I am a data manager by trade and know a little programming (mostly in SQL)

I am that friend, and it's true

I am an alumnus of UC Berkeley and work there as staff now

His provocative nature is a double-edged sword. I am fine with it ultimately, but I would prefer that he channeled it into fighting social justice and other forms of leftist thought issue by issue rather than ranting on Twitter.

I think it is also worth noting that I seek out these sorts of right-wing discussion groups because I don't feel safe talking about politics IRL

@fhtagn has called the area where I live "Antifaland", and not without cause

Yeah, I can't trust Democrats on a good day; it gets worse when you have Antifa intimidating the Berkeley College Republicans...which the university administration acknowledged in an email to the campus community

I don't know where Dems get the idea that they can insult people into supporting them

It's like the whole basket of deplorables thing

You're lucky if all you have to worry about is a bad grade. I have to work, so I absolutely cannot afford to talk about my political leanings in their company. My coworkers aren't SJW by any means, but normies are easily seduced into believing far-left talking points, like, say, supporting Kavanaugh against his accuser makes you a rape apologist.

It's totally true; I am open to changing my opinion, but if you just sit there and propagandize then I won't even consider your position, because you have proven that you don't have faith in its truth value yourself

I was skeptical for a long time, but the single biggest reason I voted for Donald Trump was that his victory proved that you can't eliminate a view just by calling it "fascist" and "Nazi" and "evil"

The way the Democrats have continued to act, I'll just keep my mouth shut and vote for him again in 2020

They've given me no reason to do anything else, after all

I am talking about Snoipah's point above regarding "hiding their power level"

I was speaking in re Democrats; my point is that if their ideas are as good as they want to believe they are, they would do a better job of persuading people if they'd actually talk rather than just bully their opponents into submission

They not only make us look weak, but they stigmatize the very act of holding a mainstream political view

Just look at the hysterics over the Kavanaugh accusations; listening to them you would think he has already been convicted

It seems really fishy that she is trying to make excuses for not testifying. Even if you take the most cynical view of partisanship, Flake and Corker have indicated that they are open to hearing her when there was no need for them to do so. She has 51 Senators willing to give her a fair shake, and offering convincing testimony would be the only way for her to stop her alleged attacker from joining the Supreme Court. By not testifying, she is basically just helping Kavanaugh get confirmed at this point. If she really is a victim, she should want to stop him, but instead she is engaged in partisan grandstanding.

Democrats only want the rules to apply to Republicans, you see

college students would disagree

https://www.businessinsider.com/young-voters-dont-know-where-to-buy-stamps-for-absentee-ballots-2018-9

if I needed to do something and couldn't figure out how, Google is exactly where I would go

if these people can't even do that, the word "retard" is far too apt for them

we have nothing but her word that the party itself even happened

this is why prosecution will never happen; there's too much janky with her story and no physical evidence

Trump's approval numbers seem pretty consistent now. I wish they were better ofc, but I remember Democrats predicting early on that he would just continually slide downwards, ending up at late GWB levels. Seems like that isn't going to happen.

Obama spent 2013 and 2014 roughly where Trump is now, actually

got a second wind late and finished over 50%

I assumed you were in college, and, unless you plan on going to grad school, nobody cares what your college grades are

but looking at the evidence further it appears you are in high school

that actually does matter then

at this point we are struggling to keep the Overton Window from continuing to shift to the left

we are a ways off from potentially shifting it back to the right

The concept that a section of the population that is under heavier selection pressure would become more genetically fit under successive iterations seems like it should be uncontroversial, frankly. I would be interested in seeing an empirical study done with, say, peacocks to get concrete results. That would get past the feminist radar too, since they are none too smart. As someone who cares deeply about Truth as a value, it bothers me how easily the left is willing to just avoid asking certain questions because they might not like the answers. If your ideology can't handle being challenged on factual terms, maybe you should invest in a new ideology.

whining about race is the refuge of a defeated lefty who doesn't have an actual point

re-posting this from another server:

I was rolling my eyes at the umpteenth Democrat wasting time hagiographing Ford, and I realized that the Republicans have made a critical strategic error
the average viewer is too stupid to understand cross-examination
they see someone asking dry questions that they don't see the importance of, and it makes less of an impact than the political grandstanding of self-important losers who want everyone to look past how they are politicizing a sexual assault accusation

hopefully there is enough time until November that normal people (i.e. not Dem hacks) move on and care about something else

wow, he got choked up for a second there

he's really good

yeah, he's going through and specifically refuting her proposed timeline

I think he has it at this point

I liked how he was getting emotional when talking about his dad

you can really tell he loved his old man

those were great

humanizing the accused is a great defense tactic

see, you can't win with these people

if Kavanaugh had been totally unemotional, it would have been taken as proof of his guilt

the only way Dems would ever admit he was wrongly accused is if Dr. Ford straight up confessed to it on the stand

it's a classic Kafka trap

if he said that, she would have called him cold and ingenuine

nothing he can say or do will persuade the true believers

the Senate Democrats have handled this matter disgracefully

I have never been so disgusted with them as hearing them question Dr. Ford this morning

he was 100% right in criticizing them, and I am glad he had the courage (see what I did there?) to call them out on it

these people are ridiculous

yes, they are

and I don't say that lightly

lol yeah

the gloves have come off

Kavanaugh is giving it back to the Democrat Senators

wow lol

it is times like these when we need to stand together

I am really ashamed of my state's senators

I think Kavanaugh actually did a pretty good job of making the case that the weight of the evidence fell in his favor

Senate Republicans weren't nearly as skillful in handling the situation though

which kind of surprises me

Nancy Pelosi was there too 😥

I am literally shaking right now

I thought the remainder was relatively boring and uneventful

Republicans continued speaking themselves and not using the prosecutor

I wonder if that would be considered inciting violence

I live in the midst of Antifa's stronghold

their talking points are all too familiar to me

yeah, the Southern homeboys would have a field day with Antifa

I think Manchin votes Yes, not as a political move, but as a genuine show of support

he's one of the last real conserva-Dems

he's not some woke #MeToo devotee

"definitively prove" is the kind of thing you say if you want to sound open to changing your mind but really aren't

it's highly unlikely evidence exists anywhere to definitively prove either side's case, and he knows that

I had a hunch early today and put all of my money in my PredictIt account shorting -49 when it was at 52 cents

glad I did it

it is amazing how liberals don't seem to consider telling the cops that high of a priority

if someone commits a violent crime, that is the only way to actually serve justice

instead, people tell everyone but the police and they act like there is nothing amiss with this

Manchin has a solid enough lead that he can probably survive fallout from a no vote

@fhtagn Democrats were so confident in the strength of their case against Kavanaugh, it will be amusing to see their reaction to not only those ebil Republicans uniting behind him, but also peeling off a few Democrats

@Walter Johnson I have seen reports to that effect

@Yellowhammer oh, I will be reading it to mine salt from their tears

@reagent if nothing changes, I assume things play out like yesterday's hearing

Democrats claim victory and act justified in opposing Kavanaugh

listening to Flake, I doubt he flips

his rationale sounds more like he wants Dems to shut up about it not being investigated than anything

Romney is a lot more conservative than people realize

which is part of why the anti-Trump hysterics are so ridiculous

it's driving progressives into the arms of staunch conservatives that they couldn't have less in common with politically

men like Bush and Romney

because they somehow imagine that these figures represent the halcyon days of American politics

she has become much more conservative as of late