>> Per Gallup the progressive view on each topic - defunding, school choice. VoterID, borders - not only opposes conservative views, but also opposes the majority of Black Americans.

> imagine a world where you could find two braincells to rub together to form your own thought instead of posting AI slop, lol

More deflection - more lies - and more ad hominem. I’m obviously hitting very close to the mark.

Notice apparently’s tactics? Deflecting from the mass corruption that’s lining his pockets to decontextualized nonsense? He’s taking advantage of the fact that progressives have a mile wide blind spot. Namely, progressives, just like conservatives, fully recognize their take is biased to one side on individual topics - but, unlike conservatives, fail to see when their bias is systematically skewed across a wide variety of aspects. This is particularly notable in a variety of ways:

- Progressives see Fox as right leaning, as do conservatives, but assessing NPR reveals a schism: conservatives see NPR as distinctly left leaning while progressives see it as close to neutral. The schism is only made obvious to progressives when they’re instructed to carefully use a rubric of individual issues for assessment instead of simply using “vibes”: Israel, lockdowns, teacher unions, defund the police, etc, etc.

- Media Matters similarly uses holistic “narrative” to judge media bias, thus largely aligning with progressive assessments of Fox and NPR, where-as All Sides empirically assesses bias by uses a rubric of positions on several individual issues to judge bias, thus aligning with conservative assessments.

- Not coincidentally, the Critical Theory and Postmodernism that’s particularly dominant in “elite” soft science academia both explicitly claim “narrative trumps empirical observation” or even “empirical observation is a tool of bigotry”. This aligns with the progressive “vibe” approach of assessing NPR and Media Matters as neutral.

- Wikipedia’s political drift over the last ten years is a particularly illuminating example of this phenomenon. Its official “perennial source” list https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wik... has evolved over the last decade or so to green light virtually all distinctly left leaning resources as “neutral” (The Guardian, CNN, NPR) but red lights, or at least yellow lights, almost all right leaning resources.

The systemic bias of supposedly neutral mainstream media and soft science “elite” academia becomes ludicrously obvious after examining the aforementioned (in previous posts) highly aligned Biden era CNN, NPR, soft science academia, and progressive positions on a wide variety of topics. Let’s yet again review just a few of them: The border is secure. The inflation is “temporary” and “small”. The Steele Report is credible. The laptop is a Russian plant. The lab leak theory is propaganda. Opposing long term lockdowns is unscientific. Biden is fully mentally competent. Defunding police is a great idea. The GF riots were “mostly peaceful”. Judging by identity instead of merit is democratic. Extremely adult books in grades schools are appropriate. Support defunding, oppose school choice, oppose VoterID, and support illegal immigration.

That last point is particularly illustrative of the blind spot. Per Gallup the progressive view on each topic - defunding, school choice. VoterID, borders - not only opposes conservative views, but also opposes the majority of Black Americans.

It’s an interesting dynamic, and a key blind spot, as the progressive choice to assume “the system” is compromised, whilst assuming mainstream media and elite academia are outside “the system” they critique, blinds them to their own actual systemic patterns and to actual effective empirically falsifiable systemic counter arguments.

This illustrates an asymmetry from a falsifiability standpoint: one side is, philosophically at core, “live and let live” while “empirically recognizing and reducing suffering”, and the other side blindly characterizes that very same framing as at best “micro aggressions” and at worst “unscientific” and “hegonomy”. The latter often go as far as to embrace philosophy that characterizes empirical thinking itself as “fascist” (compare Marcuse to Popper).

>> Plus tens of billions of unaudited cash was pouring into democrat aligned pockets: autism centers without any patients, school lunch programs without any kids, important DEI research, empty hospices, a high speed railway to nowhere, lucrative homeless programs that solved nothing, and USAID sinecures.

> none of that happened, wtf are you talking about

Sadly, many folks pin their hopes and dreams on a colorful facade of shrill smug ignorance.

And even more sadly, some actively paint the facade.

It’s a strategy that deteriorates prosperity, trust, and safety, but feathers the painters’ nests.

Obviously! Any smart NYT reader knows that!

There was no inflation, the fascist police were defunded, Cuba’s political prisoners were happily confined, Maduro was still in charge of a socialist paradise, people were free to judge by identity instead of character, millions of Afghan women were put where democrats thought was best for them, Putin was thoughtfully encouraged to take Ukraine, and, most importantly, the borders were sealed shut.

Plus tens of billions of unaudited cash was pouring into democrat aligned pockets: autism centers without any patients, school lunch programs without any kids, important DEI research, empty hospices, a high speed railway to nowhere, lucrative homeless programs that solved nothing, and USAID sinecures.

And, lest we forget, the Steele Report and Hunter’s laptop proved once and for all that Trump was a Putin super spy,

Heavenly!

Never forget! Life was just peachy under Biden! Thank you for your honesty!

EXACTLY! Do NOT believe the conspiracy theorists! The laptop was a Russian plant, the Steele Report is gospel, the lab leak theory has zero credibility, and Smollet was attacked by MAGA.

The list is “opinion”? No they’re all FACTS!

Don’t you read the New York Times?

Or are you on the side of uneducated deplorables?

You are 100% correct sir! As proof, let’s consult the early 2020s MAGA Misinformation Guide:

* The inflation is minimal and, regardless, is “temporary”.
* The border is secure, and cannot be closed any further without new congressional legislation.
* Biden is fully mentally competent.
* Judging by identity instead of character is democratic.
* Decriminalizing crime and defunding policing are wonderful ideas.
* Violent crime rates haven’t spiked.
* The working class is doing well economically. Low paid non-citizens weren’t responsible for the vast majority of job gains.
* The laptop is a Russian plant and the Steele Report is gospel.
* Smollet was attacked by MAGA.
* The lab leak theory is not at all credible.
* The GF riots were “peaceful”.
* Extremely adult books in grades schools are appropriate.
* Hormonal and surgical transitions for children are scientific and moral.
* The Afghanistan withdrawal was a success.
* Restarting Nord Stream 2 and stopping PennEast are helpful actions.
* Refusing to arm Ukrainians is a great idea.
* Funding Hamas and Iran is smart.
* The Houthis should be removed from terrorist watch lists.
* The majority of Black Americans: support defunding, oppose school choice, oppose VoterID, or support illegal immigration.
* It is “fake news” that Kamala was a border czar, donated to free GF rioters, and was rated the most liberal Senator.
* The government isn’t telling social media to suppress dissenting empirically backed information.
* Mississippi is fascist, and isn’t measurably doing a far better job teaching Black American children than progressive California.

Bring back Artemis space shuttle technology! VAX/VMS forever!

Indeed. A pragmatic government decision is exactly equivalent to Nazi level thinking. There’s no other possible result.

Think logically. If “ The LCOE calculations are readily done, and it's absolutely blindingly obvious that not having to pay the costs of supplying fuel means renewables are substantially cheaper than fossil fuels.” then there’d be zero fossil usage, and your would be far less sanguine about painting Swastikas on Teslas and attacking Tesla dealerships.

People aren’t being forced to use fossil fuel at gunpoint.

The current situation is so stupid that Hochul is forcing many upstate New Yorkers to burn coal and wood to affordably heat their homes.

Seems that Germany regrets shutting down its nukes, and the EU has reversed its recommendations - including a top EU leader that came out of Germany, while France is happy.

They’re not stupid. You just think you’re smarter than them.

What a mysterious coincidence.

You deliberately failed to account for percentages.

You deliberately failed to accede natural gas is better than oil and coal. Shutting down PennEast and other NG pipelines, for example, was sheer short-sighted stupidity that increases pollution, increases CO2, and increases costs.

You deliberately assumed we can always instantly replace fossil fuel with green.

Silly.

That still doesn’t abrogate the disproportionate amount of subsidies. We see the net result - higher net energy costs passed onto consumers (essentially a very regressive tax) plus, in the name of politically short-sighted pandering, steering the regional economic engine away from more practical environmentally better options (nuclear, allowing the replacing of dirtier fossil fuels with cheaper and cleaner natural gas, more power lines down from Canadian hydro).

If true, then of-shore shouldn’t need significant subsidies. Right? And before you shout “oil subsidies!”, stop and think: those, unlike wind, are a tiny fraction of the tax revenues from that same energy source.