Ignorance and Cost of Living

 The polls, as interpreted by the High Priests of Media, indicate that Cost of Living is the most important issue for voters as we approach the Mid-terms. The talking  heads in the MSM quote people complaining about the prices of food, utilities, and rent. And as an aside, the CCP is running YouTube videos of 20-somethings complaining about the price of eating out at Chipotle's - supported by a bot farm of "life sucks because of these prices" comments.

I've gotten into the habit of using the various AIs to research issues - gone are the days of manually sifting through pages of garbage Google hits. Both Grok and Gemini pegged the cumulative inflation at 22% for the Biden (aka shit-stain) administration's 4 years. If you're thinking back to pre-Covid prices, (which is where my mind goes), prices have increased 29.4%.

From the good old days to now, prices have risen 30% - that's inflation.

Now the only way you could have a pre-Covid reference is if you were paying your own way 6-7 years ago - not likely your average 20-something. That's something to consider when I mention CCP-generated videos.

But assuming memories of the good old days, it is possible that a percentage of people polled are legitimately so stupid that they believe Trump can just wave his Presidential wand and reset prices.

I'm not dismissing the higher cost of living - I feel it everytime I check out at the grocery store. But I know the issue is being used politically and those pushing it do not have America's best interests at heart.

The Media wants a failure, but..

 I'll cut to the chase: the right wing pundits are full of shit.

Trump has stated a zillion times that the goal with the air campaign is to prevent Iran from obtaining a nuclear weapon.

Trump has also made it clear that he is not going to keep the Straight of Hormuz open by himself.

I never pay attention to the libtard media, but now it is the right-wing pundits who are claiming all sorts of crazy shit. Everyone seems to assume that Trump is a mental midget like Biden.

Trump is under no illusions about regime change. Trump knows it is unlikely America is going to find the cylinders of Uranium hexafluoride. He is also aware of war plan 99 course concept "escalation trap".

But Trump knows if Iran can't further enrich to 90%, they can't build a bomb small enough to deliver with a missile. Trump also knows that using 60% uranium 235 Iran can build a goofy-big bomb weighing about 20k lbs that could yield maybe 5kt. A bomb that could be moved by sea or a truck. For whatever reason, the pundits couldn't be bothered to at least run the idea by Grok before dismissing the risk.

When Trump used the word "imminent", he was right.

I'm not sure why, but it seems as though the right-wing is hoping Trump will screw up.

Messaging: Remember "low information voters"?

"Low information voters" entered our language in the run up to the 1996 Presidential election between incumbent Bill Clinton and challenger Senator Bob Dole. The media ran interviews of regular people, the most famous was a soccer mom who supported Bill Clinton saying "I don't trust him, but I think he's the better man for the job". Hence, "The soccer mom vote".

Assuming 2026 US population of 342 million:

• ~54 million people have an IQ of 85 or less
• ~233 million 85-115
• ~54 million with an IQ of 115 and above

According to Wikipedia, the US military will not accept or induct anyone below 83 IQ as they cannot be trained to successfully perform any job in the military.

The only requirements to vote are US citizenship and non-felon status.

All I know about the voting population is that ~156 million voted in 2024's Presidential election out of an eligible ~244 million (~65% turnout) voters.

I spewed all that intro as groundwork for the idea that campaign messaging needs to cover 3 IQ ranges.

Another idea is that the groups each have strengths and weaknesses:

• The 85 or less group will not respond to abstract concepts and will not understand academic language, but will respond strongly to verbal and visual appeals to justice and fairness regardless of truthfulness.
• The 85-115 group can  handle most abstract and advanced language, is suspicious of emotionalism but not likely to be knowledgeable of major issues.
• The 115+ group ignores appeals to emotionalism and switches off any dubious claims. Will not pay attention to logically unsupported positions.

A better year overall

 Elon Musk showed us how the grift works at the Federal level. Gavin Newsom and Tim Waltz showed us how the grift works at the State level. Jessica Tarlov of "The Five" showed how libtards can think around the obvious fraud and obfuscate and diffuse the focus so as to protect the Democrats.

I'm still very thankful that Trump is in the Whitehouse - I can't imagine either a moron like Harris or a corpse like Biden after nearly a year of Trump. The stench of the Shit-stain administration is almost gone.

I'm happy that Trump has taken a very hard line with drug cartels. There is much more he can do since Mexico is cartel controlled. There has to be some nervous cartel leaders.

The SCOTUS is defining Executive branch boundaries and Trump is winning 80% of the judgements. And America can see just how screwed up the Judiciary is when Judges suffering from TDS won't stay in their lane.

I'm confident that Trump can create the appearance of improved affordability in the minds of the really, really stupid people who just recently realized that the price increases from the inflation from the Shit-stain years, aren't going away. Stupid people are part of our society, but I think Trump can handle them.

I'm certain that China is going to take Taiwan and it might cause a recession. But I am confident in the US leadership.

Are there problems? Yep, but I'm happy and hopeful for the future.

The ACA (Abomination Crime Act) - needs those subsidies

 Ok, I hate doing a cut&paste from Grok, but it beats retyping headline news:

"However, the estimated total scale of the "ACA scam"—encompassing improper enrollments, identity fraud, and unverified subsidies—is $27 billion annually, based on analyses by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) and independent groups like the Paragon Health Institute."

Now my focus here is on the extension of the Covid-era subsidies that Senator Schumer is using as a weapon against Trump. 

Remember, Senate Democrats, led by Chuck Schumer, shut down the Federal government for 44 days to force Trump to extend ACA subsidies.

Thankfully, because of DOGE, we have already seen the rampant fraud committed by what I'll call the real "Deep State" - over 5000 fraudulent Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) fed by now defunct USAID alone.  At one point Elon Musk put the true number of parasite fraudster NGOs at around 50,000.

The investigation by the GAO and CBO parallels work by DOGE, once again showing how a fake Social Security number is used to open up a fountain of unaccounted Government spending. Evidently this is what Chucky and the Senate Democrats want to protect.

Next year starts the race to midterm elections. I hope Trumps smears the dog shit of corruption on the heads of every politician he can find with their hand in the proverbial cookie jar. Starting with Chucky.

Gonna be fun.

Picking on Grok - is AI ready?

 Here us question posed to Grok 4.1:

"How did Charlie Kirk's assassination happen?"

This is what you get when Grok gives a fast answer (~15sec):

"Kirk was delivering the opening speech of his Fall 2025 "American Comeback Tour," addressing a crowd of several hundred students and supporters on campus grounds near the UVU Events Center. At approximately 7:45 p.m. local time, as Kirk discussed conservative values and the upcoming midterm elections, he was struck by a single sniper round to the head from about 130 meters away. The shot originated from a wooded area adjacent to the campus, where the gunman had positioned himself. Kirk collapsed onstage and was pronounced dead at the scene despite immediate medical intervention. The event was livestreamed, and graphic videos of the shooting spread rapidly on social media within minutes, amplifying public shock."

This is what get if you tell Grok to think harder (1m 14s):

"At approximately 12:23 p.m. MDT, Kirk was addressing a crowd and engaging with an audience member on the topic of mass shootings in the United States when he was struck by a single sniper bullet to the neck.

en.wikipedia.org

 The shot came from the roof of the nearby Losee Center, about 130 meters away, using a .30-06 Mauser M 98 bolt-action rifle.

en.wikipedia.org

 Kirk was rushed to Timpanogos Regional Hospital where he was pronounced dead shortly after.

en.wikipedia.org

 The event was being livestreamed, and graphic footage of the shooting quickly circulated online, showing the immediate chaos as attendees fled and security responded.

facebook.com

 No other individuals were injured in the attack."

OK, as they often say in the series "Reacher" - details matter. Your average person might not want to wait for a more accurate answer

If they accepted Grok's fast answer, they would be misinformed on:

What Charlie was doing at the moment he was shot.

Where Charlie was shot.

Where the shot originated.

When and where Charlie was pronounced dead.

And regardless of Grok's effort,  the ignorant media bias of "sniper" is promulgated.

(The shooter was no sniper).

AI still needs a warning label "DANGER: this product is known by intelligent people everywhere to spew garbage occasionally. The user is encouraged not to accept output without some rudimentary fact checking"

The Rotting Corpse of the ACA

 I'm not a fan of the 40+ day Government shutdown, but one positive is shining some light on the ACA.

I blogged about Healthcare Reform in September 2009. At the time, what was to become "Obama's signature achievement" was being bounced around in the halls of Congress and our media was doing it's best to keep us in the dark. Few folks could understand the basic underlying principle, and nobody except the Architect (Johnathan Gruber) knew the details - not even Obama.

Gruber sold the bill to the public by the mushroom farming approach (keep them in the dark and feed them shit). He kept Congress partitioned into special interests, and he gave Obama plausible deniability by not filling him in on the details. In the end, we latched onto a quote from Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi -  "We have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it", and Obama's "if you like your health care plan, you'll be able to keep your health care plan". Regardless the obvious deception, the ACA became law in 2010 with full implementation delayed until 2014.

I used the Health Marketplace as an individual (not part of an employer plan) from 2014 to 2023. And has been repeatedly reported by others, premiums skyrocketed and coverage declined (rising deductibles). People whose employer managed the benefit were somewhat oblivious, depending on how much the employer subsidized.

Note: The ACA was nearly repealed in 2017 after passing the House but failing in the Senate by one vote - cancer brain McCain.

Ok, enough with history - I think everyone gets the irony of "AFFORDABLE Care Act".

The ACA was written by insurers and  providers, and reflects these group's financial interests. As is oft the case with making "the way we've always done it" law, i.e. set in stone, there is no way to curtail the rising costs of medical care - hence ever increasing premiums, or in the shit-stain era (Biden), taxpayer subsidies.

There are some interesting opportunities to effect intelligent change in the US healthcare, but any serious change is predicated on Congressional willingness to creamating the rotting corpse of the ACA.

Covid opened the kimono of the Federal Governments existing systems (NIH, CDC, FDA) so the public could see just how pathetic they are. It also, (hopefully), educated the public to realize that healthcare in America is not one giant monolith, but rather a very loosely connected network of ~7000 hospitals that seem more focused on protecting themselves from malpractice suits, than practicing effective medicine. (I remember trying to rank hospitals on their covid care and discovered they siloed that information out of reach of mere humans like myself).

So change is needed, some change is easily within reach (structural), change due to AI is probably 5 years out (assuming Congress removes impediments).

I would love for a healthcare overhaul to be Trump's signature achievement. I wonder if Elon has some extra time...