The words in bold are Silver’s, not mine. Also, I think the Super Bowl (rather Biden’s decision to decline a few minutes of unedited boosterism before more than 122 million viewers) probably may well mark an inflection point in his overall approval. Pretty obvious why that decision was made.
Personally, I [Nate Silver] crossed the rubicon in November, concluding that Biden should stand down if he wasn’t going to be able to run a normal reelection campaign — meaning, things like conduct a Super Bowl interview. Yes, it’s a huge risk and, yes, Biden can still win. But he’s losing now and there’s no plan to fix the problems other than hoping that the polls are wrong or that voters look at the race differently when they have more time to focus on it. Neither is so implausible and it is likely to be a close race. But even the most optimistic Democrats, if you read between the lines, are really arguing that Democrats could win despite Biden and not because of him. Biden is probably a below-replacement-level candidate at this point because Americans have a lot of extremely rational concerns about the prospect of a Commander-in-Chief who would be 86 years old by the end of his second term. It is entirely reasonable to see this as disqualifying. The fact that Trump also has a number of disqualifying features is not a good reason to nominate Biden. It is a reason for Democrats to be the adults in the room and acknowledge that someone who can’t sit through a Super Bowl interview isn’t someone the public can trust to have the physical and mental stamina to handle an international crisis, terrorist attack or some other unforseen threat when he’ll be in his mid-80s.
Alabama Republican Senator Tommy Tuberville recently criticized Joe Biden for going out and buying an ice-cream cone in New York while residents were huddling inside and couldn’t go outside for fear of getting murdered.
The murder rate in NYC ts 3.9%; in Alabama it is 9.6%.
I have a fondness for Tommy as the stupidest person in the Senate ever since he declared his father seved in the US army in WWII liberating Paris from the communists.
Ah yes, Florida’s 3rd senator that AL elected for them. ha. His whole telling of his dad’s WWII service is essentially fabricated, he held up military promotions for a year and ended up accomplishing nothing, thinks the AL IVF ruling which is causing a storage for IVF treatments helps people have more babies, other politicians kind of constantly hunt (or explicitly say) he’s pretty dumb… yea, Alabama picked a good one (and the GOP almost succeeded with the same carpetbagging dumb football hero game plan in GA. fuck.).
What are the chances that a buyer has already been selected, and that it’s a super left wing billionaire in the DNC’s pocket
I highly doubt the Dems would risk signing the sale before knowing who is going to buy it… especially right before an election.
Of course both GOP and DNC are probably scrambling to outbid one another — China looking for the better deal, and probably the election result it wants. Great timing since Blinken is in China to warn them about helping Russia’s invasion.
For months, reporters (not mainstream) been saying Zuckberg will take it.
He already has deals with the alphabet agencies for FB, this’ll add to them. Speculation, however, that TikTok will fight to the death and tell Congresspersons what intimate details it has on some of them.
For us, it’s all kabuki.
Makes sense. Then I guess it’s just a matter of China agreeing with who to sell to… this whole tik tok thing stinks, how did the U.S. position the ban in such a way that China has the upper hand on a deal. It also has the elements of going against what America prides itself on, seems unconstitutional and adds to more easy ammo for the CCP to use against the U.S.
On another note, Blinken standing in front of the sparkling lit-up Bund in Shanghai while discussing Chinese fentanyl that has killed Americans and areas of major disagreement between the U.S. and China:
The Biden Administration needs to be more thoughtful on their messaging, the optics on this Shanghai message and even the Tik Tok ban are really weird.
TikTok ban makes perfect sense. Until US companies are treated fairly in China, Chinese companies should not be given unfettered access to the US market.
“Perfect sense” would imply there weren’t other proposals made to deal with concerns raised, perhaps more reasonable ones. It would also mean legitimate concerns have not been raised by established civil liberties organizations, which there have been.
It can be argued that it only makes “perfect sense” if one takes a myopic view and ignores the wider implications.
Why do you think the Chinese government is so vehemently opposed to the sale of TikTok? Forcing the sale over national security concerns is not unprecedented just ask Grindr.
Allowing the Chinese government to run it’s puppet companies without restriction to the US market, while US companies are barred from the Chinese market, is certainly myopic and ignorant of geopolitics. There is no shortage of alternatives for teenagers to numb their brains too.
Now after reading that and you may still think Banning TikTok is the right thing to do, which by the way those arguing otherwise get the reasons given, thats your choice.
The idea it is “perfect” is simply not true, pros and cons on both sides need to be considered.
How much consideration have you given to the cons? How much weight? Because your suggestion of a “perfect solution” suggests you give non.
No, I brought it up because by suggesting a perfect solution it suggests you were ignorant of the criticisms made by many.
But Im not going to argue thier corner or indulge you with your sides points with which I am well familiar with as well.
The EFF have many many posts on this topic over the years and they make the case much more eloquently that I, my post was, assuming you have not heard the other side was to link you to what the have to say, their website if you are interested enough to research the other side is EFF.org
