As to the internal/external polls, I think that is mostly the error bars and how the results were spun. Despite claims I don’t think beyond the most egregious and probably least accurate cases do polling companies intentionally slant question to manufacture results. The campaigns likely do pay to get the error bars as small as feasible while media polling is likely to have more potential for error. A plus/minus 3 percent range encompasses any result from a >1% squeaker to a 5% blowout. The campaign polling was probably more accurate but likely showed a ‘jump ball’ until the final week or two. The claim to have always been behind might be a bit self-serving but it does align with the range of possible outcomes from the public polling.

That was just about the most frightening thing I’ve read all month.
Some things we’ve seen on the internet before, some were new to me, and some were an extrapolation of past trends that AFAIK did NOT make the news.

Rogan asked Andreessen: “When you leave a meeting like that, what do you do?”

Andreessen responded: “You endorse Donald Trump.”

X user Ben Averbook condensed Rogan’s three-hour podcast into a series of the most important highlights:

Biden’s administration laid it all out:
Only 2-3 AI companies would be allowed to exist.
Complete control over development. pic.twitter.com/HEz8pAWXq5
— Ben Averbook (@benaverbook) November 26, 2024

That is straight-up fascism, of the kind the Democrats accuse the Republicans of fostering but actually practice themselves, and have since Wilson and FDR (sadly, some Republican presidents have also dabbled in the pond).

Andreessen told Rogan about the federal government’s rogue “Operation Choke Point.” He described it as a move by the Department of Justice that initially targeted marijuana businesses and gun manufacturers. He said under Biden, it was then weaponized to destroy political opponents, tech founders, and the crypto community.

They’ve uncovered a new way to destroy companies:
30 tech founders were secretly debanked.
No warning. No explanation. No appeals.
Pure, silent government power. pic.twitter.com/iKPn9XmI82
— Ben Averbook (@benaverbook) November 26, 2024

We knew about the legal-but-shouldn’t-be moves that the Democrats have used to harass industries they don’t like. It might take some real journalists to uncover WHICH tech founders were on the hit list, since most of them seem to be Democrat allies.
Maybe there are some conservatives who don’t toe the line sufficiently close to win the Marxist Seal of Approval.

The next point has shown up in the news recently, but I was unaware of the magnitude of the situation. To be fair, AesopSpouse (until he retired) and some of our sons work from home, to a certain extent, but they DO show up at the office on either a regular schedule or as needed.
I also have friends in government agencies who are diligent and earn their salaries, whether at home or at the office. However, there is a great deal of leeway for abuse in the situation.
And since no one ever gets fired for incompetence, maybe it’s cheaper having some of them at home NOT working than in the office messing things up.
Cheaper still to not have them working at all. I suspect that one of the things motivating the high level of Trump-hate in Washington was his too-long-delayed initiative to re-do Civil Service rules to get rid of them more easily.

I don’t think it was any great secret, it just didn’t have a “hook” that would drag it into the media on either side.

Rogan and Andreessen discussed the government workforce dilemma.

The government workforce has been exposed:
• Half never returned to the office after COVID.
• Some show up just one day a month.
• Yet, they still collect full DC-level salaries. pic.twitter.com/MCzNZJIC6x
— Ben Averbook (@benaverbook) November 26, 2024

Andreessen spoke about Elon Musk and Vivek Ramaswamy’s newly created Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE) and how they may have devised a plan to reduce the government workforce.

However, @elonmusk and @DOGE might have the solution:
“You can work from home… just not for the federal government.” pic.twitter.com/CaukJjmkY5
— Ben Averbook (@benaverbook) November 26, 2024

Maybe they could all learn to code.
There might even be some tech start-ups to hire them, under Republicans.

This next concern is very important, and has been exposed in multiple stories about different critical sectors in the last few years. However, this particular bit is the one that makes you want to know how soon we can put the DOD leaders and the Congress committee members allegedly overseeing them on trial for treason.

They spoke about national security threats.

Our national security is hanging by a thread:
• 90% of US military drones are Chinese-made.
• FAA regulations wiped out American manufacturers.
Each drone has the potential to be a weapon—or a spy platform. pic.twitter.com/tldx5xuVOJ
— Ben Averbook (@benaverbook) November 26, 2024

With capabilities like these, I wonder why the Chinese bothered with the spy balloons, which Biden Inc. allowed to wander at will until called out by the right-wing media and the public.
And why can’t American manufacturers meet FAA regs if the Chinese can?
Or, is it that the Chinese don’t have to?

(In the same way that employers don’t have to follow regulations for illegal labor that they do for American citizens and legal immigrants — which IMO is the main driver of the high cost of legal labor. It isn’t that Americans “won’t do the work” illegals do; they aren’t even asked to do it.)

There were more topics of concern discussed, and at the end some speculation that the Trump administration will do to YouTube what Musk did to Twitter by opening all the archives for examination.

I don’t know if they can, but where there’s a will, there’s probably an obscure statute.
A fair use of Democrat precedent: if you don’t want the Law used against you, don’t use it against your opponents.

But there was an interesting hitch in a discussion some years back. When I pointed out that Levine, then public health big shot in PA took his mother out of a nursing home before….my relation interrupted, “It’s not illegal to take your mother out and put her in a hotel.”.

Right answer, wrong question. She knew Levine knew what would happen–that’s why he put his mother into hotel–and she knew what it was, as well. But she was okay with it because….it was a dem state. But she had to divert the argument.

The bad guy…? Ron De Santis. He doesn’t make people do stupid stuff.

The 2016 California US Senate debate is available online. Harris sounded like a more or less plausible candidate for the Senate. She just had to effectively repeat the Democrat talking points, and from what little I heard she was doing that. Same thing in 2020, more or less. This time she had to defend the Biden/Harris administration’s terrible record. That was an impossible job — and the Democrat talking points were much worse and more inadequate this year.

The baggage Harris was carrying was a major factor in her defeat, but there’s no question that she was a terrible candidate. There was a decline in her ability to perform on stage. The talk is that she was a drinker or a pot-smoker, but I suspect she was on medication, possibly a medication that interacted poorly with alcohol. Beyond that, though, there didn’t seem to be that much to her.

Kamala tried to play the middle class card, but she couldn’t do that. She was less willing to play the race and gender cards, but to the extent that she did, they didn’t work either. Almost anybody in the higher levels of electoral politics can spout a rationale about why they are in politics and what vision they have for the country’s future (even if it’s all bogus). Harris couldn’t even manage that. Her promises of more spending to achieve targeted objectives (more first-time home buyers, more African-American small businesses) just emphasized how ineffectual and pointless all of Biden’s spending had been.

Die-hard leftists would vote for a banana split if it had the “D” next to its name. Anyway, regarding Harris, everyone knew that she would allow all the grifts and all the ideologically-motivated mayhem to continue. For example, no question that it would still be possible, in a Harris administration, to castrate a five year-old. Not to mention the DEI gravy train rolling on.

This is sufficient. No further qualifications (like coherent speech patterns) needed.

The Chattering Classless or Chattering Clueless?