Dr. Strangelove

I agree with taxing the rich to fund programs that themselves further create more revenue. The SNAP program gains more money in economic creation than is spent on it for example. Funding it as robustly as possible via taxes on the wealthy is a win for everybody. As far as spending, I would personally prefer various changes to taxes that fund them. Changes to the programs themselves are necessary: increasing eligibility ages, reducing payouts to certain income ranges, decreasing veterans benefits, increasing taxes to fund the programs, etc. Taxing the wealthy is a small start. But the debt is large and neither side has plans to adequately address it.

They tend to vote in favor of expanding the social safety net, increases in early childhood education, funding for public services, etc. Rural voters vote against Big Gubmint while their small communities and states' agricultural economies completely rely on government subsidies, they vote against anti-poverty programs that benefit would benefit them, and the list goes on.

This isn't directed at you specifically, but to anybody reading who thinks illegal immigration is a drain on society: The cost of undocumented workers as a positive or negative number is small, as is nearly all government spending that doesn't involve all but 6 things. 80% of the yearly spending of the US government is spent on 6 things: -Social Security -Defense -Interest on the debt -Medicare -Medicaid -Veterans Benefits Thus, the national debt problem will never be addressed. The remaining 20% of spending is everything else. You could get rid of all foreign spending, fire every government employee, cut funding to NASA, end food stamps and other programs for the poor, etc. After doing all of that the United States would still run a slight yearly budget deficit and the overall debt would still grow.

The 'ol pass the tax burden onto the poorest strategy, ya love to see it. But hey, if the people of Nebraska want the tax burden on the poorest Nebraskans, so be it. I own a house and welcome saving money. Screw those dirty poor people and their dirty hungry children.

I never said laws should be changed. I said voters should look themselves in the mirror if they've previously voted for Trump and if they plan on voting for him in 2024 they should kindly not visit a voting booth because it's not a place they should be. Are rural voters dumb? On average, yes. But that's an entirely different discussion. Making poor electoral choices and holding contradictory political opinions doesn't mean I think those people shouldn't vote; they should change how they vote. It just so happens that a huge majority of those same voters are also Trump voters which is why they shouldn't show up to the polls in November because the country is better off if they don't.

This is hilarious. The point is all moot though because SCOTUS is almost certainly going to rule in favor of Trump.

The only opinions that matter are the Supreme Court Justices who are going to rule against Colorado. Ultimately Trump being off the ballot in Colorado doesn't change the calculus for the 2024 election in the unlikely event SCOTUS rules in favor of Colorado. Trump has a ~50-55% chance to win no matter what.

Woah, that's not entirely true. I said people who voted for Trump twice should look themselves in the mirror, and if they don't recognize the danger their voting preferences pose, they should kindly step away from the voting booth. Mocking Trump voters isn't the same thing as advocating for changes in voting laws.

Really "educated" just means "bachelor's degree", it's really just a social science term, I'll try to be more clear on the future. Democrats certainly do have a chance, although more reliably in the future. Right now, I think the odds of Trump winning Wisconsin/Pennsylvania are much higher than Biden winning Texas. In future elections, that will change. If you can point to specific Biden policies that support that view, you're free to provide it. Because the current reality is that purchasing power erosion has happened for a long time. Compares to peer countries, the United States is performing better on nearly all economic metrics. We're very fortunate. I issued a blanket statement to make a point. Yes, some voters do vote differently. But those voters make up a very small portion of the electorate. Political campaigns don't focus on changing voters opinions - that's hard and doesn't work. They try to focus on engagement, getting their base to show up, and depressing their oppositions turnout. Bingo. Look, I think people really struggle with the idea that Trump has a real chance at winning considering everything he's said and done. I get that, he's insane. But you should dramatically lower your expectations for what matters to the average American voter and what motivates their vote. Trump has a real chance of winning.

Can't mention slavery and has to mention stupid things like "states rights" because she risks losing huge swaths of the Southern Republican voting base.

The incumbency is an advantage and I never said it was a huge advantage. It's a diminishing advantage but an advantage nonetheless. It's why Democrats would be stupid to nominate somebody else as their nominee, with a razor thin election, a .25% incumbency bump is the difference between winning and losing. Wacko stuff Trump has said didn't deter voters from voting for him in 2016 or 2020. Republican voters aren't going to suddenly realize they're voting for an idiot. They're going to show up and vote for him again in 2024. You seem caught into thinking that Trump only became deranged and said insane things after losing in 2020, he hasn't. You just ignored it to justify voting for him. Winning a popular vote by 8% isn't possible. Voters don't change their minds nor do they vote based on reality. A main point is you referring to Biden as "The Big Guy" because you believe, without evidence, that President Biden is as corrupt in order to justify voting for obviously bad candidates. You also believe, against mountains of evidence, that economic performance is bad. You aren't the only one who bases their voting behavior on what they want to be true vs what is actually true. Firstly, Virginia and Colorado are not competitive swing states. They are countered by Iowa, Ohio and Florida becoming reliably Republican. Secondly, incorrect. I stated this: Democrats are turning other states blue: namely Texas, Arizona and Georgia. The issue for Democrats is that they're losing ground in states faster than they're gaining ground in other states. Eventually Arizona, Georgia, and Texas will be reliably blue states. But at the moment, Republicans have a better chance at flipping Wisconsin, Nevada, Michigan and Pennsylvania than Democrats do of flipping Texas. By the 2030s, that will change. But until Texas is a true swing state, Republicans have a massive electoral college advantage. Republicans have shot themselves in the foot by hitching their wagon to Trump. They should be winning elections easily but they can't help themselves from nominating terrible candidates.

Mississippi has been a s#!thole for the entirety of American history, and they routinely vote through Race as the sole factor politically. Making lives of the electorate isn't really necessarily; a candidate only has to hold the identity of voters in order to win. The country is split between uneducated-Rural voters and educated-Urban voters. Urban voters are going to be concentrated in just a handful of states, giving rural voters extreme power regarding the Senate. In short, political change is a lot less based on changing hearts and minds. It's based on long term demographic trends. You still seem to assume that the nature of the election is static compared to 2020 and the idea that Trump needs new voters to win, he doesn't. Swing states like Wisconsin, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania are slowly become more and more Republican. Educated voters in those states (Democrats) often move (to places like Texas, Atlanta, or Phoenix). That leaves their populations slightly more Republican then the previous election which means that Republican candidates have a better chance to win them. Democrats are caught in a time where swing states are turning Red faster than demographic shifts are making other states Blue. Eventually, those demographic shifts will slightly favor Democrats but that's in a decade. Right now, they have to fight an uphill battle. It's why traditional Republican candidates like Mitt Romney would EASILY win any election held between 2016-2032, the fundamentals massively favor Republicans at the moment. Luckily Republican voters are not concerned with pesky qualities Democrats focus on like "electability" and instead focus on candidates that reflect their perceived victimization and force them to take on enormously unpopular stances on nearly all social policy.

The gap between a Biden electoral college blowout and Trump winning was ~22k votes spread across 3 states. Furthermore, several swing states have populations who's electorate is drifting to the Right. Voting participation was very high in 2020. But the election was extremely close. The Electoral College bias massively favors Republican candidates, and that bias is going to be slightly stronger in 2024. A Democrat probably needs to win the popular vote by 4.5-5% to overcome that bias, which frankly may not be possible. In other words, Trump (or any Republican) will go into the election with a high chance of winning simply because of the demographic nature of the Electoral College. Trump can lose the popular vote by even larger numbers but still win states like Wisconsin and Nevada simply because those states are drifting to the Right. Trump doesn't need much to win, a small number of non-participant 2020 voters showing up in swing states mad that Kate Spade purses are now expensive will be enough to push Trump over the top. This is mostly correct, but I wouldn't say they can't win the Presidency ever again. It's more accurate to say that the post-Obama environment is one in which Republicans should've won elections easily until the 2030s but squandered that advantage by nominating Trump, who's easily the worst politician in American history. Democrats are winning elections when they have no business doing so. (Shout out to the Trump voters making the impossible possible). Eventually Texas and Georgia will be reliably blue, and North Carolina will truly swing depending on the election. Democrats won't face as much of a hill in the 2030s to win the Presidency. The Senate, however, will be lost to Democrats for a generation. They'll be lucky to control the chamber for 6 out of 20 years or 8 out of 30 years.

One funny aspect about discourse surrounding "inside information" is that members of Congress are really bad at picking stocks. Their stock buys - along with anybody - does not out perform indexed ETFs.

There are millions of voters who did not participate in the 2020 election who tune out politics and only pay attention after a period of inflation. These voters have no idea what Trump says or does, they just know that shredded cheese is 14 cents higher and that's bad. The electoral college. Biden is going to run away with the popular vote, the question is will the margins be enough to win? Biden probably needs to win the popular vote by 4.5% or higher to win the electoral college, a margin of millions of votes.

Trump is making gains on voters who didn't participate in the 2020 election. There are large numbers of people who tune out politics, Trump is leading in voters who did not vote in the 2020 election by a decent margin. SCOTUS is going to rule against Colorado, so this isn't going to affect him. If anything, once SCOTUS overturns the ruling, Trump will ramp up his "Witch Hunt!" rhetoric as he faces criminal prosecution next year. Trump is still a very slight favorite to win next November, although neither candidate is going to be much better then a coin toss on election day.

Had 17 carries and 90 yards over 6 games this year at Oregon. Most of his yards came in the opener against Portland State. Still, our RB room needs help. Nebraska needs depth in a bad way.

To MAGA believers it just proves that the Deep State and cabal of Liberal Leftists hate America and will do anything to steal an election (AGAIN!).

I was able to add quite a few items that provides 60 days of lunches for at least one kid, maybe two. We got bread and peanut butter, bulk bags of cereal, pancake mix, staples like macaroni and hot dogs, boxes of Ramen (12 packs!) with bags of frozen carrots and broccoli if you think your kids will eat it that way, pizza rolls, knoor rice sides with more vegetables, pre-packaged frozen burritos, frozen sliders, a 5 pound bag of rice if you want to meal prep anything, canned fruits... the point is, with minimal effort 120 dollars can go a long way to feeding a kid.

While I agree this is a small amount of money per kid, it's still helpful. What's frustrating is that this is free money. The state only needed to pay $300k of administration costs to get $18 million in funding. That's a 60x return on money. There's no valid reason to turn away the funds. The federal government will not notice the funds being returned, the state of Nebraska refused a guranteed 6000% investment, and now thousands of kids will be a little more hungry than they otherwise would've been.

Wow, Jim Pillen solved not only the state but the federal government's spending problem! Those dumb kids should just become rich and buy food instead of being hungry leeches on our social system.

I really meant "recent memory" and "modern Nebraska football history" to be the same thing. But I really don't think bringing up schedules from three decades and three conferences ago constitutes "modern football history". I do hope that Nebraska builds momentum during 2024 and with better coaching management, I'm optimistic they can get to a bowl game and build positive buzz around Nebraska going forward. The football program desperately needs it.

My favorite conservative moment is Governor Sam Brownback of Kansas from 2011 to 2018. They instituted a series of conservative tax cuts and the state party boasted that Kansas would be a "live red-state experiment" on Conservative supply-side economics. Ronald Reagan would no doubt bless them from beyond the grave. After state projections of revenue were half of what lawmakers projected - only $369 million instead of the planned $651 million, schools were in danger of not getting funding according to levels mandated by law. After years of missed revenue projections, Kansas faced 3 credit downgrades on their bonds, missed state payments into various funds mandated by law, and eventually the public school system faced extreme stress. By 2017, Kansas fell behind neighboring states in nearly all categories: job creation, unemployment, GDP growth, revenue, education, etc. After eventual repeal of the tax law after 5 years, legislatures who worked in Kansas went on a sort of public speaking tour where they went to other Conservative states and would warn their lawmakers about the perils of actually following through with supply-side economics. Brownback resigned instead of serving out his second term.

What I'm referring too is the overall average schedule Nebraska will play going forward. Pick any year you like, 2030 or 2035 and the schedule is, more likely than not, going to be more difficult than what Nebraska faced in 2023 - which was the easiest and most favorable schedule Nebraska has had in recent memory. This is because the Big Ten has done what's known as conference expansion - they've added 4 new teams. The thing about this is: all four of those teams are currently better than Nebraska. The Big Ten also got rid of divisions (drat!) and part of that is the 3 strongest teams in the league used to not be in our division. Now we'll play those better teams more often. Woah, double whammy! Nebraska is fortunate in 2024 to have an easy schedule, it gets more difficult in 2025 and gets more difficult after that. Furthermore, you seem to assume that Nebraska's opponents stay stagnant. Teams are going to improve or get better just as Nebraska is going to improve or get better. Assuming Nebraska stops being one of the worst developmental programs in the country, they can expect to win approximately half of the games they play against teams that acquire similar levels of talent. They'll also probably lose 75% of the time against the top 5 teams in the conference. All told, you're going to end up with a lot of 7-5 or 8-4 records going forward. Why you and everybody else thinks these records are bad is beyond me. College Football is a lot more difficult than it used to be, teams have better coaching, better analysts, more resources, giant weight rooms, whatever it is. Every team in the conference will likely lose more games going forward.

To put it into perspective, Nebraska would have to double their acquisition of Blue Chip talent (currently sitting at 8 players) to 16 blue chips in order to be in the realm of teams that will consistently go 10-2 or better and compete for playoff spots. Nebraska has recruited 20 such players over the list 4 seasons combined. Unfortunately recruiting suffered heavily in the twilight of the Frost era, as the writing was on the wall for a long time. Matt Rhule has done a good job implementing a recruiting plan and getting 8 blue chip players this year. If they can sustain that level of recruiting success, Nebraska will be in good shape going forward.