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Joined 1 year ago
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Cake day: June 12th, 2023

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    1. The article argues campaigning with Liz Cheney seems to have no effect. Calling it an “electoral fiasco,” especially in the headline, clearly implies that it was detrimental in a significant way.
    2. The evidence that the rallies were ineffective is comparing Harris’s results against Biden’s. This is terrible analysis. This should be at least a difference-in-difference comparison (the difference in the change vs Biden, using similar counties that were/weren’t visited). Useful evidence that their analysis actually works would be applying it to strategies they think were positive, and showing the relative improvement there.












  • It’s typically not an instant thing. Below is the description from page 25 of the pdf linked by OP, from which the charts were taken; I have highlighted some mentioned timeframes. There is also a graph on page 24 showing the change over time.

    India’s process of autocratization begins in earnest from 2008 and characteristically proceeded in the incremental, slow-moving fashion of the “third wave”. Over the years, India’s autocratization process has been well documented, including gradual but substantial deterioration of freedom of expression, compromising independence of the media, crackdowns on social media, harassments of journalists critical of the government, as well as attacks on civil society and intimidation of the opposition. The ruling anti-pluralist, Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) with Prime Minister Modi at the helm has for example used laws on sedition, defamation, and counterterrorism to silence critics. The BJP government undermined the constitution’s commitment to secularism by amending the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) in 2019. The Modi-led government also continues to suppress the freedom of religion rights. Intimidation of political opponents and people protesting government policies, as well as silencing of dissent in academia are now prevalent. India dropped down to electoral autocracy in 2018 and remains in this category by the end of 2023.







  • This article is an abuse of the source data. “Working class” here is closer to manual laborer and excludes teachers, farm workers, military, emergency services, nurses, law enforcement, and others. The data is also fairly noisy, with typos and 2% of values being empty affecting the calculation.

    To conclude that anyone not “working class” by this definition is “upper-class” is absurd. I guess for some it is hard to imagine the lofty former assistant manager at Burger King (D-AR) understanding the struggles of the common man.

    There are certainly interesting discussions to be had about the disruptive influence of wealth on elections and about balancing representation with competence – and folks are having that discussion – but this article contributes less than nothing to those conversations.


  • Oh man, don’t stop

    You got it! Here’s some other consumer protections the administration has introduced recently:

    • Direct filing with the IRS
    • Price limits on asthma inhalers and insulin for seniors
    • Requiring ISPs to provide consistent up-front information and pricing
    • Restrictions on college junk fees and disallowing witholding of transcripts

    Hungry for more? Check this out:

    White House Statement on Junk Fees

    That’s from October, so some of it overlaps, but among other stuff there’s still a “Click to Cancel” rule working its way through the FTC.

    Sadly Biden has been spending a bunch of time on lame crap like climate change, human rights, health care, infrastructure, election integrity, etc., so it might take a bit longer for him to single-handedly usher in consumer utopia.