said. Like so many political problems, this one could be solved with a little courage - if more Republican leaders, members of congress, candidates, would simply speak the truth that they all realize, that Trump and his insanity, the election denial, is hurting them badly, they could easily be winning much more, the Dems are making it so easy for them, moderation is the key, but our current primary system makes it almost impossible for a moderate to win a primary within either party
Absolute lies. Stacey Abrams is denying her election. Democrats denied Trump's election for three years using their own conspiracy theories as "evidence." Democrats to this day deny the legitimacy of both of GW Bush's elections.
Democrats have been denying election legitimacy for my entire life, and when Republicans did it once it suddenly became radical extremism - WHILE Stacey Abrams is doing it.
The fantasy delusions of the Democratic Left are a spiritual illness. This hypocrisy is intolerable.
I've been saying this a lot lately. There's a strong cognitive dissonance happening within significant swaths of the left. Many realize certain leftist policies and laws are absolutely detrimental to a functioning civilization (see border security, anti-merit education, medicalization of trans, crime, etc.), yet they just can't bring themselves to vote differently. Honestly, I blame the likes of John Stewart who was wildly successful during the Bush years at attaching a moral stigma to anything deemed conservative. John Stewart was doing his thing while many of us were still in high school, college, or recently graduated. And the stigma he attached has persisted in their minds, even if times have changed.
1. Georgia voters have been given a crap choice between Warnock and Walker but let’s not pretend that Warnock doesn’t have plenty of domestic drama skeletons in his own closet. Considering that Kemp is polling +7 over Abrams it’s hard to imagine that enough Georgians will split their tickets to save Biden’s flack in November.
2. The “consequences” segment appears to be missing a paragraph or two. Sounds like the only person to deal with any consequences is in fact the professor. This should scare the sh*t out of everyone since classes like organic chemistry are often the make or break credits for medical school.
3. Putin was pretty clear about his intentions for invasion on day one. He wants a neutral Ukraine bc he views anything else as an unacceptable threat to his country. Regardless of how you feel about the war no honest person can deny this.
4. Ron DeSantis is the best governor in America and he proved that yet again this week. It’s pathetic that folks like Rothman can’t seem to pass on even the slightest bit of praise without prefacing it with some kind of dig.
Spot on Mel, from a fellow Georgian! Tired of seeing the new daily Herschel attacks and wondering why his camp isn’t playing same game vs. Warnock.
My bro is a brilliant neurosurgeon and to this day swears that organic chemistry was the absolute challenge of his life! NYU doing a disservice to all students (and frankly, those student’s future patients!) in firing the Professor.
I noticed that too, the sanctimonious attitude of democrats, even those who are classic liberals, is hard for them to suppress when it comes to people like Desantis.
For some weird reason, even apparently level headed left of center journalists like this author are afraid of Ron DeSantis.
Arguably doing the best job any governor has ever done in response to a natural disaster, the only positive comment he can muster is:
“(DeSantis) has pocketed his often provocative and occasionally irascible public persona and replaced it with the sober demeanor of a crisis manager.”
As if “the sober demeanor of a crisis manager” is simply an act rather than the appropriate response of a committed executive.
I wish our current President could muster “the sober demeanor of a crisis manager” in the face of the economic, foreign policy, and immigration disruptions we are now facing daily.
I am in a doctor's office waiting for the doctor to come in. I look up on the wall and see an NYU diploma framed. When the nurse comes in and says, "the doctor will be with you shortly", I say, "you know what, I just remembered a really important appointment I have to go to", get up a sprint out of the office, never to return.
There was an article yesterday in Real Clear Politics about Senator Warnock’s own very sordid history. It doesn’t seem to be getting the same level of press as Walker’s. I’m not a Georgian and don’t have a (bull)dog in the fight, but it sounds like the state could’ve done better. We voters need to look beyond strict party lines when picking candidates.
I don't know how anyone who decries Biden's lack of mental agility can vote for Walker in good conscience. The man is literally insane and dumb as a brick.
After Trump...."good conscience" will not come into play. Wouldn't be surprised if he wins. The Evangelicals have pretty much shown themselves to full of it, too.
Re your #3, Mel - Putin might have been pretty clear about his intentions, but only to the West. He neglected to tell his incompetent military the seriousness of what he wanted to accomplish. Now their haplessness has put him in the untenable position of being outflanked by nationalists in his own inner circle - hence his pronouncements of a battlefield nuke possibility, in order to placate them and rattle NATO. But it is Putin who is clearly on the back foot, and his generals in charge in Ukraine put him there.
They did come out in the last election. I wouldn’t say they’re equivalent- hard to match holding a gun to your ex wife’s head- but Walker has been forthcoming and open about that incident. He has also been a public advocate for mental health awareness/treatment for the last 15 years. I don’t have a dog in this fight, like I said, it’s a crap choice, but Warnock is no angel and using $60k from your campaign funds to pay your child support should be a bigger story than it is.
Has the author seen the bridge that is now carrying heavy trucks across a temporary bridge in Florida? Whether you think DeSantis is too republican for you, the guy is getting shit done! And Biden shows up for a photo op with Jill wearing high heels. Remember when they criticized Melania for wearing heels. And now Dr Jill is doing the same. Part of me is surprised she didn't show up in wellies holding a shovel. Joe could drive the dump truck. Didn't he say he used to drive a truck?! I hope DeSantis runs and crushes Biden or any other opponent from the Dems.
The lack of smear attacks is really a testimony to how well DeSantis is doing. They have nothing on him, and they can't prevent him from looking good in the spotlight. Worst case scenario.
So true. The moronic Ds attacked DeSantis for taking time off and it turned out he was with his wife for cancer treatment. He's like the Road Runner to their insipidly idiotic attacks.
As a Floridian living in Fort Myers, I am very grateful my governor is Ron DeSantis. I can tell you this - while I think he would be a great presidential candidate (not to mention president), we don't want to lose our governor any sooner than we have to!
I'd like to highlight how serious it is that the Democrats are releasing the country's strategic oil reserves purely for political gains in the midterms. I'm shocked something so unethical and so detrimental to the country can be legal at all. I feel like these people have no respect for the country, its infrastructure, or its people.
Doing this while China is slavering over Taiwan almost makes it look like they are deliberately weakening us in advance. The art of war said, do not begin a war until you have already won.
It seems like China has been manipulating leaders like Biden and Birx to destroy us from the inside.
I actually wonder this frequently. I actually find myself thinking that all these dots seem to be connected, and all the claims from the left that conservatives are 'tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists' are projection.
I agree. Oil is a strategic asset, can affect national security and cause a war to be won or lost. To release oil from the SPR because one political party has attacked fossil fuel is criminal. The SPR should only be released by a vote of Congress for a very limited, enumerated set of circumstance. Using the SRP to manage the price of oil, especially when the US can produce enough oil to be energy independent, is ridiculous.
And worse, for what? The US consumes 20 million barrels per day. To release 10 million is a drop in the bucket and will have a negligible impact on gas prices at best. The oil combined with dwindling weapons stockpile since we’ve been sending them all to Ukraine should have more people worried.
I’m voting a straight R ticket because of energy security among other things. Biden’s energy policies are a disaster and will leave us all, but especially those in blue states, with skyrocketing electicity bills and rolling blackouts during heatwaves.
Anthony the modern 'educated' left- about 90% of them cannot use a screwdriver, nor understand why having one would be necessary in their apartments. How do you expect them to understand infrastructure and fixing anything? Seriously, most of their life goals are stacked up to being the best foodie possible and having a cause.
That was my instinctive response. I was pleasantly surprised that the author displayed more rationality and less Leftism than many of the TGIF substitutes have.
Biden’s visit to Florida was anything but non political and dignified. There was the obligatory hair sniffing of a young woman, the fake mafia Don use of the F Word and finally the delusional pronouncement that Ian proves climate change. DeSantis to his credit didn’t bite. That was the one kernel of hope I gleaned from another abysmal week in the Biden nightmare.
Amazing that Biden declared that even after a CNN interview had a scientist declare on live broadcast that there's no evidence at all linking Ian to climate change.
Katrina was category 3 hurricane. The devastation and loss of lives was so high because levees broke causing the flood. But Ian had much stronger winds, 157 mph, just short of category 5.
One of the things I enjoy the most about Nellie’s TGIF is her superb sense of humor. I don’t expect other contributors to parrot her style slavishly, but the absence of a sharp wit is noticeable. This week’s effort by Rothman is sparse, and omits a glaring, fire-bell-ringing campaign by the FBI/DOJ to harass, intimidate and terrorize pro-life advocates and their families with wholly unnecessary, gun-toting raids on their homes. Perhaps the irony will not be lost on my fellow readers that the people cheering on these repressive tactics are the same ones wanting to abolish guns for ordinary people and send therapists instead of police to deal with criminals.
Yeah and Common Sense won't touch "she was twelve I was thirty" with a thirty-foot pole. We're just going to memory-hole that immediately, lest we head down the Path of Q
What a coincidence that the foreign policy scene seems to be deteriorating at the same time that the President is looking for dead people in the audience at an event.
Common man, Sleepy Joe has stutter that manifests, by him forgetting where he is, shaking hands with ghosts and greeting dead people in audience. Anyone who thinks differently is racist and maga Trump supporter and I almost forgot, also hates immigrants :D
It wouldn't be as funny as the interaction between the Saudis and Biden. Biden bent over like a lovelorn goat to get OPEC to increase oil production and the Arab response was “Let’s go Brandon”. Given Boden’s unnatural proclivities, I’m not sure which was more hurtful to him, the fact that OPEC reduced oil production or he didn’t receive the traditional goat herder response.
No, this is a basically balanced piece, far from "awful", and the kind of unbiased writing we were promised since Common Sense launched. Since then we have been bombarded with right wing propaganda, a betrayal of the promise Bari Weiss made, and the ultra right readership it has attracted sadly proves it. Hopefully this is a sign that we will see more Rothmans (slightly left, but fair) and McWhorters (slightly right, but fair) that we were promised.
Please name 3 articles here that are right wing propaganda. I must have missed them and would like to get some right wing propaganda for a change of pace.
Disagree completely. On the Commentary podcast last week, he mentioned that the hurricane would be the first time DeSantis could show he was a serious politician and not just a culture warrior against superficial issues. He somehow managed to ignore that we all became aware of DeSantis due to his brave and sane Covid policies.
By the way, Commentary is roasting Bari at their annual fundraiser this year. This could explain why Rothman was selected to be Nellie’s replacement this week.
I listen. U are right on that but he has made multiple pro Desantis comments before that over the last few years. Those guys are praying for anybody but Trump so that normal republicans can win
Organic chemistry is the hardest course I took in college, harder than Physical Chemistry and Calculus. It requires an ability to see complex molecules in your mind in 3D and to rotate them along axes. I took it in the 70s, and I bet there are all kinds of apps that help with that now. Still, it requires serious study and dedication, hours in the TA’s office and study sessions. Blaming your failure on the prof is ridiculous. This is a course you teach yourself.
I'm inclined to see the protesting students as white guilt Woke kids speaking on behalf of their struggling classmates. These kids are so ignorant they've never heard of a "wash-out" class.
I like Charles C.W. Cooke’s take on this. Paraphrasing: “This is not a liberal arts course, where you can argue or bluff your way through. Organic chemistry is as hard as it is! If you can’t pass the prerequisites, you have no business staying in the program!”
I was suffering from a bad case of mono ( I should have taken a leave but was too stubborn) the semester I took Organic chemistry. I definitely had some struggles. I don't remember blaming the teacher though....
I had a Macro Economics course in the 70s, taught by JFKs former economic advisor, Gardner Ackley, that was the closest thing to a nightmare in all of my experience. I got a D, and was surprise later in the summer when I got a notice (as did two of my friends) that it had been adjusted up a grade and a half.
Not sure what caused it, but Ackley was also an old 'genius' who wasn't teaching because he was good at it, but because the University wanted him on the faculty.
I know that's a different narrative than 'it's the students and Universities fault for their response to the pandemic' but sometimes the teachers really do suck.
I was really smart kid. I took calculus at the college as a sophomore in high school. I took a methods of proof class once I was actually in college with a terrible teacher who I could hardly understand (thick accent, talked into the board, couldn't read his writing). I got a zero on the midterm and changed my grading to incomplete/complete instead of A-F, which the university allowed for maybe 8 credits in your college career.
I look back on that and think, yeah, I could have done better with a different teacher, but you know what else, I sure as shit didn't know the material and that's what matters. The teacher is but one resource to learn. By the time you are in college (at minimum) it is the student's responsibility to learn, not the teacher's. I learned that lesson that quarter and it served me well later in my college career and after that.
People seem to think college needs to be an extension of high school in the way students are babied. It doesn't, in fact it shouldn't.
Organic chemistry has always been the course that weeded out those with higher education aspirations who should continue, and those who should not. You can't get through med school without O chem - I know this for a fact. Do you really want someone prescribing organic chemicals to you who can't pass organic chemistry? Brace yourself, they are coming.
Two things I remember most from my P-Chem class (in the early 1980s).
An exam question in which we were asked to determine how many coffee molecules escape through the sides of a ceramic mug (which likely varied with temperature of the coffee as it cooled off).
The inside of the men's room stall door was immaculate, except someone had scratched: "Heisenberg may have sat here"
I loved those p-chem/quantum mechanics questions. I remember doing the what's the chance the basketball tunnels out of the bottom of a swimming pool. I also liked my stellar evolution class were we figured out things like how long it takes a photon to escape a star or figured out if condensing gas cloud could ignite a fusion reaction. The higher I got with all that though, the more I realized math got really weird and the stuff left to figure out seemed both very, very hard and not particularly useful. I did a brief stint in a high powered lab that was making detectors for the Large Hadron Collider and testing them, wow did all the grad students and postdocs hate their lives. So, somehow I became a biologist....
“Not since Sarah Palin rapped in a cotton-candy-colored bear costume have we been forced to witness such a cringe-inducing spectacle.” Actually, every time Biden puts his hand out to shake when no one’s there, I cringe. And when he panders to every single audience, most recently saying he was raised by Puerto Ricans, I cringe. And when he spoke about little kids rubbing his leg hair in a swimming pool, and looking at his watch as the caskets came off the plane, and his daughter saying he took showers with her, and when he said Hunter was the smartest person he knew. Yeah, lots of cringe to go around.
And you just hit the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cringe moments! Let me add the time the Easter Bunny ran interference when Joe Biden was talking nonsense to the press.
Can the author only criticize the left? He dedicated a full section to pointing out Biden and Harris gaffes and ineptitude, but this one off handed comment about an undeniably cringe and out-of-touch moment in a failed republican politician triggers you? ❄
I honestly don't understand the snark against DeSantis.
Americans are crying out for competent leadership, and whether you want to like him or not the Florida governor is the very definition of that (did you happen to notice the bridge built in three days?)
But people who spend their time writing for MSN can't seem to grasp that point. Sad.
Thank you for this week's offering. Hopefully Nellie is enjoying her maternity leave.
This is my view from the UK
This is Northumberland Calling 7 October 2022
This was the week that the Warren Zevon song ‘Send Lawyers, Guns and Money’ seemed to be playing for scandal hit supposedly trans-children supporting charity which is beloved of some many celebrities and institutions Mermaids.
After last week’s revelations about sending chest binders to all who asked and highlighting Discord as an appropriate place for vulnerable children to chat, it was revealed Mermaids’ trustee was paedophile apologist. Once reported in the Times, he duly resigned. Mermaids claimed not to know about it, even though he spoke at a high profile conference in 2011 and his latest book has a chapter on queering (ie removing boundaries) in children’s sexuality. . https://unherd.com/2022/10/mermaids-is-endangering-children/
The National Lottery which funds a great deal of charity in the UK has paused all money to Mermaids while the investigation is on-going. This is a huge blow to the scandal hit charity. https://archive.ph/OnaiB
On Thursday afternoon, Mermaids pulled its helpline. One of the things they recently put up was something called MANGO (Mermaids Activist Network Group Online) with references to people being creamy and spicy etc. It sounds dodgy because of the Citrus Scale – something which was used to get around censors on Tumblr where fruit became euphemisms for various sexual acts..
The Conservatives are very weak in the polling at the moment because the markets did not like Kwarteng’s mini-budget and interest rates will be going up ( causing huge problems for people whose fixed rate mortgages are ending and potentially crashing the over-heated property market). However, they do not need to hold an election until December 2024 and a couple of years can be a long time in politics. It was their conference this week. Suella Braverman had a good showing as did Kemi Badenoch. They are now the rising stars. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/05/liz-truss-has-right-vision-uk-not-enough/
The big news this morning is that Britain needs to be prepared for rolling blackouts this winter as basically Britain failed to invest sufficiently in infrastructure, starting back in the late 1990’s. It takes a long time to bring a power plant on stream and nobody considered that Russia would go to war with Ukraine. Apparently it has been discussed that people might be paid £10 to use their washing machines in the depths of the night. ‘Wash your grundies at midnight’ was how one tabloid put it this morning.
My MP the former pensions minister Guy Opperman suggest the government should follow some of the things that France, Germany Spain etc are doing to save energy. This include:
- no public buildings warmer than 19C (France)
- turn off overnight lighting of buildings / ads etc (Spain and Germany have said lights out by 10 pm for shop windows etc)
- turn off hot water for hand washing / public spaces (Germany)
The dollar continues to be strong against the pound and the euro so now is an excellent time to visit Europe in general. It is a chance to get some bargains and apparently the American tourists have started flocking over. The Telegraph has given a primer on what to expect from the average American tourist. Sometimes you can not make up people’s perceptions. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/truth-american-tourists-why-see-lot-year/
And news just in -- Julie Bindel has won her action against Nottingham City Council. They have accepted that they acted unlawfully in cancelling the talk she was due to give on the prevention of rape and domestic abuse. The reason given for the cancellation was her views on transgender issues. Nottingham City Council are now paying Julie Bindel reasonable costs as well as compensating the ticket holders. YOu can read the full story here: https://juliebindel.substack.com/p/i-won-my-case-against-nottingham
As a Yank, I am somewhat mystified by the "city councils", mainly by their power and intrusiveness into daily life in England, in the UK. We've got county councils, city council, in these parts, but they generally stick to things like assuring snow removal, fixing roads, passing stupid resolutions of no consequence. The councils in England seem - to me only perhaps - like elected busybodies.
Mostly that is what they are supposed to do. However sometimes they don't.
But they do things like social work which in the UK is more extensive. And then there is social housing etc.
Sometimes no one will stand for election and people get co-oped -- it is often these people who can cause the biggest problems.
Some councils are notorious for certain points of view -- People's Republic of Sheffield for example. Liverpool under Derek Hatton. And Newcastle was famously corrupt under T Dan Smith.
Michelle - thanks for the British update. The mermaids situation is horrific indeed. I followed thru the Glinner Substack for a few months. But it is truly such an insane situation that the Substack would explode my skull. Shame on virtue signaling celebs like Emma Watson, who absent a genuine apology will always be stained in my mind.
Don’t worry about American tourists - not sure what the Telegraph sez - it’s paywalled and I dropped my subscription a couple months ago when I weeded my monthly subscriptions a bit. But the coming recession here is going to slow spending (save the rich-enough-to-be-immune-to -price set). The rest will hunker down to afford heat, food, and a couple gallons of gas.
The Telegraph article made me roll my eyes -- the usual guff about American tourists and what they like -- as if you can stereotype anyone, let alone a country as diverse as America. Sometimes it can be easy to forget that other countries do have a stereotype of your country. The number of bad American accents I have endured over the years by people thinking they were being amusing...
Over here various companies are giving 'cost of living' pay increases mid cycle for pay.
The Mermaids thing is totally insane. Graham Lineham was right years ago when he was lambasted on Newsnight.
It is totally insane but I understand a number of councils (think county boards) have been deleting references to the group. The National Lottery told them when they agreed to accept the cash that they did need to pay particular attention to safeguarding of all employees, volunteers and trustees. It would appear that they merely gave lip service.
Michelle, thank you for advocating for the children who have been abused by Mermaids and their celebrity supporters of child disfigurement. I have found the trans accelerated political movement the most disgusting progressive stunt/crime ever. The destruction of precious lives with no consequence is beyond horrendous. It is institutionalized child abuse. The harm it has done to trans people who have patiently and thoughtfully chose their treatment are also flushed down the toilet by the ultra-progressive insanity. If you are looking for something good and compassionate to get destroyed- just call a progressive. Again, thank you!
Indeed. It is a huge collective failure on the part of successive British governments. I would note that the Conservatives have been in for 12 years...
I've wanted to talk for some time about a dynamic I've observed here at Common Sense but never knew when to bring it up. I guess I should raise it before the nukes go off.
The majority of the writers on this site are people who have historically voted Democratic. And while this site is clearly critical of moder progressivism, I haven't seen any writers come out to say they will vote Republican now or in the future. Yet it's increasingly clear the vast majority of commenters - and it can be assumed then that the vast majority of readers - are conservative. I wonder how the writers feel about this, and if this shouldn't be a cause for concern for anyone, writer or reader, who like me look to this site as a sign of hope that my Democratic-voting friends and family will finally be exposed to the type of stories that have led me to forsake voting Democrat since 2016.
Common Sense recently gave me the opportunity to share a 1-month free subscription with three friends. I shared it with three friends who all vote Democrat. They all accepted, but when I asked about a month later what they read it was clear they really hadn't read anything and they all said something along the lines of "yeah, it's good but I think it misses the point of what Democrats are trying to accomplish". There is such a strong mindset among Democrat-voters these days that the Democrats are simply the good guys and Republicans the bad guys that the levels of ignorance around truly important stories - Hunter's laptop and business dealings in China/Russia, Joe's dementia, the Democrats' overall "means justify the ends even if the means destroy our system of governance" attitude - are truly frightening to me. And while I enjoy the commraderie I find in this comment section, I fear that, like just about everywhere on the internet these days, Common Sense is yet another place where only like-minded people go, the only difference being the writers still think they have a chance at getting their messages through to the side they felt they once belonged to, when that ship sailed a long time ago.
I don't really know what my point is with this, other than that I love the work featured here, but fear the people who really need to read it never will. I hope you all have a wonderful weekend!
I’ve had similar thoughts, but more along the lines that the audience seems composed of dissatisfied moderates and conservatives who lost their taste finally for legacy media as it’s gone increasingly woke.
It’s a hard pill to swallow to acknowledge the Democratic Party no longer stands for the interests of normal people, and the legacy media functions to propagandize a ‘progressive’ ideological agenda with Truth as collateral damage if required.
From a reality based perspective the idea that I would be considered any kind of conservative or right-winger is crazy. And yet apparently that's how I would be labeled today. I'm pro civil liberties, pro limited government, pro capitalism. Used to be I was a middle of the road voter.
"'m pro civil liberties, pro limited government, pro capitalism"
You are an EXTREME Right Winger dripping in White Supremacy and Colonialism. And, I'm only saying this because you did not bother to inform us of your pronouns, let alone remind us that you are typing on stolen native land.
🤣🤣🤣 yip I’m all those things as well. I may well be extreme, extreme of right. You didn’t mention open borders I don’t agree with that!
And thus the extremely disgusting labeling of folks like us at this point from the radical Left. We didn’t change really, the Dem party especially the most progressive members has redefined the party so much that having centrist views is now akin to being Nazis. I’m sure not one of us resembles anything like that evil ideology. And while it’s generally been my policy to live by the ol’ sticks and stones saying, one cannot abide this given how this demonization is playing out. The suggestions of what should be done with or to us as a result is pretty frightening.
The Left likes to pretend that nationalism is the defining characteristic of fascism, and anyone who cares about America is therefore automatically fascist.
But the reality is that fascism can use *any* centralizing ideology as a means of creating unquestioning devotion to authoritarian leadership. Woke ideology serves the purpose quite well. The key is noticing that anyone who questions the centralizing ideology is labeled "an enemy of the state."
Beautifully said! Never imagined in a gazillion years that my center right political leanings would ever get me confused with de fuhrer but welcome to America 2022…
Me too. I used to consider myself a social libertarian and a fiscal conservative.
Same here.
Yup. I was called a racist POS the other day on IG because I dared to suggest that Amy Cooper being unemployable for the rest of her life was not a good thing. 🙄
Maybe Trevor Noah's act of defiance will inspire other entertainers and journalists to cover things fairly. The fact that they all completely ignore the signs of dementia and that no one would comment on the border until the border states pulled a stunt says everything. Fox News has put a drone up everyday for at least a year showing thousands entering the country EVERY day. It hasn't been a secret but my friends that only watch MSNBC etc didn't even know about it. The selective one sided coverage of everything is tragic.
Please don’t believe Trevor Noah’s about turn, there is nothing defiant about him, it’s about the bucks and the ratings. Watch his shows he uses the N word so often you wonder how nobody has called him out yet. He hated President Trump, and while President Trump occupied the WH Trevor had a show, with Brandon and Kamala there is nothing funny, only madness. We have to dig deep and vote them out of power come November!!!
My guess is Maher inspired Noah.
I have always enjoyed (though often didn’t agree with Maher). I have definitely noticed that he is more willing to step out and call BS on many troubling things on the Left.
probably just trying to enhance his value post cable. as being able to see both sides.
Probably. But the inflammatory rhetoric does no one any good.
I think Maher is just staying true to himself. I'm not a fan but he is consistent.
What I find interesting is that Common Sense obviously does the research and actual journalism lost in almost every mainstream media outlet. And yet there are areas that they won't go. Like revisiting the Central Park Karen? Or Hunter's lap top? Or the connection of Biden to China, Russia, Ukraine. And Commons Sense obviously doesn't, for a lot of issues, like the more liberal policies that are impactful and harmful to them. The resulting censorship, crime rates, inflation etc are all evidence of what isn't working and they go into these topics.
But what I think I hear you saying, is that despite their written word, it still seems they too in ways want more of what we have? And if the well-studied, researched and highly educated and intelligent truth exposing Common Sense can't vote differently, then we will get more Joe and his group's policies. You just have to wonder what would it take?
And as gas rises again, I actually am willing to have gas go to $6/gallon in the East coast. The Dems keep saying we need to be uncomfortable, so maybe that would be enough heading into winter for people to wake up to "climate change", ESG toxicity, racism, misinformationism....pick from a list...and get cold to wake up.
I believe the climate is changing, as it always has because climate is not static. But I think it is folly to believe that we can or should change that. I think it is bigger folly to be forced to follow the faux Green Agenda which is harmful to society at large and is enriching the powers that be.
Yes, the world has been warming up for the past 20,000 years or so as we come out of the last Ice Age. A perfectly normal thing.
Interestingly, some scientists are predicting a new mini-Ice Age beginning around 2030, because of a recurrence of solar activity that apparently caused a similar such cold snap around 1645 (and lasted for 60 years).
https://phys.org/news/2015-07-ice-age.html
It's not the fact that the world is warming that is abnormal, it's the SPEED with which it's happening What used to happen over tens of thousands of years is now happening in a span of hundreds or even decades. THAT is unusual.
It's arrogant to think we can pump endless fossil fuels into the atmosphere, from billions of sources, and not have any effect at all on the atmosphere.
There are some steps in the right direction. For examples, homes with solar still kept some electricity in Florida after the recent hurricane. If you can put a relatively cheap panel on your roof and get electricity then why not? Will it meet all our energy needs--of course not but it's SOMETHING.
And yet every prediction made by the alarmists has failed. The famous "hockey stick" was massaged data. In fact, we don't have reliable temperature data for a long enough period of time to make the kind of sweeping assessments that are being made.
But the key to all of this, as I see it, is the continuing opposition of Warmists to nuclear energy. If our planet is in so much peril that we need to stop using fossil fuels completely by 2035 (only the latest in a long string of last-chance deadlines that have been set and passed without the predicted disaster), then why the opposition to nuclear, which is the only power source that can replace fossil fuels on the necessary scale and with the necessary reliability?
Speaking of Florida, I wonder how many solar panels were destroyed by wind and falling debris. And how evacuations could possibly have been accomplished if everyone were driving an electric car.
Agree completely that we need to re-nuclearize the nation. Modern reactors don't have nearly the safety issues as the earlier generations, they don't need massive amounts of freshwater to cool themselves, and the amount of nuclear waste they produce can be safely locked up in Yucca Mountain---already constructed, currently unused---until future scientists find a bacteria that eats radiation and poops rainbows. Even if we built a thousand reactors, the fuel waste that has to be stored is far, far less significant that the pollution and waste we dump into the air, sea, and land now.
Modern nuclear plants situated in most of our population centers would eliminate significant fossil fuel pollution while letting science make solar and wind generation more efficient and less wasteful. And birds won't die from hitting the windmills.
Very good points. I had not specifically considered the destruction of solar panels but they are highly toxic. Is there contamination?
As usual Celia you post is spot on.
Actually, homes with solar in the wake of Hurricane Ian had power for one day. The day of the storm and the day after, there was not enough sun to charge anyone's battery banks, so no more power. Our propane generator, however, purred away for the better part of a week until the power came back to our neighborhood. The belief that you can sell your excess power back to the grid, while somewhat true, only gets you 8% payment compared to what you pay the power company.
Basically solar is a political statement, not a practical solution to grid failure.
Thanks for the info. Also I read that the solar had to be disconnected at some point so as not to hurt the electrical.workers trying to restore power.
We are alive at an anomalous time in earth history. Look at any historical geology text. The vast majority of the time over the course of the last 900 million years the temperatures were much warmer than now and the oceans were on the order of 100 to 200 feet higher than now. CO2 has been 10-20 times more concentrated in the past than it is right now. We are barely above an all time low. When the dinosaurs were roaming the earth it was 10 times denser. Before that it went through a period of decline where it dropped below the levels it is now and plant life and photoplankton were basically asphyxiating for lack of it. Oxygen is a toxic gas to many forms of life. That was also one of the coldest periods and terminated in the biggest mass extinction event ever (end of the Permian). We're alive now during this little blip of time after a major ice age. It's still warming up from that - ice is still melting. Sure, we may be speeding that up a little bit, but apocalypse? Really? Why didn't a runaway greenhouse effect take off when CO2 was 3000ppm or 6000ppm if it's the driving factor. It's barely over 400 now. We should be careful what we wish for. We just might get it.
I hear as little from the Left about planting trees as I do about nuclear power. Both are more meaningful actions than strip-mining lithium for electric car batteries.
But human life did not exist until this not-too-hot not-too-cold period. If CO2 levels went to 6000 ppm and the mean temperature added ten or 20 degrees, the planet would survive and adapt as it always has. But humans would go the way of the dinosaurs.
The apocalypse would be to human existence, not Planet Earth.
That said, I don't know that we can avoid that apocalypse even if we sent mankind back to the 15th Century. We may literally not be able to stop it, because Nature Always Wins.
I agree with much of that. But I think the gamesmanship being employed to force compliance with the Green Agenda is exceedingly arrogant. I also think if the covid mandates had not received so much blowback the new green mandate would have been implemented at the national level. At this point I don't think the federal government, and many state governments, can effectively administer anything, much less a global climate emergency. I do like your one person at a time example though. We are investigating the possibility of having one or two panels on a trailer so we can move them around to various sites on the property and see what works where. I also think the one-size-fits-all scenario is foolish. Wind only works when the wind is blowing. Solar only eorks if there is enough sun. And the components are produced in China. Remember the chip shortage?
Each area primarily should use what is readily available there and supplement that with what is next most readily available. For example, Washington state is considering the ban of fossil vehicles. Fine, that is what they vote for. But EVs require electricity, and Washington state cannot effectively use solar, at least not along the coast. And hydro, which they have an abundance of, is being attacked as environmentally unkind. So nuclear? I do not want to see nuclear anywhere there are earthquakes or tsunamis.
I think solar panels on residential and commercial rooftops makes a lot of sense. Every building in America should have it, ideally.
In other countries (Turkey and Israel are the ones I know about), there's solar hot water on every rooftop. It's just common sense.
We have solar photovoltaic panels on our house, but I only agreed to it if my wife was willing to pay back the loan. I made the initial payment out of my 401k, then paid it back in full from the tax credit, so it cost me nothing. She has to pay $500 a month for the next few years.
She's the one who wanted the thing. I wouldn't have done it; it's far too expensive, and it doesn't even help us if the grid is down. An interlock cuts off the solar power in the event of an outage, to prevent danger to electrical workers up on the poles doing repairs.
The ideal system would be totally off-grid, solar recharging Tesla PowerWall batteries or similar, so that you are totally self-sufficient. However, this is still fabulously expensive and impractical in cloudy/rainy/snowy climates. It's a good idea for someone in an isolated area in Arizona or New Mexico, though.
We're talking about the emission of huge quantities of CO2, NO, methane, and other gases that is supposedly messing with the upper atmosphere and causing a greenhouse effect. At least that's what we're supposed to believe.
Much more plausible is the effects of deforestation and ocean pollution. The Amazon rain forests alone account for some 10-20% of oxygen production, and 60-70% of oxygen is from ocean algae. Both sources are threatened.
The Amazon is being deforested by hundreds of acres a day... staggering scale and incredibly irresponsible behavior by criminals, abetted by ignorant public and corrupt governments.
The ocean is being filled with microplastics which kill algae and harm other ocean life in ways we are only starting to understand. It's also being over-fished, harming the ecosystem. Most of this destruction is caused by China and a couple of other Asian and African countries which have zero concerns for the environment.
Meanwhile, North America has had massive RE-forestation during the past 30-40 years, it has vastly cleaned up its air pollution, and dumps very little plastics into the sea.
There's basically nothing further we can do about the problem without impoverishing ourselves, which Biden's puppetmasters are accomplishing very well (the only thing they're good at).
“The ocean is being filled with microplastics which kill algae and harm other ocean life”
Ever wonder how those plastics got in the ocean? My guess is that it was the Chinese dumping our plastics off their returning cargo ships rather than losing money recycling them like they claimed to be doing. Now that they have refused to take any more, it will be interesting to see if the volume decreases.
Read Outlaw Ocean. Written by a left leaner who is adamant that a goverental fix is viable and IMO that is stupid, but the reports are stunning and well-written.
I read an interesting article many years ago. I can't cite it, but basically if enough fresh water hits the Gulf Stream it will trigger another Ice Age.
Yes it’s an interesting theory. The thing is, if the Gulf Stream cools off, massive and unpredictable climatic changes may result. It does seem like we’re due for a cold snap.
You meant cite not “site”, yes?
I did. Good catch.
Ice Age Coming, Ice Age Coming. Women and Children First.
This was made while I was in high school: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tAYXQPWdC0
Spock is The Science!
I was wondering when we'd next get a Little Ice Age. Thanks for the link, climate change fascinates me.
I have no issue with a rational, well planned transition to renewable energy (including nukular ) But that ain't what we got....
I've said for years that Jane Fonda killed the nuclear energy industry for the last 35 years (The China Syndrome)
Air pollution is bad. We can all agree on that. Nobody wants to breathe smog every day. The climate change stuff is inconsequential.
Very well said
They did revisit the Central Park Karen story via the Honestly podcast. It's yet another great piece of journalism from Weiss et al. \
That wasn't the main thrust of what I was trying to say but I've made that point in the past. There is still always at least a hint of "both sides" to stories critical of Democrats here, which, while often valid, is to my mind always an attempt to appease their envisioned Democratic reader. But you're right in that at the end of the day, none of these writers are coming anywhere close to saying, "Ya know what? Enough is enough. I'm going to *shudder* vote for a Republican who thinks Big Government can f*&# off". They're connecting all the dots but refuse to describe the picture they are painting, in my opinion.
Republicans thinking Big Government can f*&# off hasn't been true in decades. Government grows just as much under Republicans as under Democrats. Democrats are tax and spend, while Republicans are borrow and spend. Both sides only reign in the things their constituencies don't like.
Both parties try to control people rather than allowing them to be free, as we're supposed to be. Republicans come from more of a Christianity bent and think everyone should follow Christian principles whether they're Christian, some other religion or not religious at all. Democrats come from more of an overeducated, hypothetical academic mindset thinking they can engineer people into behaving a certain way.
Sadly, both parties now are just mouthpieces screaming at each other so they can get elected while it's the courts that are pretty much making the laws (which wasn't supposed to be their role).
Well.....this was surprisingly cogent and pretty accurate. However, here, on this board, you have to bash Democrats because CRT, transgender stuff, "Cancel Culture" etc. are the greatest threats America has ever faced.
I agree with this. Republicans have said they are for smaller government since Reagan and when given the chance did nothing.
It's interesting that any Republican 'who thinks Big Government can f*&# off' will also be waiting, cap in hand, when a part of the state is destroyed by a Category 4 hurricane, looking for federal funds.
Witness Mr. DeSantis shaking hands with Mr. Biden.
Yeah, it’s almost like there are certain things the Fed is suited for - national defense, natural disaster relief, securing borders - and other things it’s not - paying off your debt, “solving” racism, forcing high schools to allow boys to ruin girls’ sports, etc.
Yeah, it's almost like Floridians pay federal taxes just for this purpose.
And trying to lure those immigrants back to your state to help with clean-up.
Those are plenty of good jobs for white folks being stolen!!
I like that part where we should all understand what Amy Cooper did because she has childhood trauma.
I like the part where you justify ruining a persons life based on a context-less 30 second clip because it makes you feel good about yourself
How about those activists who accuse Amy Cooper of "attempted murder" for calling the police on a person of color.
There's no good reason that any of us should know the names Christian Cooper and Amy Cooper. Two self-righteous, unpleasant people got in a pissing match that ended uneventfully. It barely should have been local news. But outlets like NPR and social media made it national news, under the insinuation--or, sometimes, the outright assertion--that calling the police on a Black man is just short of a death sentence. If that were true, events like the murder of George Floyd would be happening several times a day, every day, all around this country.
They both had reason to be upset with one another as the encounter unfolded, and they both handled it poorly, and in the end nobody was actually hurt (at least not until some people made it their business to hound A. Cooper out of polite society). It should have been a line item in the local police reports, not a supposedly canonical example of Karens run amuck and the precariousness of Black lives.
And your friend, the Birder, who threatened Cooper saying "I'm going to do what I want and you're not going to like it" can get by Scott Free with threatening a woman just so long as he is black. Now (cause and effect anyone?) white women everywhere need to lie back and take whatever a black man dishes out or otherwise lose her livelihood and reputation.
And this is how I nearly got raped by a black perp -- I got away somehow but really should have crossed the street --instead I thought: It's racist to cross the street when a black man is approaching.
100%!!! I used to live in Oakland CA and loved to walk everywhere until the street harassment by black men got to be too much. So many comments from black panhandlers calling me a "white bitch" when I wouldn't give them money, assholes on the corner menacing me and hollering, blocking my way on the sidewalk.If I crossed to street to avoid them, I got sneers and called "white bitch". Then I got mugged and in a separate incident, almost raped, by black men. I stopped walking anywhere while still living there and resented SJW's and media's vilification of white women as "Karens" who are apparently the ones putting black men's lives in danger by calling the police. Efff that. I no longer care if people think I'm racist for avoiding black men on the street or calling out the fact that the vast majority of violent crime in Oakland is being done by black men. And I moved from CA to PA in the middle of the pandemic and started voting Republican!
My wife is afraid to go walking in our new neighborhood. She even asked about going to a concealed carry permit class. She says she does not want to get a gun, but...
My wife is a true blue progressive who thinks that the Democratic party is too conservative and who listens to NPR religiously. Yet she is afraid the people in our neighborhood. She won't put it into words, not yet.
Funny thing is, I judge threats more by gait and posture than by skin color. I've seen progressive women freak out in terror at a group of school children who are bouncing with happiness. I was like, "ok."
1. Not my friend. Why would you assume that I'm friends with him?
2. What should he have been charged with?
3. No one said anything about "white women have to lie back and take whatever a black man dishes out." Sounds like you have some issues.
4. "A black perp" - interesting - rare to hear women talk that way....unless you're not a woman. Not making an assumption there, as men can be sexually assaulted, too.
5. Well, good for you. Now you can be more "racist" in order to protect yourself? I feel the same way. Which is why, I personally, don't really interact with 99% of white women. Well, except for the ones at work - and as little as possible.
Comprof: If only you had the dignity to realize that your "arguments" are low class: ad hominem. You miss the nuance, the cause and effect. Consider taking a Rhetoric course with a person of color given your blatantly stated racism.
But the characteristics you bemoan, or doubt, are the platform's strength. By and large, that's honesty-- no matter which side screws up. I've no patience with double standard reporting, which is why I haven't watched MSNBC in years and read the Times only sporadically, largely for the archives and my work. If something's wrong, it's wrong, no matter who does it. What's the point if everything is a set piece for a single point of view? Granted, the implacability on the left to, say, crime- is maddening. The pat excuse is that crime is "guns" when in NYC, good, old-fashioned pushing, punching, beating, kicking, and stabbing are also in fashion. Stealing is an epidemic. No guns! Could it be that allowing sociopathic thugs to get away with it is the problem? Allowing the mentally ill homeless to call the shots? Monticito is suddenly plagued by "professional" burgling rings, or gangs. How'd that happen? Obstinance is also on the right. It's pretty clear we're seeing climate change. The issue at this point is how we deal with it, not if it exists. Denial of crime, of a planet in flux, is a turn off to people in the middle. It's those people who have no political home. Decades of forcing oneself to make a choice between two evils has brought us to this place.
I am on the right. I have lived long enough to witness that the climate is changing but my lifetime is a drop in the bucket of climate existence. Climate changes. It always has. I think it unwise to think we can change that. What we need to be facilitating is how to ADAPT to it. Because while climate changes, humans ADAPT. Or at least we did until the onset of the Great Hive Mind myth. And anyone who chooses between two evils is choosing evil. What the mayhem of the last [insert your preferred term] has demonstrated is that there are not governmental fixes to everything that ails us.
Study the history of the planet. Climate change happens all the time and the world adapts. The real question is, "how much is human activity contributing to climate change?" The answer is, "we don't know." There are too many complex variables. Michael Crichton gave some excellent speeches on this topic.
https://simonjmeath.wordpress.com/2011/04/30/three-speeches-by-dr-michael-crichton/
ALIENS CAUSE GLOBAL WARMING
by Michael Crichton | January 17, 2003
California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, CA An historical approach detailing how over the last thirty years scientists have begun to intermingle scientific and political claims.
ENVIRONMENTALISM AS RELIGION
by Michael Crichton | September 15, 2003
Commonwealth Club, San Francisco, CA – This was not the first discussion of environmentalism as a religion, but it caught on and was widely quoted. Michael explains why religious approaches to the environment are inappropriate and cause damage to the natural world they intend to protect.
THE CASE FOR SKEPTICISM ON GLOBAL WARMING
by Michael Crichton | January 25, 2005
National Press Club, Washington DC – Michael’s detailed explanation of why he criticizes global warming scenarios. Using published UN data, he reviews why claims for catastrophic warming arouse doubt; why reducing CO2 is vastly more difficult than we are being told; and why we are morally unjustified to spend vast sums on this speculative issue when around the world people are dying of starvation and disease.
Michael Crichton was a genius whose life was too soon cut short. Global warming is a leftist hoax.
Three of the top polluters, Russia, China and India will never stop polluting.
When the GW myth was first started, it was estimated that ungulates cause 85% of carbon emissions and termites caused about 10% of carbon emissions. An erupting volcano puts more particulate matter and carbon gasses out in one day than all of mankind in a year.
When Mount Saint Helens erupted it covered the Earth in a cloud. Geologist believe the Earth has had at least five ice ages. Some of these glaciers were two miles thick and then all of a sudden, the Earth got warmer and the glaciers melted. The automobile had nothing to do with the Earth cooling or warming.
This cooling and warming was because, I know this is going to shock you, don't panic, the sun! Who would have thought the sun could do this? I was stunned when I found this out. The sun did it! Amazing!!
Real scientists say the sun actually goes through warming and cooling cycles. It is all natural and man had nothing to do with it. What a surprise. I guess these scientists aren't Marxists intent on destroying the economies of the Industrialized nations. The Democrats/Socialists sure are.
Almost no one denies that the climate is getting warmer. At issue is the question of how much of this is due to the natural forces that have caused warming many times in the past, or is it due to a very small part of atmospheric carbon dioxide emitted by human activities.
You need some different sources of information about climate, which unfortunately are not provided by Common Sense. I suggest
https://judithcurry.com/2021/09/03/15-minutes/#more-27827
https://www.drroyspencer.com/global-warming-101/
Exactly! Thanks
Not all Rs are "against climate change" check out your these bipartisan solutions https://energythinks.com/podcasts/sens-hickenlooper-and-cassidy-the-bipartisan-road-to-net-zero/
This thread contains the most inadvertently brilliant typos ever:
“ Joe's dimentia”
“ I flatiron”
That is all. Carry on.
thanks. I edited the spelling so that "clever" trolls can't dismiss my entire argument due to one typo.
I wouldn't think to do that. Will keep that in mind for future posts. Thanks for the tip. My post definitely would get bots censoring!
Don't can be dismissed for far better reasons than that.
Still waiting for you to offer a single one, Com. Or are you all snark like every other online moral crusader?
Please don't feed the troll. Plus I telligent humans can read a message even with typos. Trolls/bots not so much.
A single what?
Not really a "moral crusader"...although many have been integral in improving society.
All fixed...gotta love my cell phone's predictive text...and not rereading my work. I did reread and apparently flatiron made sense to my early morning brain!
Me too on the gas prices. I don't drive that much, so I guess it's selfish, but I want them to skyrocket to prove my point. Sadly, I realize, that is what the Dems want. For things to blow up, to get their way. :(
I keep wondering about the hurricane victims in Florida with electric cars. How do you evacuate with an EV and no ability to charge it?
Well yearh - that will be the case for everyone with one, when electricity prices skyrocket and states like CA have brown outs....how do you square this "everyone should get an electric car"....with this "don't charge your car between these hours..."
As a Floridian, you evacuate before the hurricane arrives. Roads flood and winds make driving treacherous well before the power goes out.
I have always lived on or within a few hours of hurricane prone coasts, so I am familiar with formal evacuation protocols. My comment was actually two-fold. Were those people who wanted to evacuate in EVs efficiently able to do so given charging limitations? Are those people who rode out the storm, survived, are now without electricity, and wish to evacuate (common meaning of leave) stuck if they have EVs?
“Common Sense obviously does the research and actual journalism lost in almost every mainstream media outlet”?
I think that is true with Nelli, Bari, and the times Suzi appears. But these guest, fill-in authors? Nah, not so much. I’m not even sure they are tethered to the CS editorial staff.
Dude. Bari did an entire podcast trying to rehabilitate Amy Cooper - she called 911 twice and falsely claimed she was being assaulted....cause she had "unresolved childhood trauma."
Also, apparently there is some recent news about Hunter Biden?
She didn’t claim she was being assaulted. She said she was being threatened. She called 911 twice because the connection was bad and she couldn’t hear the dispatcher.
Don’t take Comprof’s bait Beeswax, jt tried and it wasn’t successful. I think this is one miserable human who seem to take great joy in the fact that Amy Cooper’s life was totally ruined by what happened. The fact that she had a bad experience with a male made no difference to Comprof because she was white just shows what type of human he is.
Aw....I thought we were just agreeing.
Is this the same jt that says I'm stupid because I have a "black/brown fetish?"
Amy Cooper's life was totally ruined? Well....maybe she should have thought of some things beforehand and that wouldn't have happened.
Like, "Y'know, you're right. I should follow the rules, have my dog on a leash and keep them out of the protected foliage. My bad."
But is seems like she didn't think the rules applied to her and became enraged/threatened. I wonder if she would have responded differently if it were someone else she were more comfortable with?
Are you daring to insinuate that I somehow enjoy when people are caught on video engaging in belligerent "Karen activity" and suffer consequences when for 99% of American history that behavior was encouraged, socially validated and rewarded?
I love it!! You apparently don't. Ok. No big deal. Different strokes, right?
My white wife has yet to be filmed being a Karen...I honestly don't know how she does it! She's amazing!
Big take-aways from podcast.
1. Chris Cooper was an annoying stickler for the park rules.
2. Cooper was justified in calling, making false claims, because she had trauma as a child.
3. America was mean to her.
Chris Cooper was correct in that dogs are a danger to birds, and that area of Central Park is famous for its birding. But his social skills suck. He previously got into a fist fight with a man over the same issue. There's a way to talk to people when you have something important to say.
Amy Cooper made no false claims. Chris Cooper is a large man who attempted to lure her dog. She felt threatened. It was just the two of them in this wooded area. Deal with it, or don't. Feeling wary and threatened by a stranger is not an uncommon experience for women. And, to add fuel to the fire, yes indeed, it appears that Amy Cooper had been a victim of violence in the past. This often causes a fear-based response to otherwise benign situations. But this situation wasn't exactly benign.
Facts. Other facts. etc.
The bigger issue of this story, which was investigated and reported by black journalist Kmele Foster, not by Bari Weiss, was that Amy Cooper's life was destroyed by this event. She lives in hiding. This is a disgusting outcome. It wasn't America that was mean to her. It was a specific subset of self-righteous social justice warriors whose cruelty knows no bounds. But don't worry. As long as you plant yourself in the middle of the mob, keep your head down, raise your fist and take a knee, your reputation and livelihood will remain intact.
I'm done with you, Prof. Have at it.
I'm a New Yorker. I hate birds. And bird feeders. And birders.
Pigeons are rats with wings. Little sparrows in the park spread disease.
The best birds in NYC are at Marcus Samuelsson's restaurant.
People who prefer birds to dogs, well...
Yeah 'cause Jussie Smollett, Rachel Richardson, Crystal Mangam, et. al are purveyors of "truth."
Ok....any more?
Luckily, all white people are purveyors of truth, so at least we can be thankful for that.
Not recent, just the news you’ve been ignoring for years.
Did you pin a medal on your own chest after Amy cooper lost her job and could no longer show her face in public?
Actually I take that back. Yes there has been further recent developments, but does it matter? You’ll ignore it like you always have.
Seriously?!? That was your takeaway from the hour long podcast with Amy Cooper. Did you actually listen and hear any of it? 🙄
It appears not
I voted for Democrats for 25 years. Now, I will not. I think I have to make amends to my country now and vote to stop them. Lol
Yip we gotta get America great again SP
"...the Democrats are simply the good guys and Republicans the bad guys..."
It's long been the case that conservatives think liberals are wrong, but liberals think conservatives are evil. It's gotten much worse, though.
In the past couple of weeks Biden's DOJ conducted a SWAT raid at the home of a pro-life activist terrifying his wife and children. Several more pro-life protesters were indicted for nothing. And Chase bank closed the account of an ecumenical group that lobbies for the first amendment right to free exercise of religion.
Democrats are weaponizing not only government, but the financial system too.
The way Go Fund Me has gotten involved in issues is shameful.
Don’t use them they are a scam, just vote in Nov we have 1 chance we mustn’t mess this up.
Like Justin Trudeau with the Truckers. Trudeau and the banks went after people who donated to Go Fund me.
That might have been the most terrifying part of that saga.
Really good comment. I for one have had the scales fall from my eyes; call the 2020 election an outright fraud (which I believe it was) or just say that it was an experiment that failed, but the consequences of Democrats ever again taking complete power are there for all to see. They are making heroic attempts to convert the entire nation into the large American cities they already control and so very competently run, <sarc> and knowing that it is not what Americans want, they are perfectly comfortable using Whatever Force Is Necessary to do it. (waving at the FBI)
No, I'm quite comfortable saying to you that I cannot foresee a circumstance where I will ever vote for a Democrat again. I wear my "Save America" hat everywhere, and have kept track of the comments: 45 pro, 2 con. I suspect that much of America has learned its lesson, too. Let's hope so.
I agree with the above comment. Absent but relevant to this conversation is the recent expansion and arming (yes, real guns and bullets), turning the Internal Revenue Service into a federally-backed militia. I don't know about most Common Sense readers, but I pay my taxes, have never made or sold illegal moonshine, and do not trust the intention behind an internal "army" that has unfettered and weaponized power against its own citizens using "whatever force is necessary". The Redcoats are coming?
I find it amusing that an increase in the staffing of the IRS was approved (close to doubling if not more), but in the latest budget continuation Border Patrol funding for policing was cut....but they did get more money for cell phones to provide to those unfortunate temporarily displaced travelers
❤️❤️❤️🇺🇸🇺🇸🇺🇸yip they coming!!!
It’s much like the Michael Parkinson interview with Elton John
Michael “ What kind of reaction did you get when you came out the closet?”
Elton “I found a lot more people waved at me”
I found the same reaction when I took my MAGA hat out the closet recently, very favorable comments perhaps November will be the change we all looking for after the rig of 2020 God willing!🇺🇸🇺🇸
Agree. And I have to wonder how many progressives read sites written by conservatives because they want to understand better how we think.
I was listening to a podcast where Jonathan Haidt, a lefty, claimed to know how Republicans thought, and what he said was just wrong. Does he talk to all those “Republicans” in NYC?
Funnily enough, after Trump won in 2016, I'll admit I had given in to the media-induced panic and couldn't believe a man like him had won. So I started reading National Review to try to understand the conservative perspective. Cut to 2022 and I'm fully prepared to vote only Republican from now on.
And we're proud of you for that. It's the lesser evil. Churchill famously said words to the effect that democracy is a terrible, nasty, messy form of government. It's also far better than whatever's in second place.
Pemulis, interesting comment.
Rewind to early in 2016, and to the Republicans (conservatives) running against Trump in the primaries, and they couldn't believe Trump was winning either. They hated him (and most of them still do). And that was before the media induced panic began (because no one took Trump seriously prior).
You say who will vote Republican from now on - but this is not the Republican party of six years ago - it's Trump's tent (unless someone in the GOP - anyone - has the cajones to publicly defy him).
Even if it’s President Trump?
Maybe especially so.
I don't care for Trump the man. He's not someone I'd particularly want to have over for dinner and cocktails. Comes across as abrasive and obnoxious. But there's no question in my mind where his heart is: when he gets a cut, he bleeds red, white, and blue. He's exactly the kind of guy we need in the White House. The country flourished while he was there.
But would he win in an election against someone good [I don't consider Biden to be any good]? Maybe not. And that's why I'd rather De Santis run than Trump. Hopefully by '24, the electorate will have been so definitely fed up with the dems that we get the trifecta: WH + Senate + House. The play would be for DeSantis and Noem to run, make Trump Secretary of State--just in case. Unless, that is, he could get elected to the House with an a priori agreement that he's the Speaker. Which prolly won't happen.
He bleeds red white and blue? Is that why he took Putin's side over American intelligence? A draft-dodging traitor who tried to overthrow our democracy is the last guy who "bleeds red white and blue."
Well he never talked to this Republican in NYC lol.
TimCast, my favorite political/social podcast (as it's specifically for disaffected classical liberals - though I consider myself a classical-anarchist, more than a classical liberal, as even classical liberals have been consumed by the glut of giant government) touches on the dynamics underlying your point quite often.
The data is VERY clear that conservatives/libertarians/classical-liberals/etc... WANT a diversity of opinion. They "follow" a broader set of voices, read much more widely, and generally seek out a broader variety of opinions than does the left. The modern left, and specifically people identifying as "democratic voters" live in, and actively seek out, as small an echo-chamber as possible. This data is visible in multiple places including tracking things like who they follow on twitter, polling on news sources they frequent, etc...
One of my favorite quotes is from Ben Zoma "Who is wise? One who learns from every man. As is stated (Psalms 119:99): "From all my teachers I have grown wise, for Your testimonials are my meditation." No stated political leaning can claim this as fully true today, but one side is trying, and one side is actively doing the opposite.
With that in mind, the divide on Common Sense makes perfect sense, and isn't likely to change. Many conservative, libertarian, and centrist readers come here specifically because it's of the left, but liberal enough (the real meaning of liberal, not the modern leftist bastardization that just represents "leftist"; liberal meaning actually pro-liberty) to at least be consumable. The writers are here specifically because it's of the left, but liberal enough to allow them to write as they actually see the world without having to hit a quota on the number of times they use "racist" in each article. But the writers are still of the left, and they are still here specifically because Common Sense is also of the left.
Long story short, we should appreciate that the readers are here specifically for a look into the left, without having to be of the left, and we should be sad that the left still prefers to only ever interact with the left, for fear they may have to explore outside the confines of their echo-chambers and risk actually being happy (https://twitter.com/BradWilcoxIFS/status/1577693300932362240)
Well done. This represents me and comports with my observations. I'm old, and a lifelong, left-of-center person. Only since Trump did I distance myself from my party and its organs of propaganda. Civil liberties and free speech matter to me most of all. When the NY Times became an anti-Trump political screed and the Dems started talking about the need to censor "dangerous misinformation," that's when I left. I still consider the ACLU's defense of the nazis' right to march through Skokie to be one of America's finest hours. Try explaining that to anyone under the age of 70 and see where it gets you.
I'm no Trump fan...far from it. And as corny and out of favor as it is to say this now, I want the United States of America to survive. I don't think we should throw Thomas Jefferson's statue in the river. I don't hate my Republican neighbors. I don't believe that the world is a battle between good people and evil people. One of the reasons that I subscribe here is that I want a plurality of views in my life. Ironically, Ihat makes me a bigot in the eyes of the "left."
My Democratic friends and family members seem to be in a permanent state of terror-filled hyperventilation over January 6. Their worldview has shrunk to the size of an iPhone and they all repeat the same words as if hypnotized.
I completely concur regarding the ACLU... there was a time when the vast majority of society actually believed in the value of the constitution and the importance of liberty. This might even still be true today - we're just too blinded by our own ignorance to see it being swept away under the guise of being kept "safe" from the evil of the other side.
But Trump accomplished exactly what the Left hoped he would - he not only enabled, but, by their definition, forced, the big D democrats below the equator and back into the authoritarian hemisphere where they have always longed to be.
The big R republicans used "Muslim man bad" to drag the republican voter into the authoritarian hemisphere and allow constitutional blasphemy like the patriot act and "no child left behind," and the big D democrats are swimming in the glory of "Orange man bad" to trap democrat voters in the authoritarian hemisphere and allow constitutional blasphemy like vax mandates, forced business closures, 2A restrictions, and nuking the first amendment and sixth amendments all together (closed churches, active interference in free speech through big tech, J6 non-violent political prisoners still in jail, etc...)
The only way out of this is voter forced term limits on both parties (like republicans? great, when your rep is done serving two terms vote for the next republican - but not that same republican) and the complete unwinding of the bureaucratic state. It's a pipe-dream, I realize, but if we start at the most local level and work our way up "up," I can at least pretend there's a chance.
I am considering for the first time in my life about voting Republican, as a protest. I live in a blue state and my vote would probably be symbolic, but it would express my feelings. On the other hand, it's possible this election will surprise us.
The Patriot Act has to go. Probably the worst thing the Republicans have ever done.
There's probably a lot of arguments to be made here, and I would argue that the 16th amendment is the worst thing the US government has done, by a mile, as it formally transitioned us from a Union to not just another "democratic" oligarchy, and the creation of the Fed goes along with that, as it was the foundation for our shift from a mostly free-market economy to a statist economy, but in modern Republican history you're probably right. Though, I'll be honest, it's a toss up for me between The Patriot Act and No Child Left Behind.
The difference between the two, and what makes it a challenge for me, is that the Patriot Act, if used appropriately, has merit. However, no government in human history has ever used any power appropriately, so it's outlandish that Republicans believed "this time it will be different." On the other hand, No Child Left Behind has no merit no matter how it is used. Centralization is always a failure, and centralization of something as complex as education had no option but to fail. Socializing anything guarantees its demise, and if there's ONE THING you'd like to see not demise in society, it's education.
While the 16th amendment turned us into an oligarchy, and the Fed turned our free-market statist, the centralization of education is what, ultimately, turned us into a Banana Republic. With no diversity of education, our entire economy homogenized around the single skills of learning to borrow money and learning to write sh***y software code. Today, there's a VERY good chance you either work for the government, borrow money, write sh***y code or support people who write sh***y code. Most people don't realize it yet, because poor monetary policy and a lack of self worth mean a lot of boomers are still working, but we're VERY close to an economy with no laborers - and with every single other thing wrong in our economy, the lack of anyone that actually produces any real thing (or fixes those things) is BY FAR our biggest future economic issue.
My biggest concern is the "no you don't get a lawyer" if you are declared a terrorist. How can the Patriot Act possibly be constitutional?
That is a lovely idea and would eliminate feeding at the public trough. But Congressional power is based on seniority for the most part.
It was hardly our finest hour. I'm 100 percent for free speech but the march through Skokie by Rockwell and his morons was deliberately calculated to be painful and cruel given the number of Holocaust survivors who lived there. There had to be a better way to vindicate free speech without giving the Nazis what they wanted
You may never agree with me on this point, which is fine. However, I’d like to point you towards the reasoning of the Jewish attorneys who ran the ACLU at that time, some of whom probably lost relatives in the Holocaust themselves, and how first principles compelled them to defend even the rights of nazis. I encourage you to watch the inspiring and entertaining documentary “Mighty Ira,” available on Amazon for a couple of bucks, which focuses on the life of Ira Glasser, president of the ACLU from 1978-2001. Produced by FIRE, the Foundation for Individual Rights and Expression, it offers an expansive history of the United States beginning in the 1930s, with considerable focus on the events in Skokie. Glasser is in his 80s and still active. He eloquently explains what led the ACLU to defend the case all the way to the Supreme Court. Interestingly, the Skokie ruling had a direct bearing on a group of Black civil rights activists who were denied a permit to hold a march. Nothing exists in a vacuum.
The Supreme Court does not side with free speech every time it takes up the issue. And not everyone always agrees with their decisions. First Amendment law is a fascinating area of jurisprudence. Yes, speech has its limits.
But in this instance, the Court sided with the ACLU, not with the nazis, but with the principle of free speech. As I said above, I consider this decision an example of America at its best.
I get where she is coming from on this. Free speech is absolutely critical and sometimes that means hearing completely vile and repugnant speech. I think the expression that I may disagree with your opinion but am willing to fight for your right to express it is apt.
Very well said.
My Democratic ship has sailed full speed with the never ending Covid circus.
The red wave is coming. Bari Weiss and Matt Taibbi are both exceptional in this crucial moment, still doing journalism and showing composure and compassion. Matt discussed the bombing of the pipeline by the Biden Administration, too! Still waiting to hear Bari’s thoughts on that one.
We will see what November brings. Republicans have a big chance to fill the void, but by picking idiots like Herschel Walker(whom I’ll vote for I don’t care at this point, I just want Novak to play the US Open next year) I’m afraid they gonna fuck it up.
They will fuck it up; they always do...
Don't vote for the Democrat, I get it. But. Daniela, please do not vote for Mr. Walker. He is a simpleton. At some point, intelligence has to rise above party allegiances.
With the election of Biden and Harris, that bar is lower then the world record in Limbo...
And you also have Sen P Murray, Rep H. Johnson, members of the Squad, Rep. S. Jackson-Lee...
There are some real dolts in office, and intelligence has not been a job requirement for many years.
Unfortunately...
I agree. But I'll add Marjorie Taylor Greene to that worthy list..
If I may.
Ask yourself sincerely how Herschel Walker came to be picked.
I imagine it is a combination of things. His legendary status in the state of Georgia from his CFB days, him being conservative and I suspect him being black helped here as well. The powers that be figured that these attributes would be enough to get him elected. We shall see if they are correct.
This nails it for me as well. I talk to people constantly that agree we have taken an absurd direction since Trump's election in all sorts of ways - cancel culture, censorship, Big Tech, Dems becoming the party of war, COVID, etc. I think lifelong Dems struggle with pulling the lever for a Republican. In my view it's a protest vote, to make the Democratic Party BETTER.
2016 was such a massive missed opportunity for the left to have it's own ugly internal Civil War and understand how 63 million people voted for Trump. There seemed to be genuine interest in that for a week or two - trying to understand folks unlike themselves, flyover country, the Silent Majority, etc. Then it all turned to Russia and white supremacy, largely driven by our Corporate media.
I'm not sure the left will ever have that conversation that needs to happen, but voting Republican is the only way to give it a shot
Agreed in every way. These days I've been thinking that in truth, I would rather see Democrats clean up their leadership than come over to the Republican side. But that leadership has a vice grip on the minds and hearts of their voters, and that power has reached a level of almost spiritual possession.
It's completely unfair that corporate media is such a force for the Dems though. I wonder if the journalists ever resent being told to do it.
not sure the journalists are in service to the Dems, or to the three letter agencies?
but nowadays it seems they are the same
Dave Rubin talks a lot about this. Many people realize things are broken, the border and the price of gas are just two examples of how bad leadership and good intentions can destroy a country. But none of them follow the breadcrumbs to the point of saying “maybe I shouldn’t vote that way anymore,” including the authors on this site. No matter how bad it is, being a dreaded republican is far worse, apparently.
Agree. It's almost like a rebranding could work. The way PR teams do with products.
I agree. But I get more out of the comments than the articles (particularly this one) and I have engaged in several discourses with other commentators that have brought me some enlightenment of the other side's position. Which is saying something because I am every bit entrenched as they are and things will not improve until we as a society can achieve compromise(s). I am disturbed though to see more and more trolls because I think that type of thing only reinforces entrenchment and division.
Agree about the comments section. I really appreciate the actual discussion and civil conversations that happen here. Most other comments sections quickly devolve into personal attacks and name calling. After reading comments here, I am left feeling better about our ability to find common ground and real solutions, and I often learn something. (I also like that people don't tend to engage much with the couple of trolls on here. There's nothing like "crickets" to shut down those who want to create an argument)
A good comment, Lynne. I agree that I enjoy more the interaction with the commenters than at times reading the articles themselves.
To admit that you can be entrenched will allow me to admit that I am as well. I lean more left. But open minds, of which I hope I have, will open others. And that's why I stick around here - to see, to understand.
Listening, engaging, pondering - and eventually some form of nascent compromise begins on threads like these..
I agree. I think many here do.
I agree about the comments too! Someone recommended Shelby Steele’s White Guilt so I read it. Best book I’ve ever read, completely eye opening, can’t believe I had never come across it before!
It depends on what you mean by "conservative." Lower case "c," sure: the majority of subscribers probably think that the current American left is reckless in advocating for wholesale change at the expense of myriad unintended consequences. But, if you mean upper case "C" conservative, I'm not so sure. I think the audience is probably diverse within certain limits. I can't see either a left-winger or a right-winger saying that Common Sense regularly speaks to them and lands at their conclusions -- but I can see anyone from center-left to center-right regularly doing so.
I think big C conservatives have allowed them to be typecast by the left over decades.
Big C conservatives hate the power of the big state, regardless if Ed Meese, John Ashcroft, Loretta Lynch or Merrick Garland is in charge.
Big C conservatives believe that local jurisdictions (beginning with family) make the best rules to live by, not elected "leaders"
Big C conservatives believe in humility and shame, unlike some recent Republican elected officials.
I think this is a rather widespread phenomenon. I see it in the comments sections of many lefty-but-open-minded creators, oftentimes pretty hardcore lefty. Almost all of the comments are from right-of-center. Pretty much all of these creators are now described as "far right" in the corporate press, which may have something to do with the lefty mainstream now avoiding them.
But there is an irony and a tension here. The writers at CS are clearly all on the left, with a small smattering of regime-approved solidly anti-MAGA Establishment Republicans. Their intended audience is the woke left, which they hope to moderate. There's a general presumption in the writing that shines through that the audience are elite types, and a not-particularly-hidden air of condescension towards "ordinary" people/conservatives. But the actual audience does appear to be mostly conservatives. So we have a situation where the creators don't particular like their audience, and may actually actively dislike them. The audience is here to get out of their own echo chamber, so won't leave. But I wonder what impact it has on the writers. Do they eventually give up on the wokes and retool the operation into trying to convert the audience over to the Dark Side? But that would require actually getting to understand the non-Establishment conservative mindset, a prospect that I think they find terrifying.
They underestimate that some of these plebian conservatives may happen to have Masters degrees, a wealth of travel, multidisciplinary skills, large salaries, and far more culture than the cloistered metropolitans understand.
There's a world of difference between living in New Yorkifornia, and actually seeing the world.
Bari Weiss is a moderate. I don't consider her on the left. She used to work for the Wall Street Journal. On her podcast, she has interviewed Republican icons like Condoleezza Rice and Mike Pompeo, whom she speaks of with great admiration. I'm neither criticizing nor endorsing this, simply noting it. But as a matter of fact, I found both conversations interesting, especially since I would never have sought out these people otherwise. Hence, the value of Substack.
Bari is also religious, which should not necessarily mean anything, but in the current political climate, it leans her right. However, she's a married lesbian, which makes her an outlier in another way.
I do notice the right-leaning tone of the comments, which for the most part don't jibe with my views, but I'm not unsympathetic some of the time. I'm getting what I paid for, which is the journalism, which I don't always like. But that's to be expected when consuming heterodox media.
To put it simply, Bari is an intelligent person that doesn't limit her thinking to a political ideology. I'm not sure that most guest writers on this site are like that, but many are, and most of the comments seem to reflect that type of person too.
If this substack has a theme, its that we need more of this type honest debate in society, a debate free of R-vs-D, left-vs-right, reductive talking points. The world is a complex place. Most issues have nuance and no political ideology is always right or wrong.
Bingo! Diversity of thought means a whole lot more than diversity based on the color of your skin or who you choose to love IMO!
In other words Bari is a quirky individual and attracts the same. Maybe that is what I love about her and her readers. It defies algorithms.
Indeed, I am also fond of quirky. I defy a ton of algorithms myself.
Bari used to work for the New York Times.
That's right. She left the WSJ to work for the Times because they claimed they wanted to open up the opinion pages to diverse views. After several years of anti-Semitic harassment by her fellow journalists for her views on Israel, which her editor refused to address, she jumped ship and now does her own thing. So we can thank the NYT for something.
Emmanuel, you are spot on.
You should go over to Sasha Stones Substack where she admittedly leaves the leftist plantation. It would be kind of interesting to see if Bari has had a similar experience. It wouldn't change my subscription in any way, just curious.
A great observation I have noticed for some time on Substack as well. Alex Berenson is one who appears to resent or actively dislike his new conservative audience.
Nice perspective
Good question.
Tell your liberal friends that their main information sources are all owned by billionaires with global interests.
It's true, and it makes them extremely uncomfortable because they think of themselves as opposing the billionaires. If you can do this in person, watch their facial expressions as they confront the cognitive dissonance. It's fascinating!
I found it amusing to find out the property tax rate on Martha's Vineyard was about 0.30%...so a million dollar home is taxed about $3,000 per year.
I guess its fine to say the rich need to pay their fair share...unless it applies to property taxes...or the SALT deductions
It seems true that many traditional Democratic voters have an unreasonable hard time switching their votes, but that may be also a function of what “the other side” offers them. If the Republicans would offer moderate candidates or at least solid, reasonable conservatives, this election should be a landslide that would teach the Democrats the cost of moving to the extreme left (or whatever the woke/climate catastrophism is). Instead, just as the story about the Georgia Senate candidate shows, we’re getting a lot of highly questionable Republican candidates whose only qualification is that they’re pleasing Trump by endorsing the Big Steal idiocy. The Republicans are wasting this opportunity in the most ridiculous way and deeply disappoint centrist voters, unaffiliated or willing to switch.
Andy, I don't disagree. With "interesting" individuals like Marjorie Taylor Greene pushing her pedophile pizza parlors and Jewish space lasers, it can be difficult to take Republicans seriously. On the other hand, the liberal media is so good with its propaganda campaigns, that unless a Democratic voter is already open to a change, they have no incentive to question the lies. For example, as an essentially liberal person, I've found Ron DeSantis' policies on school choice, parents' rights and protecting kids from the insane excesses of gender ideology to be quite admirable. I agree with his avoidance of mask mandates during COVID. I found his idea to send immigrants to Martha's Vineyard somewhat outrageous, but also ingenious, because it focused a harsh light on the hypocrisy of the Democrats regarding their supposed care and concern for the people they're allowing to flood our open borders while doing absolutely nothing for them. Yet, the liberal media paints DeSantis as every sort of monster you can imagine, from racist to nazi to transphobe, etc. etc. And the Dems accept that without question. I don't agree with DeSantis on everything, but I would take him over just about anyone else at the moment.
So, I agree with you that it's very important that the Republicans offer decent, solid, reasonable, conservative candidates if they hope to win over more voters from the left. But I think you get my drift here. The quantity of bald-faced lies spun daily in the liberal media about Republican policies and politicians makes most Democrats completely unwilling to look across the aisle. On the other hand, they're in love with that miscreant, John Fetterman. Go figure. We always love our own team. It's a flaw in human nature, and something we're all guilty of at one time or another.
This comment perfectly encapsulates the quagmire, as the “space laser story” is completely made up. Go listen to MTG on the TimCast podcast tell the story. It’s hilarious. But, as you said, is a perfect illustration of the characters the media creates in place of the actual person, and their policies, to their own political ends…
Wow, see? I will definitely check out MTG on TimCast... I have often been the one to point out to my liberal friends, much to their annoyance, how they've been scammed by their own side, e.g.: horse paste in Oklahoma hospitals, whips at the Southern border, Rittenhouse the militia man crossing state lines with a gun to kill black people...and on and on. So now I can add Jewish space lasers to the list! Thank you. This actually makes me very happy, because I happen to be Jewish and stuff like that really depresses me. ; )
It is the “trump says inject sunlight into your body” story. They’re discussing legitimate technology that she doesn’t fully understands (and admits that) and asks questions about it - the group, which she had no idea of at the time - ends up being Jewish , and a few questions in a discussion later, plus a little beautiful liberal media spin - and now she was “scared of Jewish space lasers” like trump said to “drink bleach.”
It’s amazing what you can do with purposefully out of context half quotes and an imagination lol
I miss living in a high trust society - but at this point, regardless of side, I assume I’m getting 10% of any story - and that’s at best…
Ooh please add to the list the "white supremacists murder" of BLM protestors in Seattle, which was actually a young black immigrant who hit them on accident while they were having a completely illegal protest on the highway.
Many Seattleites to this day believe it was a white man Trumper who killed them on purpose, because Twitter announced that version immediately, with no evidence, and never corrected the record.
The West Coast as a whole has a totally delusional view of the world.
Wow, that's unreal. Literally...unreal.
But the East Coast, especially the Northeast, is fairly batshit as well, trust me.
Like other people have noted here people need to reach out to several different venues for information other than letting a rabid media give their interviews 'context' to create or further a narrative favoring their democrat masters(or perhaps it is the other way around :-D). MTG is a normal American businesswoman who has flaws like anyone else and 'they' just can't have that. Trump had many flaws, but was a great president overall working on behalf of all Americans. The media NEVER gave him a chance and he returned fire and that just can't stand. Love these discussions rather than yelling at people.
I agree completely. One of the primary influences of whether or not a POTUS passes good policy is whether or not the media allows it to happen (i.e. "give them a chance.")
I think the important thing to remember is that the Democrats have been completely taken over/led by one of the most radical Presidents ever, Joe Biden. If Democrats want to be successful, they'll have to move back the the moderate center exhibited by MTG, Boebert, Herschel Walker, Louie Gomert, election-denying GOP politicians, MAGA, etc.
You mean like the media cometely hid Joe Biden and his sons laptop in Oct 2020 with the help of the FBI. Yeah, no help there. 18% of democrats said they wouldnt have voted for SleepyCreepy...
I like how DeSantis is now trying to get all the immigrants back to FL to help with clean-up.
Did you not read the Common Sense article on how Democrats are directly funding those Republicans you call "highly questionable"? The Dem strategy right now is to paint their opponents as extremists in order to normalize their own extremism.
Also, if you actually look at Trump's policy positions, he absolutely was a moderate. The leftist mythology surrounding that man has nothing to do with the reality.
Of course the Dems are doing everything they can to capitalize on the mistakes of the Republicans. If the extremist (or let’s call them “low chance to be elected”) Republicans would not enjoy genuine support among Republicans, then the Dems would have no way to interfere, would they? I agree that Trump’s policies (weather really his or pushed by the people around him) were moderate; what’s extreme is his obsession with wrecking the chances of the Republicans to stop the woke tide just to heal his bruised ego.
Yes. let's not use the word "extremist" - that would be unfair - "low chance" is better.
See that's the lie the Democrats feed you because they don't want to hear our outrage over 2020 and they will not be held accountable for their fascist abuses.
Ignore everything because Trump. Vote Blue, no matter who, no matter what we say or do.
The single most important thing the uni-party has accomplished is getting us to care about others’ elected officials. EVERYONE cares about AOC. EVERYONE has an opinion on MTG. Those people represent tiny constituencies but convincing people they “represent a party” the uniparty distracts people from the only tool they have which is ensuring THEIR representatives are the best they can possibly be. They’ve turned the concept of representative government, where your local officials and your local reps are meant to be all that matters, into a team sport where we spend all our time screaming about the GM of the other team.
Do I think Herschel is a great candidate? No, but who the hell cares, I’m not voting for him anyway. We all need to spend infinitely more time worrying about our local school board and infinitely less time caring who Georgia elects if we ever want actual meaningful change…
True, I don’t live in Georgia and I don’t vote for the Senate candidate there, but if the Republicans loose that easy race because they’ve chosen an unfit candidate who got his position just by pandering to Trump, that will have very serious consequences at the national level. You can’t just take the view “let people in Georgia decide”, it’s true to some extent only.
Solid and supposedly reasonable conservatives have been in Congress for many, many years (see Lindsey Graham) and very little changes. I don't disagree about quality candidates, it's just that I don't see many courageous, intelligent conservative candidates out there who are willing to keep throwing themselves against the political brick wall that is the Democrat machine.
Bad example lol.
Unfortunately, Republicans have the ability to win the olympic freestyle snatch-defeat-from-the-jaws-of-victory competition. We went to the "big tent" philosophy a long time ago. It's time to make the tent smaller. A ~lot~ smaller.
Well....it all started with Goldwater and eventually got to Trump. Funny how that works. Republicans have moved to the extreme right, but their supporters don't think so. Trump , and his acolytes, will be the is the ideological leaders of the GOP and will be for a long time.....and everyone will keep pretending it's the OTHER people who've gone loony.
Agree Republicans have come up with some poor candidates. But the Democrats are better at it? ….the squad?
I think our poor candidates are their excuse for voting--and keeping in the squat [sic].
Whataboutism doesn’t win Congress. The (in)famous squad gets elected in safe seats, of course. This is all
About the competitive seats.
I do not agree with your point about Georgia but I think.the rest is very well-reasoned. I would respect, admire, and vote for anyone of either party who articulated takng the high road so long as I believed it was the truth. I don't know about you but I am flooded with requests to donate to out of state candidates. I find that annoying. I want Georgians to decide Georgia, Arizonans to decide Arizona, Texans to decide Texas, and so on. IMO the fix is to limit campaign contributions.
Personally, coming from a former communist country, I am totally freaked out by the direction in which the progressives/wokes/Dems/Biden administration is taking my adopted country. It’s like a bad horror movie I’ve already seen. So as an independent, I’m looking to vote for somebody to stop this madness. Sure, each state decides, etc., etc., but if the Republicans in too many states nominate unelectable candidates just because they’re great Trump boot-lickers, we’re all hosed. It’s as simple as that.
Communism is just around the corner.
People who say things like Trump boot lockers are every bit as problematic as those who say the election was stolen. Each are divisive. Neither bring about an end to the no sense.
Supporting a lie that has been proven to be a lie by a long list of elected, bona fide Republican officials (not to mention the US Attorney General), just to sooth Trump’s narcissism, is more than divisive, it’s putting personal interests or personal madness above the interests of this country. In case you don’t like the so-called Inflation Reduction Act, just remember who gave the Americans the burden of an extra half-trillion dollars of debt. It’s Trump and his cultists, who caused the loss of two Senate seats by claiming
the election was stolen and that there’s no point to vote.
I know a lot of people who question the validity of the 2020 presidential election. Most of them.think.it was the ballot harvesting, Zuck bucks, and covid related changes, etc. that impacted the results. If you are referring to former AG Barr he said that there was not evidence of fraud to support not certifying the results in Congress. However each state certifies its own results and he did not have jurisdiction to investigate state matters. I have heard that the election came down to less than 25,000 votes. It is undisputed that information was suppressed deliberately by social media regarding the Biden family and its foreign business ventures in the weeks leading up to the election. FBs Zuckerburg says that was done at the behest of the FBI claims about a dump of (mythical) Russian disinformation. As a result of these shenanigans, and others, we have a President whose policies have created skyrocketing inflation, a dependence on dirty foreign oil and gas, a stock market in decline, supply chain shortages, rising crime (although that is largely a result of underlings who espouse his values), an open border resulting in a fentanyl crisis, and on and on. In addition he is telling his fan club that we are on the verge of Armageddon. As a result of a war in Ukraine which he has poured untold monies and military equipment into. Purportedly without accountability therefore. Do you not find it curious that he sees fit to do this for the country which had a well-connected energy company lots of money for nothing? There are many abuses of human rights around the world, so why get involved in this one? To this extent? I am not a member of any cult. Nor is anyone I know. I intend to vote. As does everyone I know.
Absolutely Andy. Well said. Like so many political problems, this one could be solved with a little courage - if more Republican leaders, members of congress, candidates, would simply speak the truth that they all realize, that Trump and his insanity, the election denial, is hurting them badly, they could easily be winning much more, the Dems are making it so easy for them, moderation is the key, but our current primary system makes it almost impossible for a moderate to win a primary within either party
Absolute lies. Stacey Abrams is denying her election. Democrats denied Trump's election for three years using their own conspiracy theories as "evidence." Democrats to this day deny the legitimacy of both of GW Bush's elections.
Democrats have been denying election legitimacy for my entire life, and when Republicans did it once it suddenly became radical extremism - WHILE Stacey Abrams is doing it.
The fantasy delusions of the Democratic Left are a spiritual illness. This hypocrisy is intolerable.
I've been saying this a lot lately. There's a strong cognitive dissonance happening within significant swaths of the left. Many realize certain leftist policies and laws are absolutely detrimental to a functioning civilization (see border security, anti-merit education, medicalization of trans, crime, etc.), yet they just can't bring themselves to vote differently. Honestly, I blame the likes of John Stewart who was wildly successful during the Bush years at attaching a moral stigma to anything deemed conservative. John Stewart was doing his thing while many of us were still in high school, college, or recently graduated. And the stigma he attached has persisted in their minds, even if times have changed.
I agree with John Stewart's role. Which laid the groundwork for the current belief of late night hosts.
1. Georgia voters have been given a crap choice between Warnock and Walker but let’s not pretend that Warnock doesn’t have plenty of domestic drama skeletons in his own closet. Considering that Kemp is polling +7 over Abrams it’s hard to imagine that enough Georgians will split their tickets to save Biden’s flack in November.
2. The “consequences” segment appears to be missing a paragraph or two. Sounds like the only person to deal with any consequences is in fact the professor. This should scare the sh*t out of everyone since classes like organic chemistry are often the make or break credits for medical school.
3. Putin was pretty clear about his intentions for invasion on day one. He wants a neutral Ukraine bc he views anything else as an unacceptable threat to his country. Regardless of how you feel about the war no honest person can deny this.
4. Ron DeSantis is the best governor in America and he proved that yet again this week. It’s pathetic that folks like Rothman can’t seem to pass on even the slightest bit of praise without prefacing it with some kind of dig.
Spot on Mel, from a fellow Georgian! Tired of seeing the new daily Herschel attacks and wondering why his camp isn’t playing same game vs. Warnock.
My bro is a brilliant neurosurgeon and to this day swears that organic chemistry was the absolute challenge of his life! NYU doing a disservice to all students (and frankly, those student’s future patients!) in firing the Professor.
Georgian here too will vote red top to bottom for the first time this year!!! If it wasn’t for Kemp I would have no job right now.
I noticed that too, the sanctimonious attitude of democrats, even those who are classic liberals, is hard for them to suppress when it comes to people like Desantis.
For some weird reason, even apparently level headed left of center journalists like this author are afraid of Ron DeSantis.
Arguably doing the best job any governor has ever done in response to a natural disaster, the only positive comment he can muster is:
“(DeSantis) has pocketed his often provocative and occasionally irascible public persona and replaced it with the sober demeanor of a crisis manager.”
As if “the sober demeanor of a crisis manager” is simply an act rather than the appropriate response of a committed executive.
I wish our current President could muster “the sober demeanor of a crisis manager” in the face of the economic, foreign policy, and immigration disruptions we are now facing daily.
I am in a doctor's office waiting for the doctor to come in. I look up on the wall and see an NYU diploma framed. When the nurse comes in and says, "the doctor will be with you shortly", I say, "you know what, I just remembered a really important appointment I have to go to", get up a sprint out of the office, never to return.
Good one!
There was an article yesterday in Real Clear Politics about Senator Warnock’s own very sordid history. It doesn’t seem to be getting the same level of press as Walker’s. I’m not a Georgian and don’t have a (bull)dog in the fight, but it sounds like the state could’ve done better. We voters need to look beyond strict party lines when picking candidates.
The article yesterday was by Matt Vespa in Townhall.
I don't know how anyone who decries Biden's lack of mental agility can vote for Walker in good conscience. The man is literally insane and dumb as a brick.
After Trump...."good conscience" will not come into play. Wouldn't be surprised if he wins. The Evangelicals have pretty much shown themselves to full of it, too.
Re your #3, Mel - Putin might have been pretty clear about his intentions, but only to the West. He neglected to tell his incompetent military the seriousness of what he wanted to accomplish. Now their haplessness has put him in the untenable position of being outflanked by nationalists in his own inner circle - hence his pronouncements of a battlefield nuke possibility, in order to placate them and rattle NATO. But it is Putin who is clearly on the back foot, and his generals in charge in Ukraine put him there.
What are Warnock's domestic skeletons. If they're equivalent, surprised they haven't come out.
They did come out in the last election. I wouldn’t say they’re equivalent- hard to match holding a gun to your ex wife’s head- but Walker has been forthcoming and open about that incident. He has also been a public advocate for mental health awareness/treatment for the last 15 years. I don’t have a dog in this fight, like I said, it’s a crap choice, but Warnock is no angel and using $60k from your campaign funds to pay your child support should be a bigger story than it is.
There were also abuse issues at the children camp of his.
But he’s a D, abuse is expected.
Has the author seen the bridge that is now carrying heavy trucks across a temporary bridge in Florida? Whether you think DeSantis is too republican for you, the guy is getting shit done! And Biden shows up for a photo op with Jill wearing high heels. Remember when they criticized Melania for wearing heels. And now Dr Jill is doing the same. Part of me is surprised she didn't show up in wellies holding a shovel. Joe could drive the dump truck. Didn't he say he used to drive a truck?! I hope DeSantis runs and crushes Biden or any other opponent from the Dems.
The lack of smear attacks is really a testimony to how well DeSantis is doing. They have nothing on him, and they can't prevent him from looking good in the spotlight. Worst case scenario.
So true. The moronic Ds attacked DeSantis for taking time off and it turned out he was with his wife for cancer treatment. He's like the Road Runner to their insipidly idiotic attacks.
I love how he slaps down stupid questions from the press corps.
Don't worry, they will make something up to say DeSantis is demonic.
It's disturbing to see how my Democrat friends are already being trained to hate him.
I swear, the Democratic Party is nothing but hatred, deceit and list for power.
As a Floridian living in Fort Myers, I am very grateful my governor is Ron DeSantis. I can tell you this - while I think he would be a great presidential candidate (not to mention president), we don't want to lose our governor any sooner than we have to!
Nice roundup, and a good laugh or two.
I'd like to highlight how serious it is that the Democrats are releasing the country's strategic oil reserves purely for political gains in the midterms. I'm shocked something so unethical and so detrimental to the country can be legal at all. I feel like these people have no respect for the country, its infrastructure, or its people.
If you sat down and wrote a plan to destroy America from within, what would you do differently from what the democrats have been doing since Obama?
Doing this while China is slavering over Taiwan almost makes it look like they are deliberately weakening us in advance. The art of war said, do not begin a war until you have already won.
It seems like China has been manipulating leaders like Biden and Birx to destroy us from the inside.
Brilliant observation, and I think it goes farther than that,
I actually wonder this frequently. I actually find myself thinking that all these dots seem to be connected, and all the claims from the left that conservatives are 'tin foil hat wearing conspiracy theorists' are projection.
I agree. Oil is a strategic asset, can affect national security and cause a war to be won or lost. To release oil from the SPR because one political party has attacked fossil fuel is criminal. The SPR should only be released by a vote of Congress for a very limited, enumerated set of circumstance. Using the SRP to manage the price of oil, especially when the US can produce enough oil to be energy independent, is ridiculous.
And worse, for what? The US consumes 20 million barrels per day. To release 10 million is a drop in the bucket and will have a negligible impact on gas prices at best. The oil combined with dwindling weapons stockpile since we’ve been sending them all to Ukraine should have more people worried.
I’m voting a straight R ticket because of energy security among other things. Biden’s energy policies are a disaster and will leave us all, but especially those in blue states, with skyrocketing electicity bills and rolling blackouts during heatwaves.
Anthony the modern 'educated' left- about 90% of them cannot use a screwdriver, nor understand why having one would be necessary in their apartments. How do you expect them to understand infrastructure and fixing anything? Seriously, most of their life goals are stacked up to being the best foodie possible and having a cause.
I’d like to know exactly what has changed in the last 4 weeks that is driving gas prices back up so quickly. Something stinks here....
Among other things, OPEC is reducing its oil output. That's the main short-term cause.
It's not mysterious or suspicious, you just have to follow real news sources.
MSNBC dot com? That is no credential any self respecting human would display.
That was my instinctive response. I was pleasantly surprised that the author displayed more rationality and less Leftism than many of the TGIF substitutes have.
I thought his Ramadan joke was in poor taste. I’m not Muslim but I don’t mock others religion
Biden’s visit to Florida was anything but non political and dignified. There was the obligatory hair sniffing of a young woman, the fake mafia Don use of the F Word and finally the delusional pronouncement that Ian proves climate change. DeSantis to his credit didn’t bite. That was the one kernel of hope I gleaned from another abysmal week in the Biden nightmare.
Amazing that Biden declared that even after a CNN interview had a scientist declare on live broadcast that there's no evidence at all linking Ian to climate change.
Never waste a crisis!
I’m surprised Joe didn’t try to inject (intended) vaccinations into the situation the way he does pre-crisis;
“you can prepare for this nuclear holocaust by making sure you’re vaccinated,” or,
“sorry 100 died but it would have been worse without vaccines!”
He, they, are just that stupid or that’s what they think of us; stupid!
I was surprised by the remark that Ian was the deadliest hurricane since 1935. Katrina is said to have had a toll of 1800 lives
The article says it was the deadliest to make landfall in Florida. Katrina hit west of Florida.
Oh ok yeah I apparently missed that part 🙂
Katrina was category 3 hurricane. The devastation and loss of lives was so high because levees broke causing the flood. But Ian had much stronger winds, 157 mph, just short of category 5.
These people run on high octane BS and hyperbole!
Who did the 'Nobody fuck with a Biden' actually resonate with? It was past cringeworthy and right to sad.
Hunter?:-) Actually it seemed like the "Joe The Tough Guy; Take Em Behind The Gym" braggadocio that his followers lap up.
I wished that guy at the rally would have taken Joe up on his pushup contest.
Joe: 'Okay, One, two, seven, B twelvteen, TWENTY..Take that ya Fuck!'
One of the things I enjoy the most about Nellie’s TGIF is her superb sense of humor. I don’t expect other contributors to parrot her style slavishly, but the absence of a sharp wit is noticeable. This week’s effort by Rothman is sparse, and omits a glaring, fire-bell-ringing campaign by the FBI/DOJ to harass, intimidate and terrorize pro-life advocates and their families with wholly unnecessary, gun-toting raids on their homes. Perhaps the irony will not be lost on my fellow readers that the people cheering on these repressive tactics are the same ones wanting to abolish guns for ordinary people and send therapists instead of police to deal with criminals.
The FBI must go. The CIA must go. The security state is a clear and present danger to our country
CDC, Dept of Ed, Dept of Energy. All are unconstitutional and harmful to your health.
and go back to the original name for the Dept of Defense
War Department - no ambiguity
Yeah and Common Sense won't touch "she was twelve I was thirty" with a thirty-foot pole. We're just going to memory-hole that immediately, lest we head down the Path of Q
I feel like a dolt: I don’t know what that means.
It was a random comment Biden made when he went off script.
What a coincidence that the foreign policy scene seems to be deteriorating at the same time that the President is looking for dead people in the audience at an event.
Common man, Sleepy Joe has stutter that manifests, by him forgetting where he is, shaking hands with ghosts and greeting dead people in audience. Anyone who thinks differently is racist and maga Trump supporter and I almost forgot, also hates immigrants :D
In two years Biden has brought us to the precipice of a nuclear war. You have to give him credit for that.
You can’t vote in person if there is too much radiation in the atmosphere.
Funny!!
Yes, but we can vote by mail though.
Don't worry, Putin is bound to start taking Biden's stern warnings seriously any day now!
And Biden cut the Nord Stream pipeline, just as he promised. And he lies about that every day, sending us one step closer to nuclear war.
https://www.newsweek.com/video-biden-saying-end-nord-stream-resurfaces-after-pipeline-leak-1747005
What would a conversation between a Senator Fetterman and President Biden sound like? I’m supposed to worry about Walker?
Comment of the morning! 100 likes!
Absolutely. Walker is at the absolute bottom of my list of worries right now.
Biden: hey John - your commercials are full of Republican talking points, better shape up and carry the Democrat socialist tenants or else.
Fetterman: sure Joe, now that I have been elected, I’ll switch my rhetoric back to what’s in my heart.
It wouldn't be as funny as the interaction between the Saudis and Biden. Biden bent over like a lovelorn goat to get OPEC to increase oil production and the Arab response was “Let’s go Brandon”. Given Boden’s unnatural proclivities, I’m not sure which was more hurtful to him, the fact that OPEC reduced oil production or he didn’t receive the traditional goat herder response.
This is awful and so so slanted. Ugh. Most Floridians luuuuv DeSantis. A threat to you, Noah?
No, this is a basically balanced piece, far from "awful", and the kind of unbiased writing we were promised since Common Sense launched. Since then we have been bombarded with right wing propaganda, a betrayal of the promise Bari Weiss made, and the ultra right readership it has attracted sadly proves it. Hopefully this is a sign that we will see more Rothmans (slightly left, but fair) and McWhorters (slightly right, but fair) that we were promised.
Right Wing propaganda?
What on earth are you talking about?
Please name 3 articles here that are right wing propaganda. I must have missed them and would like to get some right wing propaganda for a change of pace.
Anything anti-CRT or anti-gender ideology is RW propaganda by today's standards.
I agree, this was the least biased TGIF we’ve gotten in Nellie’s absence.
U are confusing the writers..centrists and center right, center left w the comments, new Righter rebel critics usually without a clue
McWhorter is on the left according to his repeated statements.
Yes, we do!
Yes, no matter the voter registration, we love our governor in Florida!
Where did u get that? Noah is a big fan of Desantis.
Disagree completely. On the Commentary podcast last week, he mentioned that the hurricane would be the first time DeSantis could show he was a serious politician and not just a culture warrior against superficial issues. He somehow managed to ignore that we all became aware of DeSantis due to his brave and sane Covid policies.
By the way, Commentary is roasting Bari at their annual fundraiser this year. This could explain why Rothman was selected to be Nellie’s replacement this week.
I listen. U are right on that but he has made multiple pro Desantis comments before that over the last few years. Those guys are praying for anybody but Trump so that normal republicans can win
Organic chemistry is the hardest course I took in college, harder than Physical Chemistry and Calculus. It requires an ability to see complex molecules in your mind in 3D and to rotate them along axes. I took it in the 70s, and I bet there are all kinds of apps that help with that now. Still, it requires serious study and dedication, hours in the TA’s office and study sessions. Blaming your failure on the prof is ridiculous. This is a course you teach yourself.
I’d like to know the demographics of the 82 who signed the petition as opposed to the 268 who didn’t. I have my suspicions.
I'm inclined to see the protesting students as white guilt Woke kids speaking on behalf of their struggling classmates. These kids are so ignorant they've never heard of a "wash-out" class.
Cool to see actual racism in the comments 😑
I like Charles C.W. Cooke’s take on this. Paraphrasing: “This is not a liberal arts course, where you can argue or bluff your way through. Organic chemistry is as hard as it is! If you can’t pass the prerequisites, you have no business staying in the program!”
I was suffering from a bad case of mono ( I should have taken a leave but was too stubborn) the semester I took Organic chemistry. I definitely had some struggles. I don't remember blaming the teacher though....
I had a Macro Economics course in the 70s, taught by JFKs former economic advisor, Gardner Ackley, that was the closest thing to a nightmare in all of my experience. I got a D, and was surprise later in the summer when I got a notice (as did two of my friends) that it had been adjusted up a grade and a half.
Not sure what caused it, but Ackley was also an old 'genius' who wasn't teaching because he was good at it, but because the University wanted him on the faculty.
I know that's a different narrative than 'it's the students and Universities fault for their response to the pandemic' but sometimes the teachers really do suck.
I was really smart kid. I took calculus at the college as a sophomore in high school. I took a methods of proof class once I was actually in college with a terrible teacher who I could hardly understand (thick accent, talked into the board, couldn't read his writing). I got a zero on the midterm and changed my grading to incomplete/complete instead of A-F, which the university allowed for maybe 8 credits in your college career.
I look back on that and think, yeah, I could have done better with a different teacher, but you know what else, I sure as shit didn't know the material and that's what matters. The teacher is but one resource to learn. By the time you are in college (at minimum) it is the student's responsibility to learn, not the teacher's. I learned that lesson that quarter and it served me well later in my college career and after that.
People seem to think college needs to be an extension of high school in the way students are babied. It doesn't, in fact it shouldn't.
Organic chemistry has always been the course that weeded out those with higher education aspirations who should continue, and those who should not. You can't get through med school without O chem - I know this for a fact. Do you really want someone prescribing organic chemicals to you who can't pass organic chemistry? Brace yourself, they are coming.
Oh yes, I know, because organic chemistry is racist.
P-Chem was harder than O-Chem IMO. Calculus? Meh. But linear algebra went right over my head.
O-chem always seemed like just memorization to me. P-chem had rules and math, that was way easier to learn for me.
Two things I remember most from my P-Chem class (in the early 1980s).
An exam question in which we were asked to determine how many coffee molecules escape through the sides of a ceramic mug (which likely varied with temperature of the coffee as it cooled off).
The inside of the men's room stall door was immaculate, except someone had scratched: "Heisenberg may have sat here"
Nerd humor is definitely the best humor.
I loved those p-chem/quantum mechanics questions. I remember doing the what's the chance the basketball tunnels out of the bottom of a swimming pool. I also liked my stellar evolution class were we figured out things like how long it takes a photon to escape a star or figured out if condensing gas cloud could ignite a fusion reaction. The higher I got with all that though, the more I realized math got really weird and the stuff left to figure out seemed both very, very hard and not particularly useful. I did a brief stint in a high powered lab that was making detectors for the Large Hadron Collider and testing them, wow did all the grad students and postdocs hate their lives. So, somehow I became a biologist....
"So, somehow I became a biologist...."
By any chance, a Marine Biologist?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oHRucRyLCms
Lol, no. That show still cracks me up though. George was the best one too.
It was my hardest as well.
Also from the 70s... picked a bio field that didn't require it because I knew it would be too hard (organic chemistry).
God, when do we Nellie back?
It cannot be soon enough.
“Not since Sarah Palin rapped in a cotton-candy-colored bear costume have we been forced to witness such a cringe-inducing spectacle.” Actually, every time Biden puts his hand out to shake when no one’s there, I cringe. And when he panders to every single audience, most recently saying he was raised by Puerto Ricans, I cringe. And when he spoke about little kids rubbing his leg hair in a swimming pool, and looking at his watch as the caskets came off the plane, and his daughter saying he took showers with her, and when he said Hunter was the smartest person he knew. Yeah, lots of cringe to go around.
And you just hit the tip of the iceberg when it comes to cringe moments! Let me add the time the Easter Bunny ran interference when Joe Biden was talking nonsense to the press.
Can the author only criticize the left? He dedicated a full section to pointing out Biden and Harris gaffes and ineptitude, but this one off handed comment about an undeniably cringe and out-of-touch moment in a failed republican politician triggers you? ❄
I honestly don't understand the snark against DeSantis.
Americans are crying out for competent leadership, and whether you want to like him or not the Florida governor is the very definition of that (did you happen to notice the bridge built in three days?)
But people who spend their time writing for MSN can't seem to grasp that point. Sad.
He has an R next to his name
Exactly. DeSantis is the antichrist to the left.
Newsome lets the state burn, people die, while towns are eliminated to cinders, and he’s praised because he’s a democrat. Can’t mKe that stuff up.
Thank you for this week's offering. Hopefully Nellie is enjoying her maternity leave.
This is my view from the UK
This is Northumberland Calling 7 October 2022
This was the week that the Warren Zevon song ‘Send Lawyers, Guns and Money’ seemed to be playing for scandal hit supposedly trans-children supporting charity which is beloved of some many celebrities and institutions Mermaids.
After last week’s revelations about sending chest binders to all who asked and highlighting Discord as an appropriate place for vulnerable children to chat, it was revealed Mermaids’ trustee was paedophile apologist. Once reported in the Times, he duly resigned. Mermaids claimed not to know about it, even though he spoke at a high profile conference in 2011 and his latest book has a chapter on queering (ie removing boundaries) in children’s sexuality. . https://unherd.com/2022/10/mermaids-is-endangering-children/
The National Lottery which funds a great deal of charity in the UK has paused all money to Mermaids while the investigation is on-going. This is a huge blow to the scandal hit charity. https://archive.ph/OnaiB
On Thursday afternoon, Mermaids pulled its helpline. One of the things they recently put up was something called MANGO (Mermaids Activist Network Group Online) with references to people being creamy and spicy etc. It sounds dodgy because of the Citrus Scale – something which was used to get around censors on Tumblr where fruit became euphemisms for various sexual acts..
ON Friday morning the Telegraph’s leader was entitled ‘We must learn for the Mermaids’ fiasco’ https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/07/must-learn-mermaids-fiasco/
JK Rowling told prominent activist that she wants Mermaids to sue her and her name would be the first on any petition. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11283915/JK-Rowling-takes-thinly-veiled-swipe-Emma-Watson-backing-trans-charity-Mermaid.html?ito=amp_twitter_share-top
JK Rowling has also come out swinging towards the celebrities who supported the scandal rocked charity. Nicola Sturgeon is the first minister of Scotland and claims to be a feminist to her fingertips. She supports self-id. Rowling does not. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/jk-rowling-t-shirt-calls-nicola-sturgeon-destroyer-of-womens-rights-r2nskrcx5/
This article is also good on the need to protect children from abusers. https://thecritic.co.uk/It-is-not-reactionary-to-protect-children/
The Globe has had to delete its Creative Response page to I Joan (the play where Joan of Arc is portrayed as non binary). One of the poems with its violent imagery was very degrogatory towards women in general and Gender Critical women in particular. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/06/shakespeares-globe-rushes-delete-derogatory-poem-transphobic/
The Telegraph is reporting that literacy rates have fallen in primary school aged children due to the lockdown. Unsurprisingly, the poorest children have been hit the hardest. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/06/lockdown-left-children-lowest-literacy-levels-almost-decade/
The UK rate of 75% being able to read at grade level aged 8 is nowhere near as bad as the 2% rate for Black children in Decateur IL where teachers were given 100% marks for excellence by the school administration. https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/us-teachers-given-top-marks-pupils-struggle-illinois-262r62pwk
In political news:
The Conservatives are very weak in the polling at the moment because the markets did not like Kwarteng’s mini-budget and interest rates will be going up ( causing huge problems for people whose fixed rate mortgages are ending and potentially crashing the over-heated property market). However, they do not need to hold an election until December 2024 and a couple of years can be a long time in politics. It was their conference this week. Suella Braverman had a good showing as did Kemi Badenoch. They are now the rising stars. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2022/10/05/liz-truss-has-right-vision-uk-not-enough/
Braverman wants to stem the flow of illegal immigration and is resisting a trade agreement with India which would visas being relaxed. Badenoch also says that she would resist such a plan. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics/2022/10/05/suella-braverman-says-will-resist-open-borders-migration-plan/
The big news this morning is that Britain needs to be prepared for rolling blackouts this winter as basically Britain failed to invest sufficiently in infrastructure, starting back in the late 1990’s. It takes a long time to bring a power plant on stream and nobody considered that Russia would go to war with Ukraine. Apparently it has been discussed that people might be paid £10 to use their washing machines in the depths of the night. ‘Wash your grundies at midnight’ was how one tabloid put it this morning.
My MP the former pensions minister Guy Opperman suggest the government should follow some of the things that France, Germany Spain etc are doing to save energy. This include:
- no public buildings warmer than 19C (France)
- turn off overnight lighting of buildings / ads etc (Spain and Germany have said lights out by 10 pm for shop windows etc)
- turn off hot water for hand washing / public spaces (Germany)
The dollar continues to be strong against the pound and the euro so now is an excellent time to visit Europe in general. It is a chance to get some bargains and apparently the American tourists have started flocking over. The Telegraph has given a primer on what to expect from the average American tourist. Sometimes you can not make up people’s perceptions. https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/europe/united-kingdom/truth-american-tourists-why-see-lot-year/
And news just in -- Julie Bindel has won her action against Nottingham City Council. They have accepted that they acted unlawfully in cancelling the talk she was due to give on the prevention of rape and domestic abuse. The reason given for the cancellation was her views on transgender issues. Nottingham City Council are now paying Julie Bindel reasonable costs as well as compensating the ticket holders. YOu can read the full story here: https://juliebindel.substack.com/p/i-won-my-case-against-nottingham
As a Yank, I am somewhat mystified by the "city councils", mainly by their power and intrusiveness into daily life in England, in the UK. We've got county councils, city council, in these parts, but they generally stick to things like assuring snow removal, fixing roads, passing stupid resolutions of no consequence. The councils in England seem - to me only perhaps - like elected busybodies.
Mostly that is what they are supposed to do. However sometimes they don't.
But they do things like social work which in the UK is more extensive. And then there is social housing etc.
Sometimes no one will stand for election and people get co-oped -- it is often these people who can cause the biggest problems.
Some councils are notorious for certain points of view -- People's Republic of Sheffield for example. Liverpool under Derek Hatton. And Newcastle was famously corrupt under T Dan Smith.
Michelle - thanks for the British update. The mermaids situation is horrific indeed. I followed thru the Glinner Substack for a few months. But it is truly such an insane situation that the Substack would explode my skull. Shame on virtue signaling celebs like Emma Watson, who absent a genuine apology will always be stained in my mind.
Don’t worry about American tourists - not sure what the Telegraph sez - it’s paywalled and I dropped my subscription a couple months ago when I weeded my monthly subscriptions a bit. But the coming recession here is going to slow spending (save the rich-enough-to-be-immune-to -price set). The rest will hunker down to afford heat, food, and a couple gallons of gas.
The Telegraph article made me roll my eyes -- the usual guff about American tourists and what they like -- as if you can stereotype anyone, let alone a country as diverse as America. Sometimes it can be easy to forget that other countries do have a stereotype of your country. The number of bad American accents I have endured over the years by people thinking they were being amusing...
Over here various companies are giving 'cost of living' pay increases mid cycle for pay.
The Mermaids thing is totally insane. Graham Lineham was right years ago when he was lambasted on Newsnight.
It is totally insane but I understand a number of councils (think county boards) have been deleting references to the group. The National Lottery told them when they agreed to accept the cash that they did need to pay particular attention to safeguarding of all employees, volunteers and trustees. It would appear that they merely gave lip service.
Michelle, thank you for advocating for the children who have been abused by Mermaids and their celebrity supporters of child disfigurement. I have found the trans accelerated political movement the most disgusting progressive stunt/crime ever. The destruction of precious lives with no consequence is beyond horrendous. It is institutionalized child abuse. The harm it has done to trans people who have patiently and thoughtfully chose their treatment are also flushed down the toilet by the ultra-progressive insanity. If you are looking for something good and compassionate to get destroyed- just call a progressive. Again, thank you!
Maybe someone should write another ‘While England Slept’ but in regard to energy. Thanks for updates, Michelle.
Indeed. It is a huge collective failure on the part of successive British governments. I would note that the Conservatives have been in for 12 years...
Yes and Boris seemed particularly obtuse on this point with his ‘zero’ something policy.
Totally agree. Sometimes though I think it was Mrs Johnson's policy as Boris was too busy with his colouring in books.
From: https://t.me/drawandstrikechannel
Wrote this back in July.
Some people need to either read it again or read it for the first time:
https://briancates.substack.com/p/elon-musk-closes-the-trap-on-twitter
From: https://t.me/CognitiveCarbonPublic
The state of things:
1. Elon to Twitter: "I bought stock in Twitter."
2. {Yawn, both eyes closed}
3. "I bought a lot."
4. {one eye opens}
5. "I bought enough to be a board member"
6. (Twitter, alarmed) "You can't!"
7. Elon: "I want to buy the whole company"
8. Twitter: "you CAN'T!!!"
9. Elon: here's my bid
10. Twitter: We hate it
11. Twitter shareholders: We like it
12. Twitter: OK fine
13. Elon: Too many bots. I'm out.
14. Twitter: You can't not buy us!
15. Elon: sue me
16. Twitter: OK
17. Twitter: you MUST buy us
18. Elon: No
19. Twitter: We insist
20. Elon: OK
21. Twitter: "You can't buy us!"