did bernie lose in 2016 because he lost the black vote?

it's an accounting problem - you can do the math that way, but it's disingenuous.

he lost the south by huge margins, regardless - white southerners seemed to prefer clinton, as well, and i don't know why everybody forgot that she was first lady of arkansas for eight years. i did a post on this. he just flat out lost the south, through and through. he did terribly with older voters. he did badly with democrats. and, large percentages of his voting base were unable to vote for him, due to the rules around the process.

so, the single biggest thing he needed to do was register, register, register...but that doesn't seem to be happening. the focus seems to be on trying to convince the most conservative block in the country to vote for the most liberal candidate in years. it makes no sense, as a strategy.

he should have doubled down on his strengths, instead of trying to address his weaknesses.

and, i'll tell you what the numbers say right now: while bernie may not have lost in 2016 due to black voters, if things don't change soon, he's going to lose 2020 because he has minimal support levels amongst white voters. and, that was the whole argument for bernie in the first place....

and, i will state this clearly, at least: the single biggest thing that bernie needs to do to turn his campaign around is to get as far away from cenk uygur as he possibly can.

he's a loser. and, he's not intelligent. and, he's not popular, either.

sanders is not finished yet. but the numbers are getting worse and worse, and he's not being beaten by better candidates.

it's true that the media is out to hurt him, but that was true in 2016, too. if he beat the media then, why can't he beat it now?

i'm going to tell you what the narrative is going to be if he ends up losing badly in the first few primary states, and i'm laying this down now because i think the campaign needs to get their head around it in order to turn things around.

after 2016, bernie was (rightfully or wrongfully) criticized for running a campaign that had too many white people in it. now, i think everybody that knows his policies knows he wants to legislate in favour of everybody, and that the conclusion that he was tilted towards white voters due to the composition of his campaign was unfair. but, he reacted by replacing a lot of people that were hired due to their qualifications with a lot of people that were hired due to their skin colour, or what religion they have, or where they were born. and, frankly, it shouldn't be surprising that replacing merit with background has sunk his campaign.

bernie is losing because his team sucks. and, he has time to figure that out.

now, that doesn't mean he should fire everybody and replace them with people that are white, as that would just be repeating the same problem. but, the campaign is going to need to do a comprehensive survey - who was hired because they deserved it and who was hired to increase diversity? and, they're going to need to correct it, and make sure they don't keep doing it.

i promise you that this will be the narrative, if he loses. and, it's probably the right one, too.

i just want to clarify a point.

it's easy to look at what i've written here and say "she's calling for solidarity with trans activism, but she won't, herself, stand in solidarity with muslims or gamers. hypocrite!".

and, as always, what that means is that you're a conservative, and i'm not. allow me to explain.

what you're doing is creating a false equivalency by throwing all of these different minorities into a box and standing up for "minority rights". so, to you, these are all the same thing, and i'm clearly contradicting myself. but, that is a textbook classical conservative position that is usually attributed to de tocqueville. it's a right-wing approach to the scenario.

i reject this - i don't want to put everybody into this big box, and i don't think that standing up for "minority rights" is the fundamental issue, at all. rather, i'm going to pick and choose which minorities i'm going to stand with, based on whether they reflect the values i have or not. and, while trans activists reflect my values, muslims and gamers (with caveats in both scenarios) most certainly do not.

rather, if i were to stand up for muslims just because they're minorities, then i'd be being a hypocrite, as well as dishonest and inconsistent, because i have absolutely no common cause with them whatsoever.

it essentially goes back to the basic difference between the left and the right, once again. the right believes in a world of harmony, where everybody gets along in shared diversity because they know their place and they keep to themselves. the left, on the other hand, believes in a world that is defined by perpetual conflict between interests and classes, where people need to align against each other in order to advance their own causes.

the simple answer is that i'm on the side of people arguing for equal access to services, and i'm not on the side of people using religion as an excuse to deny it. and, this is actually a good example of the growing contradiction evolving in front of us between real leftist equality and this kind of phony neo-liberalism that thinks "diversity" is a worthwhile excuse to deny it.

no, seriously.

if democrats are smart, then they'll actually build a bridge to nowhere. make work projects for all. dig ditches, and fill them back in. that way, when the republicans get elected, they can fight like to hell to keep funding for the bridge to nowhere (it's the jobs), while things like healthcare spending and social security are left off the radar.

like i say: they're going to govern, and when they govern they're going to cut. so, you set up a decoy for them to attack...

i also watched a bit more of the debate, and i want to make a general comment about financing and universality.

in the long run, somebody like klobuchar is probably right: if you're going to have private universities, and wealthy people are going to spend a lot of money to go to them, then it doesn't actually make sense to bail them out when they get into huge amounts of debt. that's trickle-up economics, it's a backwards transfer of wealth.

but, this is a very long war, and sensible issues around financing should be left to the republicans, not the democrats. and, i'll tell you why...

supposing that the democrats win and bring in universal health care and wipe out student debt, they will eventually lose office, and almost certainly be replaced by the republicans when they do. if the republicans come into office and inherit a sound fiscal situation, they're still going to have to push through cuts to satiate the blood lust in their base. remember: republicans don't really care about deficits, what they care about is demonizing groups of people and then attacking them when they get into office. so, they have to carry out the public execution - they have to feed the captives to the lions. so, all that democrats are really going to accomplish by being fiscally responsible is forcing the republicans to make deeper cuts. the base needs it's blood.

if, on the other hand, the democrats pile up their legislation with excessive spending, then they're giving the republicans something to cut out when they win the office back, whatever office it is.

and, of course they will win the office back. and, no, you can't convince "moderates" to vote against them. nor will democratic voters punish their own for overspending. this is all relative, so it's just a question of where you place the scales.

so, democrats should really, seriously be pushing for and trying to legislate the most expensive, bloated plans they can come up with. that is, they should earmark areas that can be cut by future republican administrations by overspending in their own bills. as the party of spending, the democrats are in control, here: they determine what gets cut in the future, by what they legislate in the present.

liberals in canada can learn a similar lesson by observing the ford government. they're literally eliminating disability. well, the previous government was too fiscally responsible - there wasn't an easy target to attack. if the wynne-mcguinty government had focused less on deficits and spent more recklessly on frivolous projects, ford would have been able to make easier cuts.

and, if obama had pushed through more extensive spending when he had control of both houses, trump wouldn't be cutting food stamps. he'd be cutting programs for pet insurance, or something.

and, i just want to have it recorded somewhere that it is obvious that a gun buy back program is a way better idea, if you are concerned about results, than gun control legislation. bernie's ideas on guns seem to lack the overwrought kneejerkism that has become fashionable in the democratic centre.

there are more guns than people. so, if you institute a serious crackdown on sales, you're just opening up a black market where supply greatly outstrips demand. removing the regulatory/oversight process might even have the result of depressing the prices.

there are sane and reasonable things to do around sales, but you have to accept that their effects will be minimal on actually preventing real crime. a policy to actually get the existing guns off the streets is a way better idea, and something nobody else is talking about (to my knowledge) in their collective rush to get to the podium first to blame the nra.

so, i watched the rogan interview, and bernie was actually pretty snappy with him when he asked stupid questions.

listen, at the end of the day you need to be able to face your critics. it's even a fundamental principle of justice that you be able to face your accusers. so, there's some value in bernie showing up and saying "hey. you say that shit to my face.". i think rogan gets that, maybe even better than most.

and, bernie is not a cloistered member of congress, either. he will reach out and work with people he broadly disagrees with in order to get things done. that's his record, it's more pragmatic than idealistic, and it's a a mindframe that will help the country in the end. if you want good trade policies and you want lower prescription costs, at least, it's probably going to be necessary to work with some subset of republicans. they may even be more willing to sign on then some democrats.

and, it's a good opportunity to catch him in a slip, too, right. i mean, that's probably the actual reason warren won't do a fox town hall - there's a fear they might catch her agreeing with them on economic policy, on the record.

so, i don't even want to throw the argument out that you have to do it to reach categories of voters. that's true enough, but it's not really addressing the concern. what i'd rather suggest is that, if you're afraid of your candidate having a tete-a-tete with joe rogan, you may want to look deeper into yourself and ask why that really is.

except that it's too cold to sleep in here.

i'm going to get up, get something to eat, run the hot water and go from there. maybe i'll nap a little later, instead.

and, if i'm going to have a long weekend, i need to force myself to sleep in until the late morning, at least. my schedule is cycled around the other way, right now.

i'm past my cut-off, so i should be able to eat a nice meal when i wake up. and, with that, i've successfully removed a week's worth of calories. am i feeling ok?

well, i was trying to lose about 5-10 pounds, but i'm not measuring myself. i don't have a scale. i look like i've lost that extra bit of belly fat, which was the difference between flat (i.e. normal) and almost bulged (i.e. a scary change). and, lying flat on my back, i'm back to concave, which is normal. if i went from in the 140s to in the 130s, that gets my bmi back down to 20ish, as well, which is closer to where i want it.

yes, i'll be drinking this weekend, but i'll try to keep it (mostly) to beer. and, i'll be biking. and dancing. this was a blip, i expect.

but, i mean, if i wake up on monday and there's an issue, i'll just do it again.

so, this is the response i got from the oiprd on july 17th:

I am sending this email to let you know, the investigator has completed your review and it will be sent to our legal counsel next week for the finalization.

that would suggest to me that a report is on the way, and i did indicate at the time that it seemed strange that it didn't go to a panel.

this is the response i got on august 8th:

Last I can see in our file, this went to our panel just yesterday. So now we wait for the drafted decision.

so, which is it?

i know that it sounds paranoid to suggest that i'm being fucked around by the police oversight committee, but i'm just looking at the evidence in front of me and coming to clear deductions around it. they've been entirely inconsistent and totally dishonest from the very start.

i don't know when to expect the report at this point, but there's not much that i can do so long as they keep stringing me along, except sit tight and wait it out. the only thing with a meaningful statute on it was the human rights complaint, and it's been filed; there are no statutory time restraints on filing a charter challenge, and if the delay is due to the oiprd then the judge should accept that without much push back.

if i'm right, and they're just dragging their feet, then it will just help my cause, in the end.

so, i've been trying to avoid commenting on the jessica yaniv case, but i think the situation has gotten out of hand.

in ontario, which is not bc, the human rights code prohibits discrimination in five specific areas: employment, housing, services, unions and vocational associations and contracts. her claim is that, by being denied a brazilian wax (which i am only foggy on the actual details of) due to the existence of her male genitals, she is being discriminated against by a number of businesses on the grounds of her gender identity. further, she seems to believe that the root cause of the discrimination is religious observation, and she's probably absolutely right about it.

i think she has a strong case in principle, but it's less clear what the proper remedy is. the defense is trying to argue that she's trying to force specific employees into waxing her balls, but this is a disingenuous position. rather, what the law says in context is that the business has a duty to accommodate, which probably means that they'd have to hire employees willing to perform the service. that said, it's not particularly clear to me why a business doesn't exist to cater to the queer market, as you'd think waxing services for testicles isn't such a particularly obscure request within a particular community.

you have to pull back the layers of complexity and specificity, here, to get to the meaningful point. so, one of the things the court is going to ask is whether she had other options or not. the issue with the cake in detroit comes up, where maybe the owner was technically discriminating against the queer couple but the correct answer was to just go to another store, because there are lots of places that make cakes and you'll find one eventually. there's lots of pro-queer spaces in detroit, trust me. then, you can go on the internet and attack the business for being transphobic and hope it hurts their business. that's what i did with the works in detroit, and i won the argument at the end of the day - they've since disappeared, and i haven't had any problems since. it was a terrible place that the city got into a rut around, and the city is better off now that it's gone.

so, you should expect the court to rule that a violation occurred, but that's not the same thing as expecting them to come up with a clear solution. if she's asking for monetary compensation, it would have to be in the form of emotional damages, and it's not clear how that is defined. and, the only way they're going to order a company to hire somebody to perform the service is if there isn't another company on the market that already performs the service, which i think is doubtful. so, she might be right in principle, but her legal action is nonetheless probably ill-advised and winning the case may not come with any concrete benefits.

but, these are legal questions and the court will figure them out.

what is more concerning to me right now is that jessica appears to be being targeted by the religious right in her community, which is what she said was the root cause in the first place, and who are predictably using the police to carry out their oppression. whether you agree with her lawsuit or not, she needs solidarity and support from the broader community, right now.