On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 01:38:18 -0400, Rich Ulrich wrote:

> On the other hand, aiming for too much 'balance' is the criticism
> embodied in "both-hand-ism"-- On the one hand/ On the other
> hand -- when applied to news coverage of issues that don't
> have two sides that deserve equal attention.

You brought up good points on how to define balance, with all the foibles
that such a determination will entail...

But in my defense of my observation that I'm "balanced", a big part of what
I mean is my own personal platform, I ascertain, is "balanced" in that I
strive to avoid self-inconsistent belief systems.

An example is that I do NOT hold to the Democrat policy that:
a. Killing unborn babies is perfectly fine (it's called "choice")
b. Killing people with guns must be banned by banning guns (no choice)
c. People should have no choice in whether they want a novel vaccine or not
d. Enacting nanny laws which are themselves self inconsistent
(e.g., bike helmets required for kids but not for adults)
(also helmets for bikers but not for cagers, which again is no choice)
etc.

Nor do I subscribe to the equally self-inconsisten Republican policies on
all three issues above - where the Republicans are the opposite.

My believe system I would characterize as self consistent.
A. Capital punishment for unborn babies is good for society
B. Gun ownership is in the 2nd amendment for very good reasons
C. Vaccines exist - but it's your choice whether or not to get them
(particularly novel vaccines which have no long-term studies)
D. Nanny laws I think remove choice & interject capricious enforcement
(where the danger is capricious enforcement leads to its own issues)
(and where sensible people will wear a helmet when it makes sense)
etc.

Notice I'm at least self consistent and all for choice and good sense.

Peter Moylan wrote:

> On 27/04/24 15:38, Rich Ulrich wrote:

>> The Right Wing Nut Job who points to Main Stream Media as 'fake news'
>> is usually, himself, a flat liar, evading discussion. Trump has shown
>> them a formula for dismissing experts.

> Now and then I have considered the possibility that Trump is not a liar.
> I maintain, in fact, that such a decision is not as clear-cut as most
> people think.

> I've noticed that some narcissistic people can make up a story that's
> favourable to their own position, and then -- as far as I can tell --
> end up believing their own lies. Except that technically they're not
> lies, because they're backed up by genuine, non-faked, belief.

> I concede that I'm extrapolating from a minuscule sample, which one
> shouldn't do. Still, there is at least some possibility that Trump
> genuinely believes his claims.

> If so, this could get him past some of his current legal problems. He
> can just plead "not guilty" by reason of insanity.

I've at least thought that would be a good answer. "Trump really
believes the election was stolen." "Is that an insanity defense?"

> But of course he
> won't, because such people have an unshakeable belief in their own
> sanity. It's all the other people who are out of step.

Not "all", in this case.

I believe that in this country, it's the defendant's lawyer who
can argue that the defendant isn't competent to stand trial and
enter a plea of insanity.

(Thread convergence: Mark David Chapman, despite obvious mental
problems, was found competent to stand trial for killing John Lennon.)

--
Jerry Friedman

On 25/04/2024 08:24, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
> Aided by the long-term suicide of the Labour Party. As they drive more
> and more people away it seems almost inevitable that yoi will get five
> more yeas of Tory government.

I'll take that wager with you. After four Tory Prime ministers (and
three-and-a-half disasters) since Brexit, I'll wager good money that the
Tories will not rule again for quite a while.

On 2024-04-27 15:56:43 +0000, occam said:

> On 25/04/2024 08:24, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>> Aided by the long-term suicide of the Labour Party. As they drive more
>> and more people away it seems almost inevitable that yoi will get five
>> more yeas of Tory government.
>
> I'll take that wager with you. After four Tory Prime ministers (and
> three-and-a-half disasters) since Brexit, I'll wager good money that the
> Tories will not rule again for quite a while.

Well, I hope you're right.

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

On 2024-04-27 15:56:43 +0000, occam said:

> On 25/04/2024 08:24, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>> Aided by the long-term suicide of the Labour Party. As they drive more
>> and more people away it seems almost inevitable that yoi will get five
>> more yeas of Tory government.

Why is it that my typos leap out at the eye when my posts are quoted,
but escape notice during proofreading?
>
> I'll take that wager with you. After four Tory Prime ministers (and
> three-and-a-half disasters) since Brexit, I'll wager good money that the
> Tories will not rule again for quite a while.

--
Athel -- French and British, living in Marseilles for 37 years; mainly
in England until 1987.

On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 14:50:13 +1000, Peter Moylan
<peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>On 27/04/24 14:26, Tony Cooper wrote:
>> On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 09:29:03 +1000, Peter Moylan
>> <peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>>
>>> On 27/04/24 04:14, Kerr-Mudd, John wrote:
>>>> On Thu, 25 Apr 2024 17:03:01 -0600 Ken Blake <Ken@OneOfMany.com>
>>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>>> However, as any logical and rational person would, I'm
>>>>> perfectly willing to entertain anyone who shows a reliable cite
>>>>> showing that MSNBC is NOT left and/or that FOX is NOT right -
>>>>> but until that happens, it's simply a fact.
>>>>
>>>> Compared with Europe both US parties are pretty right-wing.
>>>
>>> Heh. I got my first exposure to CNN while channel-surfing in
>>> Belgium. It was so radically different from all the European TV
>>> stations that at first I thought it was a propaganda arm of the US
>>> government. Eventually I discovered that the US government wasn't
>>> running it, and it was just one more extreme-right commercial
>>> channel.
>>
>> CNN an "extreme-right" channel? Most Americans would rank CNN as
>> the most left-leaning channel with MSNBC and NPR following.
>>
>> This site https://www.allsides.com/news-source/cnn-media-bias puts
>> CNN moving from "Center" to "Leans Left" and "Left" in the period of
>> 2016 to 2023. I would put it as a dark blue "Left" in 2024.
>>
>> CNN is the primary channel I watch for news. I'm on the left in
>> most (but not all) issues, and I sometimes think that CNN is a bit
>> too leftish.
>
>It depends on what you're comparing with. Yes, CNN isn't right-leaning
>by US standards, but it is if you're comparing it with European TV.
>
>The right wing of Australian politics is roughly comparable with the
>left wing of US politics. Biden and Trump couldn't be elected here,
>because the parties they would fit into are the extreme ones that get
>hardly any votes.

To me, the determination of "Left" or "Right" is made by which
commentators appear regularly and who is used in the panel
discussions.

News items presented on CNN are the same news items that are presented
on Fox News. They are, in my opinion, presented with minimal bias on
both channels.

The commentators (Jake Tapper and Erin Burnett, for example) on CNN do
- in my opinion - come across as very leftish and flavor their
comments. The discussion panels are usually made up of very leftish
members with the exception of Scott Jennings as the token
ultra-conservative.

Scott Jennings is a conservative Republican and former G.W. Bush
operative (Special Assistant to the President, Deputy Director of
Political Affairs).

On 27-Apr-24 12:27, Ken Blake wrote:
> On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 02:03:58 -0400, Rich Ulrich wrote:
>
>> Republicans are collapsing into a Trump cult, where
>> Winning Is Everything. Trump cares very little about policies,
>> and his wide ignorance reflects that.
>
> Just some friendly advice from a centrist...
>
> While you'll never see me defending Trump, to say "Republicans are
> collapsing into a Trump cult" ignores that Republicans have existed before
> Trump was born, and Republicans will exist well after he has faded away.

Sure, but in the present day the quondam Republican party has been
changed into a body which exists to further Trump's aims (and pay his
legal bills). Have you noticed the surname of the (co) chair of the
National Committee?
>
> Just as Democrats existed before Biden was born [although maybe it will be
> close based on his age. :) and Democrats will still exist well after Biden
> fades away - which may be sooner than we think as Kamala will perhaps
> become the next president de-jure just as Truman did.]
>
> If we remove Trump from your argument, it makes sense.
> The argument is diluted (IMHO) when you insert a flash in the pan Trump.

--
Sam Plusnet

On 27-Apr-24 11:45, Peter Moylan wrote:
> On 27/04/24 16:15, Rich Ulrich wrote:
>> On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 00:55:32 +0300, Phil Carmody <pc+usenet@asdf.org>
>> wrote:
>>
>>> Ken Blake <Ken@OneOfMany.com> writes:
>>>> In addition, left wingers tend to exclusively watch MSNBC all day,
>>>
>>> Hell, no. That's the stupid demographic. Madcow stupid.
>>>
>>
>> Cable news viewers tend to be old enough that "all day"
>> might not exaggerate.
>>
>>     CNN continues to have the youngest audience among cable news
>>     networks with a Total Day median age of 67 years, -3 years younger
>>     than MSNBC (70) and Fox News (70) in January. TV Source: The
>>     Nielsen Company. January 2024 (1/1/24-1/28/24).
>
> That's older than I expected. There must have been a time when the
> median TV-watching age was in the twenties. These days, I guess, young
> people no longer read news, they read opinions.

When CNN first started I'm sure their demographic was much younger.

Given that the median values above all fall within a 3 year range, I
think any differences are probably within the margin of error.

P.S. What's a "Total Day median"? Does anyone watch this stuff for
more than an hour??
(Other than the sleeping residents of some Care Home, where the TV stays
on permanently - maybe that's what ramps up the median.)

--
Sam Plusnet

On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 05:12:50 -0600, Ken Blake <Ken@OneOfMany.com>
wrote:

>On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 00:27:10 -0400, Tony Cooper wrote:
>
>>>>> To illustrate that odd-sounding statement, the Democrats will let pretty
>>>>> much every immigrant vote,
>>>>
>>>> I'm sure people on the right wing would agree with that, but is there
>>>> reliable evidence that it is true to any significant degree?
>>>
>>>I don't do the research but a friend showed me a half dozen ballots, each
>>>with his address, but to made up names, which he's allowed to vote using
>>>the mail-in ballot process which makes it very easy to vote multiple times.
>>
>> "Allowed"? How can you be "allowed" to break a law? You *can* break
>> any law, but you are not "allowed" to do so.
>
>That's the whole point!
>
>The "allowed" part is the entirety of the argument that I was making.

You are evidently referring to the form the person uses in requesting
a mail-in ballot. This is sent to the Supervisor of Elections office
(or whatever the local authority is), and ballot is sent to the person
making the request if the person requesting it is a registered voter.

Evidently, you know someone who is willing to break the law and
fraudulently request a mail-in ballot using a false name. In Florida,
the application must be accompanied by a copy of the person's driver's
license, a Florida identification card, or the last four digits of the
person's social security number. The S of E office then verifies the
application and sends out a mail-in ballot.

The system may differ in each state, but in Florida each county (67
in Florida) has a Supervisor of Elections office. Verification is
local, not state-wide, and the information submitted is checked
against the voter's register. If a false name is used, the request
would be denied because the name is not on the voter's register. To
cast a vote, the person must a registered voter.

Personally, I call "Bullshit!" on your claim that obtaining multiple
mail-in ballots is possible in any state - Red or Blue - but there
might be a few Supervisor of Elections offices where the verification
process is sloppy.

There are many people who are on the voter's register in more than one
county. People move and re-register at a different address, and the
registers are not purged in the previous county.
with my own eyes.

On 27/04/24 04:28, Ken Blake wrote:

> To illustrate that odd-sounding statement, the Democrats will let
> pretty much every immigrant vote, and the Democrats will extend the
> hours of voting, and the Democrats will add to almost every
> government form the option to register to vote and the Democrats
> will make voting so easy you can easily obtain a dozen ballots simply
> by changing the name on them, etc.

If true, your problem seems to be that you don't have a national
register of people eligible to vote. If you leave the job to the states,
you run the risk of having different rules in different states. And,
more importantly, different levels of enforcement, with some states
getting sloppy about checking. We've already heard that Florida is bad
that way.

If I moved to another state, the change of address would be processed at
federal level, not at state level.

I can't see any way of registering a non-existent person to vote without
going the extra step of creating things like fake driver's iicences or
passports.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

* Athel Cornish-Bowden <l94lqkFosrmU1@mid.individual.net> :
Wrote on Sat, 27 Apr 2024 18:01:51 +0200:

> Why is it that my typos leap out at the eye when my posts are quoted,
> but escape notice during proofreading?

Gave up proofreading. "My typos are my signature"

On 28/04/24 04:43, Tony Cooper wrote:

> To me, the determination of "Left" or "Right" is made by which
> commentators appear regularly and who is used in the panel
> discussions.

Here's an interesting article on the differences between German
conservative parties and American conservatives. By US standards, the
German conservatives (which are not so different from conservatives in
other European countries) sit on the far left on many issues.

https://www.politicalcompass.org/counterpoint-20211001-german-election

The article is taken from "The Political Compass", which over the years
has been consistent in its classification of political parties as left
or right, authoritarian or libertarian. It's interesting to compare the
graphs for parties in different countries, and also how those parties
have changed position over the years.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 20:50:18 +0100, Sam Plusnet <not@home.com> wrote:

>On 27-Apr-24 11:45, Peter Moylan wrote:
>> On 27/04/24 16:15, Rich Ulrich wrote:
>>> On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 00:55:32 +0300, Phil Carmody <pc+usenet@asdf.org>
>>> wrote:
>>>
>>>> Ken Blake <Ken@OneOfMany.com> writes:
>>>>> In addition, left wingers tend to exclusively watch MSNBC all day,
>>>>
>>>> Hell, no. That's the stupid demographic. Madcow stupid.
>>>>
>>>
>>> Cable news viewers tend to be old enough that "all day"
>>> might not exaggerate.
>>>
>>>     CNN continues to have the youngest audience among cable news
>>>     networks with a Total Day median age of 67 years, -3 years younger
>>>     than MSNBC (70) and Fox News (70) in January. TV Source: The
>>>     Nielsen Company. January 2024 (1/1/24-1/28/24).
>>
>> That's older than I expected. There must have been a time when the
>> median TV-watching age was in the twenties. These days, I guess, young
>> people no longer read news, they read opinions.
>
>When CNN first started I'm sure their demographic was much younger.
>
>Given that the median values above all fall within a 3 year range, I
>think any differences are probably within the margin of error.

I think you are right about the error range. Google showed me
another source with slightly different numbers. I figured Nielsen
probably had a relatively huge N.

>
>P.S. What's a "Total Day median"? Does anyone watch this stuff for
>more than an hour??
>(Other than the sleeping residents of some Care Home, where the TV stays
>on permanently - maybe that's what ramps up the median.)

I assume that Total Day median points to which chart is
relevant in the original report. The Nielsen Company is famous,
going back decades, for reports on home viewership. I think
they once relied on diaries, now, on home-installed devices.
"Nielsen families" got paid. But I didn't look this up.

--
Rich Ulrich

On 28/04/24 02:01, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:

> Why is it that my typos leap out at the eye when my posts are quoted,
> but escape notice during proofreading?

It happens to all of us, I think. At least, I'm in the same boat.

If I write something that's important, e.g. a technical paper, I print
it out for proof-reading. I've found that proof-reading on screen misses
a lot of faults. Something to do with radiant versus reflected light.
Long ago I saw a study that showed that people forgot a lot of what they
saw on TV, remembering the emotional content but not the factual
content. This makes TV a good medium for advertising and political
lies, but useless for things like education.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On Sun, 28 Apr 2024 11:08:54 +1000, Peter Moylan
<peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>On 27/04/24 04:28, Ken Blake wrote:
>
>> To illustrate that odd-sounding statement, the Democrats will let
>> pretty much every immigrant vote, and the Democrats will extend the
>> hours of voting, and the Democrats will add to almost every
>> government form the option to register to vote and the Democrats
>> will make voting so easy you can easily obtain a dozen ballots simply
>> by changing the name on them, etc.
>
>If true, your problem seems to be that you don't have a national
>register of people eligible to vote.

No, we don't. Not even a state register. It's done by county, parish
(Louisiana), or borough (Alaska).

A person registers to vote in a county, parish, or borough. If the
person changes address, the person must re-register as a resident of
that new address.

>If you leave the job to the states,
>you run the risk of having different rules in different states.

No, the "rules" aren't that different. The biggest problem is that
the voter registration list is not updated if the person re-registers
in a different county, borough, or parish so the name continues to be
on the list of the previous unit.

The one rule difference that creates problems where a person is a
convicted felon. That person loses the right to vote, but the right
can be restored. What is required changes from state to state. Also,
if the convicted felon moves to a different state, there is no federal
list (there are some state and multi-state lists, but no comprehensive
national list), so the person can register in a different state that
doesn't know the person is a convicted felon.

There have been quite a few instances in Florida where a convicted
felon who had served their full time, thought they were then eligible
to vote, but were arrested because they voted without having had their
rights restored by the legal process required. In some cases, the
person would have been eligible in the state where the conviction
occured, but not in the state where the person now lives.

>And, more importantly, different levels of enforcement, with some states getting sloppy about checking. We've already heard that Florida is bad that way.
>

I don't know where you get that. Florida is known for being *too*
aggressive in keeping people from being eligible to vote. Also, keep
in mind that the State of Florida doesn't check any registration.
That's the responsibility of each of the 67 county Supervisor of
Elections offices.

After the 2020 election, Gov DeSantis created a new "Election Crimes
and Security Office" with a task force to root out election fraud. In
2022, they managed to charge 20 people for fraudulently registering
and voting. Most of those cases were later dismissed because the
county Election Supervisor office had sent them voter cards.

>If I moved to another state, the change of address would be processed at
>federal level, not at state level.
>
>I can't see any way of registering a non-existent person to vote without
>going the extra step of creating things like fake driver's iicences or
>passports.

I think Ken's been spoofed. Maybe someone photoshopped some fake
ballots. Ken seems the type to readily buy on to something he wants
to believe is true.

On 28/04/24 14:20, Tony Cooper wrote:

> The one rule difference that creates problems where a person is a
> convicted felon. That person loses the right to vote, but the right
> can be restored. What is required changes from state to state. Also,
> if the convicted felon moves to a different state, there is no federal
> list (there are some state and multi-state lists, but no comprehensive
> national list), so the person can register in a different state that
> doesn't know the person is a convicted felon.

Can a convicted felon run for President?

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On Sun, 28 Apr 2024 15:17:40 +1000, Peter Moylan
<peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>On 28/04/24 14:20, Tony Cooper wrote:
>
>> The one rule difference that creates problems where a person is a
>> convicted felon. That person loses the right to vote, but the right
>> can be restored. What is required changes from state to state. Also,
>> if the convicted felon moves to a different state, there is no federal
>> list (there are some state and multi-state lists, but no comprehensive
>> national list), so the person can register in a different state that
>> doesn't know the person is a convicted felon.
>
>Can a convicted felon run for President?

You may have intended that as a joke, but the answer is "Yes". There
is nothing in the Constitution that prohibits it. The only
requirements are to be at least 35 years old, be a natural-born
citizen of the United States, and to have been a resident of the
country for at least 14 years. No constitutional bar for anything.

Eugene V. Debs was the Socialist party's nominee for President on the
ballot in 1920. He was in prison at the time after being convicted of
sedition as a result of his anti-war, anti-draft speeches.

On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 16:46:54 +1000, Peter Moylan
<peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>On 27/04/24 15:38, Rich Ulrich wrote:
>
>> The Right Wing Nut Job who points to Main Stream Media as 'fake news'
>> is usually, himself, a flat liar, evading discussion. Trump has shown
>> them a formula for dismissing experts.
>
>Now and then I have considered the possibility that Trump is not a liar.
>I maintain, in fact, that such a decision is not as clear-cut as most
>people think.

Oh, it is cut-and-dried that he is a brazen liar -- on some things.
Translating an app named BleachBit to Hillary pouring bleach on
her server was a prime example. And he campaigned onthe false
report that Hillary faced indictment by New York. The report was
made on Fox on Friday evening before the election and withdrawn
a few hours later. Trump campaigned on it through election eve.
I saw the video when a reporter asked if he regreted running on
the false news, and he said, "I won, didn't I? Why should I regret
anything?"

I spent a couple of years kicking around how to take into account
his psychiatric conditions of sociopathy and narcissism (with some
autistic features). Other people seem to agree with my own
perception, that he does not CARE if something he says is true.

I've added to that a version of "poor memory." I'm thinking of
state-dependent memory and context-dependent memory. He
might come back to it later, but what he learns or says at one
time can be totally out of reach of his memory at any given time.

>
>I've noticed that some narcissistic people can make up a story that's
>favourable to their own position, and then -- as far as I can tell --
>end up believing their own lies. Except that technically they're not
>lies, because they're backed up by genuine, non-faked, belief.

His not caring about what is "true" implies, what, an ambiguity,
a lack? of what is usually called belief.

>
>I concede that I'm extrapolating from a minuscule sample, which one
>shouldn't do. Still, there is at least some possibility that Trump
>genuinely believes his claims.

I've got the hypothesis that he believed there were fake votes
out there because he paid a con-man maybe $20 million to create
fake votes -- for him. Those suggestions about dead people voting,
or about using Chinese to fill in 100,00 absentee ballots may have
come from the con-man: Filling in so many ballots is a logistic
problem. I found it intriguing that Trump himself hired two separate
investigations to find fake votes, after those official searches were
all coming up negative.

>
>If so, this could get him past some of his current legal problems. He
>can just plead "not guilty" by reason of insanity. But of course he
>won't, because such people have an unshakeable belief in their own
>sanity. It's all the other people who are out of step.

--
Rich Ulrich

On Sun, 28 Apr 2024 12:02:21 +1000, Peter Moylan
<peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:

>On 28/04/24 02:01, Athel Cornish-Bowden wrote:
>
>> Why is it that my typos leap out at the eye when my posts are quoted,
>> but escape notice during proofreading?
>
>It happens to all of us, I think. At least, I'm in the same boat.
>
>If I write something that's important, e.g. a technical paper, I print
>it out for proof-reading. I've found that proof-reading on screen misses
>a lot of faults. Something to do with radiant versus reflected light.

I never heard that, and I tend to not believe it.

When I compose a page or more, I regularly review it
after displaying it in a different font size. The different
line-breaks help, I'm not sure why.

I'm usually going from 14 points to 12, so I'm not
spotting errors simply because being bigger would
make them more obvious.

If I'm posting what I composed in OpenOffice to FaceBook,
I again re-read what is copied. FB will have new breaks and
also a new font.

>Long ago I saw a study that showed that people forgot a lot of what they
>saw on TV, remembering the emotional content but not the factual
>content. This makes TV a good medium for advertising and political
>lies, but useless for things like education.

I think that is an oversimplification. But McLuhan's 1964 thesis was
not totally without merit. In my senior year, 1968, I left some
lecture with a group of communications majors, and that topic came
up. I knew that McLuhan had annoyed a bunch of people, but
I figured that maybe enough time had passed that he could be
discussed rationally. So, I made some comment like that. I was
wrong -- it was still too soon for anything but outrage.

--
Rich Ulrich

On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 20:39:10 +0100, Sam Plusnet <not@home.com> wrote:

>On 27-Apr-24 12:27, Ken Blake wrote:
>> On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 02:03:58 -0400, Rich Ulrich wrote:
>>
>>> Republicans are collapsing into a Trump cult, where
>>> Winning Is Everything. Trump cares very little about policies,
>>> and his wide ignorance reflects that.
>>
>> Just some friendly advice from a centrist...
>>
>> While you'll never see me defending Trump, to say "Republicans are
>> collapsing into a Trump cult" ignores that Republicans have existed before
>> Trump was born, and Republicans will exist well after he has faded away.
>
>Sure, but in the present day the quondam Republican party has been
>changed into a body which exists to further Trump's aims (and pay his
>legal bills). Have you noticed the surname of the (co) chair of the
>National Committee?

The organization of the party is but one symptom.

>>
>> Just as Democrats existed before Biden was born [although maybe it will be
>> close based on his age. :) and Democrats will still exist well after Biden
>> fades away - which may be sooner than we think as Kamala will perhaps
>> become the next president de-jure just as Truman did.]
>>
>> If we remove Trump from your argument, it makes sense.
>> The argument is diluted (IMHO) when you insert a flash in the pan Trump.

I can hope that Trump's influence will pass, but I THINK that
his influence damages the paty
in substance
Putin is a nice guy, let's give him Ukraine
Nato is a waste of money
Cleaning the enviroment is a waste of money
'Colorblind' means: any problems Blacks have? are their own fault.

and in style
Lying works - no one hods you accountable
Lie about the economy
Lie about vaccines
Lie about what the oppositions says or does or wants
Live in an isolation booth for news - call factual reporting and
'fact-checking' Fake News (so you don't even know the body
of the charges for Jan. 6 or the other Trump indictments, or
the Fox News defamation settlement).

About half of the Representatives voted against Ukraine aid.
I think it was a bigger fraction who opposed having a budget.

Marjorie Taylor Greene quoted Russian Intelligence propaganda
on the House floor - I don't know if that was before or after it
had been debunked (Ukranians buying yachts with US aid).

Trump's sway with them seems to be larger than it was when
he left office. I think that what he has taught them about the
success of lying will be hard for them to abandon, compared
to stupid policies.

--
Rich Ulrich

On Sun, 28 Apr 2024 00:20:12 -0400
Tony Cooper <tonycooper214@gmail.com> wrote:

[US Voter registration]

>
> I think Ken's been spoofed. Maybe someone photoshopped some fake
> ballots. Ken seems the type to readily buy on to something he wants
> to believe is true.

Nonsense he's been at pains to demonstrate to us that he's a well-balanced
individual.

--
Bah, and indeed Humbug.

On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 12:28:16 -0600, Ken Blake <Ken@OneOfMany.com>
wrote:

>
>Funnily enough, the ONE thing BOTH parties AGREE on is they both make laws
>to affect the number of Democratic voters (and not Republican voters).
>
>By that odd statement, I mean that both enact directly focused laws to
>change the specific NUMBER of Democrat voters directly, but not the number
>of Republican voters directly.

Look to the statistics -- Since Lyndon Johnson gave us the Voting
Rights Act, Blacks have voted for Democrats by huge margins,
like, 90% to 10% is not rare.

That gives Republicans one clear target for WHOSE votes
to reduce.

Evangelical Whites may have gone for Trump almost that strongly,
but they don't live in concentrated areas in cities where they can be
targeted. So "Republican voters" are not targeted.

When the reports got out after 2016 that people were showing up
to provide water, food, and entertainment for their (Black) friends
stuck in voting lines that were hours long, the Georgia establishment
passed laws to make it illegal to give water (IIRC) to people waiting
in line to vote.

When polls showed that college students were voting for Democrats,
various jurisdictions moved polling stations and reduced their number,
to lower the vote.

Election lore has it that Republican voters are more devoted to
voting and will (for instance) show up despite bad weather or it
being a year without Presidential elections -- so, whatever makes
voting easier/harder is presumed to help Dems/Reps, respectively.

--
Rich Ulrich

On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 05:51:10 -0600, Ken Blake <Ken@OneOfMany.com>
wrote:

>On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 01:38:18 -0400, Rich Ulrich wrote:
>
>> On the other hand, aiming for too much 'balance' is the criticism
>> embodied in "both-hand-ism"-- On the one hand/ On the other
>> hand -- when applied to news coverage of issues that don't
>> have two sides that deserve equal attention.
>
>You brought up good points on how to define balance, with all the foibles
>that such a determination will entail...
>
>But in my defense of my observation that I'm "balanced", a big part of what
>I mean is my own personal platform, I ascertain, is "balanced" in that I
>strive to avoid self-inconsistent belief systems.

I'm sorry, I still don't like your use of 'balanced'. I think you are
hung up on the word.

What you say you strive for, I call "rational consistency" in
beliefs. I don't see where 'balance' comes in.

When I try to fit in 'balance', I come up with the opposite of your
conclusion. That is, I allow inconsistency. I 'balance' my ideals
and ideal programs against what is possible in the real world.
Compromise.

>
>An example is that I do NOT hold to the Democrat policy that:
>a. Killing unborn babies is perfectly fine (it's called "choice")
>b. Killing people with guns must be banned by banning guns (no choice)
>c. People should have no choice in whether they want a novel vaccine or not
>d. Enacting nanny laws which are themselves self inconsistent
> (e.g., bike helmets required for kids but not for adults)
> (also helmets for bikers but not for cagers, which again is no choice)
>etc.
>
>Nor do I subscribe to the equally self-inconsisten Republican policies on
>all three issues above - where the Republicans are the opposite.
>
>My believe system I would characterize as self consistent.
>A. Capital punishment for unborn babies is [not] good for society
>B. Gun ownership is in the 2nd amendment for very good reasons
>C. Vaccines exist - but it's your choice whether or not to get them
> (particularly novel vaccines which have no long-term studies)
>D. Nanny laws I think remove choice & interject capricious enforcement
> (where the danger is capricious enforcement leads to its own issues)
> (and where sensible people will wear a helmet when it makes sense)
>etc.
>
>Notice I'm at least self consistent and all for choice and good sense.

It seems to me that you achieve self-consistency by being shallow
and ignorant, or maybe UNFAIR. When I try to be fair, I try to
state the argument of the other side in terms that they would allow.

And I think you are also hung up on 'nanny state' like some Righties.
I will use the term, while thinking it is a good idea.

Here's what I find rational and balanced on those issues.
Reverse order.

Nanny state on helmets: Insurance companies and moms pushed
it across. Insurers hate huge bills for broken heads, especially
for kids. Moms want no argument when they tell their kids. Adults
get to choose. "Balance" if you want it. I never thought this one
was particularly partisan, though motorcycle gangs, back then, had
the reputation of being racist.

Nanny state on vaccines: The history of government mandates for
vaccines goes back almost 200 years, and longer for quarantines.
"Balanced" policies say that you can risk yourself, so long as you
do not pose a risk to others. The Christian Science aversion to
medical care was not Red State until recent years.

Gun control: I've read the decision, and I've read brutal criticism
of it, written a few years later. The Dissent was better Textualism/
Originalism. The decision was weaker on history, since "bear
weapons" was regularly a term applied to militia. The decision
concluded that the "well-maintained militia" phrase was filler, to
be discarded; and precedent be damned.

Abortion: One extreme position, that the fertilized egg should
have all the rights of an adult human being, is nonsense that
is believed by almost no one. Now, my arguments were forged
and practiced in the 1980s, and I know especially about the mind-set
from that time. But when the Arizona law purported to ban IVF,
most Republicans fled from the law.

A few held to it, because HERE was the goal. Their position, as I
know it, is a bad-faith one. It was adopted for its potential to
outlaw contraception. They want to ban contraception because
God ordained (by their Bible verses) that women are inferior;
he provided to keep them inferior by having them suffer pregnancies
and bad outcomes. It is evil to foil God's will by using birth
control. If they were good-faith: Should they not hold funerals
for mis-carriages? - even those at 2 months? - or earlier?

The opposite extreme is also a religious position: The family
should have the total say in the life/death of a child, just as
they have the say in "liberty and the pursuit of happiness"
up to some time near puberty. In the 1950s, SCOTUS started
stripping away the power of families, ending abuse such as the
acceptability of "beating the Devil" out of a kid, even if it
killed them. SCOTUS found reason to invent child abuse as
an offense, and also (later) spousal abuse.

Personally, I think that "full human rights" should come with
"some degree of consciousness" -- A lot of people like that
word, consciousness; IMHO, the third-trimester rule/ quickening
is a pretty good "balance" for those who consider it in good
faith. It is a rather extreme compromise for those who would
say "puberty" or "two years" or "three months old" is when
the state should first interfere with the right of the family or
the mother.

--
Rich Ulrich

On 30/04/24 13:08, Rich Ulrich wrote:
> On Fri, 26 Apr 2024 12:28:16 -0600, Ken Blake <Ken@OneOfMany.com>
> wrote:
>
>>
>> Funnily enough, the ONE thing BOTH parties AGREE on is they both
>> make laws to affect the number of Democratic voters (and not
>> Republican voters).
>>
>> By that odd statement, I mean that both enact directly focused laws
>> to change the specific NUMBER of Democrat voters directly, but not
>> the number of Republican voters directly.
>
> Look to the statistics -- Since Lyndon Johnson gave us the Voting
> Rights Act, Blacks have voted for Democrats by huge margins, like,
> 90% to 10% is not rare.
>
> That gives Republicans one clear target for WHOSE votes to reduce.
>
> Evangelical Whites may have gone for Trump almost that strongly, but
> they don't live in concentrated areas in cities where they can be
> targeted. So "Republican voters" are not targeted.
>
> When the reports got out after 2016 that people were showing up to
> provide water, food, and entertainment for their (Black) friends
> stuck in voting lines that were hours long, the Georgia
> establishment passed laws to make it illegal to give water (IIRC) to
> people waiting in line to vote.
>
> When polls showed that college students were voting for Democrats,
> various jurisdictions moved polling stations and reduced their
> number, to lower the vote.
>
> Election lore has it that Republican voters are more devoted to
> voting and will (for instance) show up despite bad weather or it
> being a year without Presidential elections -- so, whatever makes
> voting easier/harder is presumed to help Dems/Reps, respectively.

Australia's compulsory voting is sometimes criticised, but one advantage
of our system is that it's almost impossible to take measures to reduce
the number of people voting. And, for example, the number of polling
stations is controlled by an independent Electoral Commission, not by
politicians. Indeed, any attempt to influence the vote that way would be
treated as corruption.

--
Peter Moylan http://www.pmoylan.org
Newcastle, NSW

On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 14:43:01 -0400, Tony Cooper
<tonycooper214@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sat, 27 Apr 2024 14:50:13 +1000, Peter Moylan
><peter@pmoylan.org.invalid> wrote:
>
>>On 27/04/24 14:26, Tony Cooper wrote:

>>It depends on what you're comparing with. Yes, CNN isn't right-leaning
>>by US standards, but it is if you're comparing it with European TV.
>>
>>The right wing of Australian politics is roughly comparable with the
>>left wing of US politics. Biden and Trump couldn't be elected here,
>>because the parties they would fit into are the extreme ones that get
>>hardly any votes.
>
>To me, the determination of "Left" or "Right" is made by which
>commentators appear regularly and who is used in the panel
>discussions.

The shows with commentators are usually featuring "opinions"
as well as news. If you don't know the commentators, you
start in a hole. In the 1980s, there were shows that included
both left and right commentators, but the moderator and the
TOPIC would be relevant. I mean, whoever controls the
agenda can control what bias is more effectively presented.

>
>News items presented on CNN are the same news items that are presented
>on Fox News. They are, in my opinion, presented with minimal bias on
>both channels.

"Fox News" has a news agency that is fair, they say. I don't
watch it, or CNN. I assume that they cover most topics, so
far as topics go. However, MSNBC noted that Fox banned
from their news all reporting of their own defamation suit --
the one where they ended paying $787 million to Dominion Voting
Systems. Reportedly, one fellow who described himself as the
Fox "media" reporter gave one report, in order to say that he
was not allowed to say anything about the suit.

MSNBC reported extensively on the daily revelations of what
had been filed as Discovery for the trial. Competitors of Fox
on the Right (except one, out of a dozen or so) were also
essentially mum on the case. IMO, they feared to be 'tarred
with the same brush', that is, producing Fake News wherein
they supported the lie, knowing it was a lie, that the election
was stolen; because that was what got them viewers.

>
>The commentators (Jake Tapper and Erin Burnett, for example) on CNN do
>- in my opinion - come across as very leftish and flavor their
>comments. The discussion panels are usually made up of very leftish
>members with the exception of Scott Jennings as the token
>ultra-conservative.

I think it was for most of the Obama years at least, that Republican
leadership pressed their politicians to refuse to appear on MSNBC.
In 2016, Never-Trump people appeared a few times; despite their
nominal message, they always included a tagline, that Hillary Clinton
is a liar. I suspected their leadership demanded that; they were
not yet ousted from the party.

Republican guests had never been treated unfairly, I think, but
the party rarely came out looking good from whatever they said.

>
>Scott Jennings is a conservative Republican and former G.W. Bush
>operative (Special Assistant to the President, Deputy Director of
>Political Affairs).

Another example of bias-by-topic, even if you have panels,
could be the contrast of covering "Jan. 6" or covering the
Black Lives Matter protests during the time of the Jan. 6 hearings.

News? MSNBC must have showed me the Jan. 6 people more
than 100 times. I think Fox viewers did not see the videios or hear
much about the Jan. 6 hearings. At that same time, Republicans
were pretending that BLM /should/ be investigated; they advocated
ignoring the Jan. 6 hearings as 'fair play' -- you don't give us our
hearings, we will ignore your. That was a very clever propaganda
ploy for preserving ignorance about Jan. 6. Fox, I heard, showed
their viewers selected days of riots (Seattle, especially?) as often
as I saw Jan. 6.

--
Rich Ulrich