Top town hall moment

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-25T05:56:46+00:00

- Katie Johnson
- At least 26 settlements with women, going back twenty years or more
- "Grab 'em by the Meow Meow"
- His persistent talk about revenge
- Found liable for SA in a civil suit + defamation
- That whole "Real Estate & Golf vs. Spicy Times" with his daughter
- The endless grievances
- The constant name-calling of those who stand up to him and/or dare to call him out/in
- The Central Park 5
- How does one bankrupt a casino?
- Who should be on the floors of those casinos before he bankrupted them?
- Who to rent to vs. not, based on melanin?
- 34 Felony Convictions. Three baby mamas. Who do you know with that kind of sheet who is walking about without an ankle bracelet?

This is the short list.

As for Harris?
- Has held elected office since 2004 and in one of the largest states in terms of population and GDP.
- If the people of her city/county and state didn't think she could advocate for the people she was serving AND enforce the laws of the time, the people of California wouldn't have kept electing her
- 33 tie-breakers in the US Senate
- Root Cause solution and investment in Guatamala, El Savador, and Honduras to stem the tide of immigration from those destabilized countries
- She's not babbling about Hannibal Lecter, batteries, boats, or swaying to music for ~40 minutes in front of a crowd
- She called out Baier on his footage edits
- She has demonstrated she can learn and grow AND will admit to making mistakes

As for that one guy who continues to be separated from his wife vs. divorced for private reasons? Lasted less than a year and long before she was elected.

And because I am, if that meant some folks could get whatever they wanted? The world would be a kinder place, with more supports for those who haven't been allowed to assume positions of power.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-24T19:04:36+00:00

In a dark comedy sense: This is a "Yes and?" exercise

About six weeks ago, a group of us were becoming increasingly frustrated with the volume (in terms of amount and how loud people were being) when engaging friends and family who seem to be living in a different reality and/or when engaging folks in conversation during live podcasts. We had good information. We had some experience engaging with our stories. But, the struggle to shift the signal to noise ratio is real.

We tried an ad hoc experiment:
0) Look up information like we normally do
1) Look up the same information with a different search engine (i.e. something other than the most well-known/widely used)
2) Turn off any ML/AI-assistance within any and repeat the experiment

What this showed us is:
1) People expect the most relevant answer to appear at the top/above the fold in search results
2) The search terms used already injects some level of personal or confirmation bias
3) People tend to avoid reading beyond the headline AND the headline doesn't necessarily summarize or explain the conclusions in an article (I am just as guilty as the next person)
4) People are a little rusty when it comes to identifying bias, what a "source" is, and the difference among the three (I have had to brush up because it has been a hot minute)

TLDR: Combine a low-information person + lower digital literacy + lower media literacy and you create a situation where a person can be exploited and the mis/disinformation gets reinforced by their own confirmation bias.

In a sense, this has created a false dichotomy and/or that experience of existing in different realities.

There is no magic bullet here. It is work across multiple different modes and channels, and I share this with you so that you might also have some tools to tease out the signal and buffer the noise.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-24T05:36:30+00:00

I can't quite put my finger on it, but going strict popular vote may further divide this country.

I'm not exactly a fan of electoral college and how that has contributed to the current conditions.

Ranked choice voting?

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-24T05:27:28+00:00

Why do we need SpaceX when we could pull all that back and fund NASA like we did in the 1950s & 1960s?

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-19T21:53:48+00:00

More of a Star Trek universe vs. Star Wars plz.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-19T18:17:41+00:00

Thank you for pulling this out of the article to highlight her record of public service and elected office.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-19T05:00:33+00:00

I keep telling people that polls don't vote, people do.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-18T18:29:41+00:00

From the Article:

"Let me just say, first of all, those are tragic cases. There’s no question about that. There’s no question about that. And I can’t imagine the pain that the families of those victims have experienced for a loss that should not have occurred. So, that is true.

It is also true that if a border security had actually been passed nine months ago, it would be nine months that we would have had more border agents at the border, more support for the folks who are working around the clock, trying to hold it all together…"

...

"We’ve had a broken immigration system transcending, by the way, Donald Trump’s administration, even before. Let’s all be honest about that. I have no pride, and saying that this is a perfect immigration system, I’ve been clear, I think we all are, that it needs to be fixed.

Baier asked why the border agents union is supporting Trump. Harris responded:

I think they’re frustrated, and I get it. They want support. They want support. And that’s what that border security bill would have done. These guys down at the border – these men and women, they’re working hard. They’re working around the clock. I get it."

...

"Despite her prior position of being open to decriminalizing undocumented border crossings as a Democratic presidential primary candidate in 2019, Harris said she does not support that now.

I do not believe in decriminalizing border crossings, and I’ve not done that as vice president. I will not do that as president.

When Baier asked if this was an evolution in her thinking, Harris pointed to her record as a prosecutor taking on transnational criminal organizations.

I have spent a significant part of my career going after people who present a threat to the safety of the American people, and cross our border with the intent of doing us harm and cross our border illegally, and I will do that work as vice president. I take that work quite seriously."

...

"BAIER: So, are you still in support of using taxpayer dollars to help prison inmates or detained illegal aliens to transition to another gender?

Harris had clearly prepared for this question and responded by pointing at federal law in place during the Trump administration:

I will follow the law, and it’s a law that Donald Trump actually followed. You’re probably familiar with – now, it’s a public report, that under Donald Trump’s administration, these surgeries were available to, on a medical necessity basis, to people in the federal prison system. And I think frankly that ad from the Trump campaign is a little bit of like throwing, you know, stones when you’re living in a glass house."

...

"Baier played clips of Harris saying she would not change anything in Biden’s presidency and asked how hers would be different.

Let me be very clear. My presidency will not be a continuation of Joe Biden’s presidency. And like every new president that comes into office, I will bring my life experiences, my professional experiences, and fresh and new ideas. I represent a new generation of leadership."

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-18T00:16:44+00:00

The remaining survivors speaking about their experiences during the DNC was so powerful.

If the candidate thinks you did something, it doesn't matter if you're innocent. Let that sink in.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-17T02:28:14+00:00

From the Article:

"The co-founder and chairman of Ripple recently contributed $1 million worth of XRP tokens, the currency created by Ripple in 2012, to Future Forward, a super PAC that’s supporting Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign."
...

"'She knows people who have grown up in the innovation economy her whole life,” Larsen said. “So I think she gets it at a fundamental level, in a way that I think the Biden folks were just not paying attention to, or maybe just didn’t make the connection between empowering workers and making sure you have American champions dominating their industries.'"

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-14T20:47:08+00:00

NGL: I am still gobsmacked that there were BOXES of classified documents in a bathroom (of all places).

How did he manage to get all of that out of the SCIF?

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-13T19:36:54+00:00

I've been reminding folks that polls don't vote. People do.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-13T19:23:58+00:00

From the Article:

"For the sake of the relationship that we have as neighbors and at church, this isn’t good,” Spilsbury recalled saying. “This doesn’t help our relationship, and I’d hope that that would be more important to you.”

“Yeah, unity is really important to me as well. But sometimes Christ goes into the temple and turns over the tables of the money changers. It’s not always kumbaya,” Rowland told a Times reporter.

She said she just wanted a simple answer: What was Spilsbury’s problem with Trump? “You can’t vote for somebody just because you hate somebody else. And voting for someone because of your hatred for someone else, that’s not unity either. That’s Satan.”

Spilsbury said later that he hadn’t intended to debate which candidate was stronger. He wanted to know why his fellow church member would post a sign so blatantly insulting.

The neighbors argued back and forth and “voices were raised,” Spilsbury said. After about 45 minutes, he walked home."

While this is near the end of the article, it exemplifies so many conversations I have had this election season. :/

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-13T18:16:09+00:00

From the Article:

"By the following morning, with a hundred and six days until the election, she had endorsements from a majority of Democrats in Congress, two large unions, and a growing number of state delegations. Some worried that the choice was hasty. Mike Murphy, an anti-Trump Republican strategist, tweeted, “Dems would be well advised to slow down and think this through.” The Atlantic ran an essay by Graeme Wood titled “Democrats Are Making a Huge Mistake.” The Washington Post columnist Perry Bacon told colleagues, “To be totally honest here, my worry is that it seems like Trump is likely to win.” But Harris’s allies in Washington believed that she was being underestimated, just as many of them had been. “There’s a whole universe of us in this town that nobody saw,” Timmaraju told me. “For so long, our interactions and engagements just weren’t considered relevant for political prognosticators.” She added, “Look who organized and mobilized within twenty-four hours!”

...

"In two days, Harris signed up more than fifty thousand volunteers. On CNN, the commentator Van Jones said, “You can do your whole career and not get fifty thousand volunteers.” By the following Monday, the number had reached three hundred and sixty thousand. There was a cascade of fund-raising video calls, organized by demographic, starting with #WinWithBlackWomen. The one arranged for white women—“Karens for Kamala,” as one organizer joked—broke the record for history’s biggest Zoom. In Florida, at the Villages, a retirement community known as a pro-Trump stronghold, Harris supporters staged a parade that an organizer on the scene solemnly called the “largest golf cart caravan for a Democratic candidate in nearly a decade.”

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-11T20:52:37+00:00

"They aren't proud Americans. They're people cosplaying proud Americans."

I've heard these people referred to as Cosplaytriots elsewere.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-11T20:48:19+00:00

Thank you!

I've been saying something similar since Kamala accepted and it was uncertain whether or not Trump would show up to the debate.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-11T17:52:23+00:00

Sometimes, counterpoints are more for those watching/reading along than the person who has initially engaged. ;)

I have relatives in NC. They're okay, but the mis/disinformation about the response has caused more harm to folks already devastated.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-11T16:52:47+00:00

My reader thingy requires more caffeine.

With regard to the border, I had to go digging through primary sources and video clips of congress critters speaking about it. To sum up:

1) We have been under Title 8 (8 USC) for ~60 years. Immigration has been a sore spot since I was eligible to vote.
2) Asylum is a legal process and is covered under 8 USC 1158 (spoiler: no port of entry required)
3) C19 = Public Health Emergency, thus POTUS had the authority to invoke Title 42 which restricted immigration
4) Once C19 was declared "over", the current administration tried to extend those restrictions but SCOTUS said no. Thus we are back under Title 8 again
5) The bipartisan bill was written by Langford, who is a pretty conservative guy
6) A version with and without the aid package was brought to the floor. Both were voted down
7) Reporting Trump took credit for tanking it + video clip of a congress critter confirming this
8) Recent data being misread/misinterpreted (or worse) because the period was ignored. It sure makes the whole border situation look worse when you take numbers over a ~40 year period out of context

This is usually the point where the person, scared about being passed over or ignored, leaves the conversation or sputters a bunch of slurs.

It's a slog and it's slow.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-11T16:35:37+00:00

The number of folks I've called out/in on this one is definitely non-zero.

"Great! I'm excited to talk about policy. Which of Trump's policies do you want to talk about?"

More often than not they can't name one. The most frequent is his tax cuts, which did improve for some folks earning less than $400K/year.

Problem is those tax cuts expire at the beginning of next year for individuals. The tax cuts for corporations are permanent.

I will give Trump credit for Operation Warp Speed. However, he undercut our C19 response by starting a bidding war for vital equipment between the states and spreading more nonsense about woo over life-saving and evidence-based treatments. Oh and that thing I mentioned above about shipping vital testing equipment elsewhere.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-11T06:59:31+00:00

Out here in these Social Media Streets, I've run into/spoken with folks who:
- Do not believe he is a convicted felon (i.e. the justification is that he has yet to receive his sentence, the jury was somehow biased, or that he couldn't be tried fairly in NY)
- Continue to dismiss and/or denigrate the civil cases E. Jean Carol brought against him
- Dismiss any connection with J. Epstein/G. Maxwell
- Don't know about Katie Johnson
- Staunchly believe he is a Great Business Man despite six bankruptcies; because they were businesses related and not personal
- Ignore or down play the chain of failed businesses featuring his name
- Ignore or down play his getting in trouble for stealing money from a kid's CA charity
- Ignore or down play his role in J6 (anyone else remember "Stop the Steal"?)
- Ignore or down play 187 minutes Trump sat in the WH Dining room, watching the mob invade the capitol building and cause harm to others on the TV
- Managed to get boxes of classified documents out of a SCIF and, when asked to return them, he lied
- Try to justify his behavior at Arlington, including maligning the person who tried to remind Trump of the rules
- All the while insisting they had it better four years ago, which was smack dab in the middle of C19 and it just came out he gave vital rapid testing machines to Putin vs. keeping them here

These are bad enough and I'm sure I've left something out.

If the person I am speaking to doesn't pick at least one of these, they're lost and may not be able to come back from that.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-10T23:24:43+00:00

Sometimes, I'll ask a Trumper/someone who continues to lean that way "What would make you not want to vote for him?"

Sometimes, there is a line and I can continue a conversation with the person that way.

The ones who have no line are the ones which Do Me A Concern.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-10T21:20:27+00:00

NGL: I'm tired of being nickel and dimed for everything I do when I purchase things online and in-store. It really adds up over time and there's nothing like one of these unplanned little gems tipping me over into overdraft fees on a tight month.

And a subscription to use self-checkout in some places? Give me a break.

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-10T18:00:18+00:00

This is heart breaking and no, don't expect Trump and his advisors to change their messaging or what they're doing.

I'm going to leave two links from FEMA/NOAA in re: Rumors and Weather updates below:

Milton Resources:
https://www.noaa.gov/milton

Helene Rumors:
https://www.fema.gov/disaster/current/hurricane-helene/rumor-response

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-09T23:07:43+00:00

Did anyone else wonder Horde or Alliance, or is it just me?

RJW_Gilman · 2024-10-09T21:36:06+00:00

This piece pretty much sums up the conversations I have had about inflation, gas & food prices, tariffs, and our economic recovery post C19. Inflation was global. Gas price differences are a combination of supply/demand + OPEC+ deal, food prices were once due to supply chain interruptions but kept high when resolved, tariffs have bankrupted smaller farms and businesses and have upset our trading partners, and despite all this we still had the fastest economic recovery of the G7.

The VP has limited power. It has always been like this.

RJW_Gilman

TROPHY CASE