Robert West

@Patterico Off topic but - you saying safe, man? From yo here it seems like the apocalypse

"Fuck off" would work nicely as a response, I think

@BMeiselas And makes a lot of us feel like we are being kicked while we are down. But this is only to be expected. Bullying is in fashion again.

Truly evil people. The fires are burning through about 5 football fields a minute. Wind gusts are as high as 100mph. It's just about impossible contain until these conditions calm down. Stirring the pot and saying stuff like this only hurts people in danger.

@fiskinexile @DrewPavlou A huge percentage of the country has negative experiences with health insurers, and have formed their view of them based on them (or their loved ones) getting screwed over. Most people don't have similar history with property insurance. And when they do, it doesn't kill people.

@_aphrael @DrewPavlou Sure. Property insurance providers give away free money out of the goodness of their hearts, unlike all other forms of insurance.

I strongly disagree with Biden’s plan to commute death penalty for all federal death row inmates including Dylann Roof and the Boston Bomber

@fiskinexile @DrewPavlou Property insurance and health insurance are very different things.

@_aphrael @DrewPavlou That's funny, because one of the main justifications I heard from BLM supporters for rioting and destroying property in mid-2020 was "businesses have insurance."

@neontaster If the doctor has been paid for the service, took the money and ran without providing it, yes. The issue here is that the insurance company was paid, failed to deliver, and then people died. There's a huge simmering rage over this that's been growing worse for decades.

If denial of medical care that leads to a death is murder, isn't it ultimately the fault of medical PROVIDERS for not supplying their services for free? So it's murder for UHC to deny care, but it's not murder for a doctor to say "I won't operate on the patient for free"?

@fiskinexile @DrewPavlou They view insurance companies, who have a profit motive to deny people care even when they need it, have turned into organized machines of murder, preying on everyone.

@DrewPavlou It's crazy that many progressives want to commute the lawful execution of a neo-nazi terrorist like Dylan Roof, while at the same time supporting the extrajudicial murder of Healthcare CEOs. What the fuck is there any principle here?

@therealjyperion @DrewPavlou But the entire point of the commutation power is for the president to serve as a check on the criminal justice system!

@DrewPavlou I mean, I oppose the death penalty, but I do agree, that Biden commuting sentences to bypass the courts is the wrong approach. You either have a death penalty, or you abolish it, but you can’t have courts pass out sentences, that depend on the opinion of the president.

@tdmahaf @JosephONeillx I think you are right for a decade or two. As a gay man I'm terrified.

Apparently a majority of DC Dems don't understand quite how close we are to an implosion of the Dem Party as a viable electoral force.

@fightuntil @JosephONeillx It's not AOC specifically. This is a symptom of the problem that the party leadership does not understand the intensity of the public's desire for change and is therefore incapable of winning national elections.

@JosephONeillx Lol, right, the Dem Party is going to collaps because AOC didn't get a committee chair she wanted.

@spike_capital @elliot_slade @coldhealing I live in Alameda, go to SF regularly. I am never concerned about personal safety, at any time of day or night. I do make sure not to leave stuff in my car.

i thought "sf is dangerous" was fake before i went, paranoid techbros being weird about homelessness. but there's streets where >50% of people in public are homeless and actively on drugs. hard to write about without seeming cruel but i've never seen anything like it in america

@radfugee @yishan If I never had to drive us probably be high most of the time.

@yishan I think we take for granted how automobiles have enforced relative sobriety

Super interesting thread here. Apparently pre-industrial life simply didn’t involve that many things requiring precise attention. Were farmers often working while drunk?

@VastlyInformed @IAmVerySilky @Redistrict So they should just not count ballots that were legitimately voted?

Final count: the 2024 election was decided by 229,766 votes across MI, PA and WI out of about 155.2 million cast nationally, with PA (Trump +1.7) the Electoral College tipping point state. cookpolitical.com/analysis/natio…

@yeselson And it's what a plurality of the American public wants

If Trump does this, it will be one of the greatest moral, political, and economic catastrophes in American history—a world historic episode of authoritarian, racial ethno-nationalism/cleansing.

@Noahpinion Doesn't matter, we no longer get a say.

I don't think this is going to please most Americans

@nicksortor The number of uncounted ballots has been publically available on the secretary of state's website since election day. This is normal process here and all of the numbers are consistent.

🚨 #BREAKING: California’s 45th Congressional seat is now set to flip from Republican to Democrat after THOUSANDS of new ballots pour in How the HELL are they still “counting” ballots in California?! Rep. Michelle Steel had been leading by thousands of votes until today, and the Democrat challenger is now leading by *31 votes.* There is NO WAY. California is corrupt as hell. I

@Cheryl707 @rpyers What's your preferred process there? Not counting late absentees until you've confirmed they haven't voted in precinct seems like good process to me

@_aphrael @rpyers Such a bad process. Needs reform.

Another brutal update from Los Angeles County for #CA27 Republican Mike Garcia, with 10,244 new votes that break 62.8%/37.2% for Democrat George Whitesides, extending his lead by 2,616 votes. He now leads by 4,730 and 1.72%.

@JonathanBrannon @rpyers If you have a million absentees that come in on election day and you have to check the precinct rosters to verify the absentee ballots voter didn't vote in precinct, how do you do it in one night?

@rpyers These people are just doing whatever they want with those ballots.... I don't care what excuses they make, if it takes more than the evening of the election to "count ballots", they're cheating.

@AliB1135035 @rpyers California accepts ballots postmarked on election day and received up until Friday. That's been true for decades.

@rpyers How are we still accepting ballots?

@Cheryl707 @rpyers A huge percentage of California votes are absentee ballots received on election day, which can't be counted until someone verifies that the person who cast them didn't vote in precinct. The number of u counted ballots is posted on the secretary of state's website, updated daily

@rpyers Where did these new cotes come from? Ridiculous.

@brianrmcguire Why is thushan doing so poorly?

#alamtg Alameda City Council may be headed for a makeover. Too early to say, but given, uh, recent events, hard to imagine Trish improving her performance with the late vote.