Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

Much like another delusional billionaire I could name, Musk bought into his own hype and believes he's the smartest guy in the room. 

 

Twitter as we know it is done. But that software is too valuable to simply disappear. He'll end up selling it (and their servers) for pennies on the dollar and the next smartest guy in the room will try again. 

 

[unclevlad]

The software's valuable, but he's gutting the software...and the hardware...and the security.  SO FAR, he's cut half the workforce.  When you lose that, you lose institutional memory...the people who know the tricks it takes to keep things running smoothly.  He's lost his top marketing people...people with Fortune 500 contacts.  Twitter has lost GM, Audi, Pfizer, United Airlines, and Carlsberg Brewing...the third-largest brewery group in the world.  

 

What remains to be seen is how many users abandon it, and how quickly.  It'll be accelerated if the service has problems staying up...gut the internal tech support, what do you think is gonna happen?  How fast will existing employees jump ship?  With the loss of ad revenues, how is Twitter going to pay the MASSIVE interest on the debt it now has?  Just before and after election night, disinformation levels exploded.  Story a couple days ago that fake celebrity accounts were getting the "blue check mark thumbs up" all over the place.  How fast will the mega-players say, hey, I'll take my account somewhere else!  And how fast will these factors drain the user base?

 

And the software nowadays isn't worth much at all.  Twitter isn't that important;  it's only #15 among the social media platforms...and if you take out the Chinese apps, where there's ongoing security concerns...I still think it's not that big.  Instagram is like 5x Twitter's size.  Hey, others have fired up their own Twitclones.  It's not that hard.

 

It might survive in name only, I'll grant.  I think it won't;  it's possible that it'll go through bankruptcy (and that might make Musk's creditors want his scalp), get sold as you say, and rebranded, but rebuilding will take a long time.

 

EDIT:  from NYT headline today:

 

Quote

After Elon Musk, Twitter’s new owner, revamped a subscription service to give users a coveted verification check mark for $8 a month, users began abusing the program this week. Twitter accounts with check marks posed as companies like Eli Lilly and PepsiCo, sending spoof messages about free insulin and the superiority of Coca-Cola. One account with a check mark pretended to be Tesla, Mr. Musk’s electric car company, and bragged about using child labor.

 

Musk threatens permanent bans but...so what?  The damage will already be done, and it probably won't take hackers long to bypass the security and sign in with new, fake IDs.  EDIT:  ESPECIALLY if the security staff's been gutted.

 

[DShomshak]

Today's episode of Marketplace reports that banks that loaned Musk money to buy Twitter are selling the debt at 60% discount. It's perfectly normal for banks to sell debt: They want to get their money back quickly, so they can loan it out again. Taking a haircut like this? Not so much.

A sinking feeling about selling Twitter's debt - Marketplace

 

(I think that's the whole episode, but it's only half an hour and you can probably skip through it.)

 

Dean Shomshak

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

3 hours ago, unclevlad said:

The damage will already be done

 

Case in point:

 

I see Elon on the receiving end of a few lawsuits. 

[unclevlad]

I saw it and didn't make the connection.  What Logan's talking about is a FAKE TWEET where someone using a fake, "VERIFIED" by Musk's 'standards', posted that insulin was going to be free.  I'm a type 2, so I don't have to worry about insulin, but in our support group meetings, the cost of insulin or its analogs came up fairly often.  The stuff is NOT cheap, especially some of the better (more stable, less chance of an overreaction) analogs.  

 

I don't think a lawsuit can hold Musk liable legally, but what this will do, IMO, is push for people to create a Twitter replacement ASAP.  Maybe use Instagram for the interim?  

 

https://fortune.com/2022/11/11/no-free-insulin-eli-lilly-casualty-of-elon-musk-twitter-blue-verification-mess/

 

OK, lemme rephrase.  I don't think Musk can be held liable for *this wave* of fake accounts and fake posts.  However, if he doesn't clean up that act and this kind of disruption continues, he may be held liable for enabling it, when it's clear it is happening.  

 

Problem is, any lawsuit may simply accelerate sending Twitter into bankruptcy.  It might seem odd to say that, but that DARN sure looks like it's an acceptable endgame for him.  It could also be that he thinks he'll pull this out, no matter what.

[tkdguy]

Mark Kelly will keep his seat in the Senate

[Ternaugh]

When I looked this morning, Adam Laxalt was leading by about 15,000 votes. Right now, he's leading the incumbent Senator Catherine Cortez Masto by 821 votes.

 

Votes that were mailed and postmarked on Tuesday have until tomorrow to be received. The signatures must then be verified, and only then does the ballot move on to be processed. Ballots that fail signature validation can be "cured", where the status is corrected by the voter proving identity. That is allowed for a few more days, with Monday, November 14 being the last day. The Clark County registrar noted that there's 9,659 ballots that need to be cured, while Washoe County has said that there's 1440 ballots that need to be cured. Clark is favoring Cortez Masto 52% to 45%, while Washoe is favoring Cortez Masto 50.3% to 46.9%. 

 

There are several organizations which are trying to get as many ballots cured as possible, and the Election Department has sent notifications using the information that they have on file, as well.

 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/11/politics/democratic-groups-push-curing-ballots-nevada

 

 

[unclevlad]

The people in Georgia might hope that the Nevada Senate election falls to the Democrat...because if it goes to the Republican?  It'd be 50-49 Republicans, with the VERY close runoff in Georgia left.  Thus, Senate control comes down to that one race.  And there will be no distractions, no other major races going on (that I know of) and certainly nothing as consequential.

 

If the Republicans can't take the Senate, it will be a MAJOR failure.  Almost complete, especially if their House majority is slim.  

 

OTOH, if the Dems take Nevada, interest in Georgia might remain relatively local only, and the national interests might not drop multiple tens of millions on ads.

[unclevlad]

I suppose if there was one race where BS fraud claims could almost be assumed, given their guy lost, it was the close Senate race in Arizona.  RNC and Arizona Rep Party are foaming at the mouth...despite the fact that the head of Maricopa County's election board is Republican, as are several members.  So they're accusing HIM of either bias or incompetence.

 

Honestly, I think the continued absurd insistence...and even the clear implication their own party members are either turncoats or incompetent...was a major factor in their poor performance.  

 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/12/politics/vote-counting-maricopa-county-elections-allegation-misconduct/index.html

[BNakagawa]

I am pleased to find that pretty much all of the CA propositions went the way I was hoping. Two propositions legalizing online betting were rejected, flavored tobacco ban was upheld, Lyft's end run around the lawmaking process got nixed, etc. The CA rules about revealing funding supports for propositions pretty much gives me all the information I need to see who is paying for these things, and it's good to see that most of CA is seeing it, too. 

 

I think that making the funding transparent would dramatically alter politics in the rest of the country, if only it was implemented.

[wcw43921]

"They Stole The Electron From Blake Masters!"

 

I suppose it could be an autocorrect error.

 

Naaahhh.  .  .

[Ternaugh]

9 minutes ago, wcw43921 said:

"They Stole The Electron From Blake Masters!"

 

I suppose it could be an autocorrect error.

 

Naaahhh.  .  .

 

Are charges pending?

[BoloOfEarth]

3 hours ago, wcw43921 said:

"They Stole The Electron From Blake Masters!"

 

3 hours ago, Ternaugh said:

Are charges pending?

 

I'm not positive.

[Cancer]

So Blake Masters is now ionized?

 

Does that mean he was unionized before?

[Lord Liaden]

I guarantee his backers want nothing to do with unions.

[Old Man]

The very idea would send them into a new orbital.

[unclevlad]

Oh my.  

 

Got Georgia vs. Miss State on.  And lo and behold, what just popped up but an anti-Warnock ad...including a mention of a website, SaveTheSenate.com...and paid for by the NRSC...National Republican Senatorial Committee.

 

Yeah, I feel for Georgia.  Gonna be so ugly...

[unclevlad]

Interesting comments from retiring Republican Senator Pat Toomey:

 

Quote

Noted Toomey: “We were in a moment, we were in a cycle, we were at a time when it’s good for Republicans for the race to be about President Biden, who is not popular, whose policies have failed. And instead, President Trump had to insert himself and that changed the nature of the race.”

 

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/11/politics/pat-toomey-trump-midterms-comments/index.html

 

 

[megaplayboy]

Walker just stated that "This is the greatest country in the U.S.".  I mean, how could one disagree?

[Pattern Ghost]

On 11/11/2022 at 1:04 PM, Logan D. Hurricanes said:

Much like another delusional billionaire I could name

 

I think you mean "alleged" billionaire, if it's who I think it is.

[Dr. MID-Nite]

4 minutes ago, megaplayboy said:

Walker just stated that "This is the greatest country in the U.S.".  I mean, how could one disagree?

 Walker being considered a serious candidate to make policy for millions of people just shows how bad our system has become. Sigh....

[unclevlad]

https://www.cnn.com/2022/11/12/business/playbill-twitter/index.html

 

And an interesting story in the LA Times.  I got no paywall notice on this one.

https://www.latimes.com/business/technology/story/2022-11-11/stay-with-elon-musk-twitter-or-leave-for-mastodon-otheralternatives

 

Just now, Dr. MID-Nite said:

 Walker being considered a serious candidate to make policy for millions of people just shows how bad our system has become. Sigh....

 

Well, Tommy Tuberville's prior career was as a football coach;  his main claim to fame was leading Auburn to an undefeated season...and going 7-3 against Alabama, which is huge for Auburn.  And Tom Osborne was in the House for 6 years...he was Nebraska's coach for ages.  Jesse Ventura was a mayor...of a town of about 90,000...before he won the governorship of Minnesota.  After of course, a distinguished career as...a professional wrestler.

 

I'll grant:  head coaches do have leadership experience, even if in a different venue, and do have critical thinking and analysis skills, again even if in a different venue.  Walker...has nothing going for him.  A refrain in the local House race is that Gabe Vasquez, the Democratic candidate, had no economic plan, and would just be a Pelosi pawn...the standard line.  Yeah, well, I think that completely describes Walker...he's a warm body for the caucus, and a complete catspaw to do what the Republican bosses want.

[unclevlad]

JUST IN!!! 

 

Broke into the football game for this.

 

ABC News is projecting the Democrat in Nevada as the winner of the Senate race...so the Democrats keep the Senate.

 

I won't celebrate TOO much until after recounts and the lawsuits are cleared.

 

EDIT:  AP has also called it for Masto.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

[Cancer]

All I can say is what I said a couple of years ago ...

 

I admit I did not dare to hope.