…sorry…if I were more awake…or just generally better at this…I’d manage to turn this in a different direction…but…much as I know we’re all sick of history repeating
So, is Tucker Carlson hard to classify? On the one hand, he spreads tropes central to neo-Nazi propaganda, such as “white replacement” theory, suggesting that leftist elites seek to replace “legacy Americans” by foreign non-white immigrants. On the other hand, he denounces media, intellectual and political elites, as well as US intervention in Ukraine, platforming those who identify as the “anti-war left”, such as Jimmy Dore. How should we best understand this set of views? If Carlson has fascist sympathies, as do, quite inarguably, many of those who applaud him, how do we understand his firm stance against US military and financial support for Ukraine? Surely, historically speaking, fascism is not compatible with the isolationist position Carlson has urged.
We should look to history as our guide here. But the history that best informs us in this case is not European history, but American history. Before the beginning of the second world war, all of America’s pro-fascist parties opposed US intervention on the side of its allies against Nazi Germany. Often, the opposition to the US supporting Britain against Nazi Germany was represented as “isolationism”.
There were openly fascist organizations during this time, such as the German American Bund. Somewhat more ambiguous was the America First movement. As the historian Bradley Hart recounts, in a packed America First rally in Madison Square Garden in 1941, the Montana senator Burton K Wheeler denounced “jingoistic journalists and saber-rattling bankers” who were pushing the nation into war against Germany.
[…]
It is simply inarguable fact that American racial fascism has a clear isolationist tradition, especially when the wars in question are against fascist opponents.
[…]
Putin’s Russia is the international leader of the global far right, promoting ultra-nationalism, religious traditionalism and anti-LGBTQ+ sentiment across the world. If Russia is not fascist, then even Nazi Germany in the 1930s was not fascist. As the historian Timothy Snyder has urged, “we should finally say it”: Russia is fascist.
[…]
American fascists have always denounced the media, intellectuals and politicians. Carlson is careful to avoid explicitly antisemitic statements. But his show is the home of anti-Soros conspiracy theories. The antisemitism in his programming is clearly dog-whistled, and Jewish organizations have been among the first to cheer his ousting. Indeed, if Carlson did not regularly denounce media, intellectual, financial and political elites, regular targets of Nazi ideology, the case for calling him an American fascist would be much less clear.Nazi ideology supported strict gender roles – one of the central targets of the first mass Nazi book burning on 10 May 1933 was Magnus Hirschfeld’s collection of LGBTQ+ literature, the largest in the world and the largest documentation of gender fluidity (Hirschfeld coined the term “transsexual”). Carlson has used his platform to denounce transgender Americans as existential threats to Christianity. Fascists target cosmopolitan ways as existential threats to masculinity – a viewpoint Carlson also clearly shares.
Finally, fascism praises violence against democracy, valorizing violent street mobs attacking democratic processes and institutions as martyrs to the nation. Here too Tucker Carlson fits perfectly into the tradition.
It is not difficult at all to classify Tucker Carlson’s political ideology. He is an American fascist, only the latest in a long historical line.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2023/apr/28/tucker-carlson-politics-fascism
…some things…I can’t say I saw coming…& I find hard to take
What started as a date at a Texas burger joint earlier this month ended with one of the participants going to jail after allegedly murdering someone else over $40 and carrying on with the rest of the date as if nothing happened, according to authorities.
[…]
The woman who was on the date with Aguirre was “shocked to see a photo of herself on the news and to hear that she was a person of interest” in the investigation, her attorney Rick DeToto told the Washington Post. DeToto said that his client voluntarily spoke to police after she saw the photos, leading to Aguirre’s arrest. She will not be charged in connection with the shooting and was “devastated” to learn of Nix’s death.“She was simply having dinner with the defendant and was unaware of the shooting,” DeToto said of the woman, who has not been publicly identified.
…I’m not trying to suggest the lady should have known…or guessed…but…I literally can’t fathom this one
On 11 April, after Aguirre and the woman parked their cars, Nix – posing as a parking attendant – approached them in a lot across from Rodeo Goat in Houston and told them that it would cost $20 each to park their cars. Nix claimed they would get their money back if they returned from dinner with a receipt. Aguirre got cash from a nearby store and paid $40 to Nix.
Once the pair were told that Nix had been a “known parking scammer”, Aguirre allegedly left the restaurant, sprinted to his white Cadillac, retrieved a gun, and chased after Nix. The Washington Post reported that witnesses heard a single gunshot and told police that they saw Aguirre “nonchalantly walking back to his car with the gun in his hand”.
He allegedly returned his gun to his car and went back to the restaurant to resume his date. Police said that Aguirre and the woman soon left, however, after Aguirre “started to look uncomfortable” being at the restaurant.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/29/man-shoots-scammer-date-texas
…I just…can’t…well…a lot of things, truly…but one of them has to be can’t believe that might not be the most callous act of petty but absolutely homicidal violence the “2nd amendment folks” bequeathed to the headlines…because this fucking happened…in…by what I’m sure is a coincidence & has nothing to do with the grip the GOP has on the place…texas…again
After neighbors complained about the noise he was making, a Texas man went next door with an AR-15-style rifle and shot them, killing five people – including an eight-year-old child – as well as wounding three others at a home in Cleveland, Texas, on Friday night.
Law enforcement patrolling the community more than 40 miles outside of Houston were searching for Francisco Oropeza, 38, who had been intoxicated and fled the scene, the sheriff of San Jacinto county, Greg Capers, told reporters on Saturday.
Family members had walked to his fence and asked Oropeza to cease shooting rounds in his yard because an infant was trying to sleep.
…I don’t know what to do with a world where asking a neighbor to hold off on loud noises in hope of an infant going to sleep is the same thing as taking your family’s lives in your hand & rolling the world’s most loaded dice…but…for the love of anything left that’s holy…what the fuck is wrong with these people?
The killing, less than a year after the deadliest mass shooting at a Texas public school left 19 students and two teachers dead in Uvalde, marked the 174th mass shooting and 17th mass killing in the United States so far this year, according to the Gun Violence Archive.
The archive defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more victims are killed or wounded. It defines a mass killing as one in which four or more victims are slain.
That puts the United States at a record pace of mass killings this year. Currently, mass killings happen once every six and a half days, according to an analysis by the Associated Press and USA Today.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/29/five-people-killed-in-south-east-texas-shooting-cleveland
…there are details…there always are…& they’re always hard to take…but if you know who survived…& how…then there’s woeful odds you might be in tears…& if you’ve avoided those I don’t want to set them off…so I’ll skirt those…hell…I’d even suggest maybe trying to find something that might put a smile on your face
Age shall not weary him, but it might provide some good punchlines.
[…]
The 80-year-old, who this week announced a bid for re-election in 2024, flipped between a pugnacious defence of press freedom and crisp one-liners at the expense of political opponents as he addressed the White House Correspondents’ Association annual dinner.
[…]
He went on: “Look, I get that age is a completely reasonable issue. It’s in everybody’s mind and by everyone, I mean the New York Times. Headline: ‘Biden’s advanced age is a big issue. Trump’s, however, is not.’”
[…]
Biden earned a big laugh when he said on Saturday: “They say I’m ancient; I say I’m wise. They say I’m over the hill; Don Lemon would say, ‘That’s a man in his prime’.”
[…]
He said of Marjorie Taylor Greene, a far-right congresswoman from Georgia: “I want everybody to have fun tonight but please be safe. If you find yourself disoriented or confused, it’s either you’re drunk or Marjorie Taylor Greene.”Referring to Florida governor and potential presidential candidate Ron DeSantis’s protracted battle with Disney, he quipped: “I had a lot of Ron DeSantis jokes ready but Mickey Mouse beat the hell out of me and got there first.”
And Biden said of House of Representatives speaker Kevin McCarthy: “Look, you all keep reporting my approval rating as 42%. I think you don’t know this. Kevin McCarthy called me and asked me, ‘Joe, what the hell is your secret?’ I’m not even kidding about that.”
[…]
“It’s great the cable news networks are here tonight. MSNBC owned by NBC Universal. Fox News owned by Dominion Voting Systems.” That line earned laughter and applause.“Last year your favourite Fox News reporters were able to attend because they were fully vaccinated and boosted. This year, with that $787m settlement, they’re here because they couldn’t say no to a free meal.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/30/they-say-im-ancient-biden-speech-to-white-house-media-proves-to-be-one-for-the-ages
[…]
Biden assured Wood: “I’m going to be fine with your jokes but” – he put on his trademark sunglasses – “I’m not sure about Dark Brandon.” This was a nod to an internet meme that began as a rightwing attack but has been co-opted by Biden’s supporters.
…joe might not be the funniest guy…& these may not be the funnest times…but…he at least knows funny
…maybe that isn’t funny to some people…but…it got a chuckle out of me when I first came across it…& in the abstract the fact that the biden of MAGA nightmares is both comedy & a campaign asset rather than a liability ought to be way more reassuring about the way things might look by christmas than I’m actually finding it right now…I mean…it’s not like people aren’t trying
Colorado’s governor signed four gun control bills Friday, following the lead of other states struggling to confront a nationwide surge in violent crime and mass shootings, despite a recent U.S. Supreme Court ruling that expanded Second Amendment rights.
…but I sure could do with the inexorable aspect of the tide looking more like it might be running the other way
Before the ink was even dry on Gov. Jared Polis’ signature, gun rights groups sued to reverse two of the measures: raising the buying age for any gun from 18 to 21, and establishing a three-day waiting period between the purchase and receipt of a gun. The courts are already weighing lawsuits over such restrictions in other states.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/colorado-governor-signs-gun-control-bills-massacre-rcna82014
…just…fucking come on…how many times has the need for a gun in less than time than it supposedly took christ to go from nailed to a thing to rolling aside his own tombstone on the part of someone even younger than he was been the thing that preserved america’s grasp of truth, justice & the pursuit of liberty & saved its ass from the iniquities of tyrannical officers of state?
…you know what, though? …I’m gonna go ahead & guess that…just maybe…if was more than fucking zero times…ever…not just in colorado…that sifting through as much unpleasant news as I seem to get through…someone might have mentioned it…in fact several swathes of people who apparently never learned the concept of shutting the fuck up would…I am utterly certain…talk of little else…but they don’t…quad erat fucking demonstrandum
California flooding tracker: See which rivers are overflowing [NBC]
…but no…we have to contend with a different crop of accidents of hourly proof…because apparently nice things aren’t on the table
A federal appeals court on Thursday upheld several Republican-backed voting restrictions in Florida, overruling a lower court judge who had found the laws intentionally discriminated against minority voters.
[…]
Several civil rights groups challenged the law in court. In March 2022, U.S. District Judge Mark Walker in Tallahassee had struck down most of the law as racially discriminatory.He also ordered the state to seek court approval for any further changes to those provisions for 10 years, a practice known as “preclearance” that he said was justified by a long history of discrimination.
But the appeals court ruled that Walker had erred, both on the law and on the facts, and threw out the preclearance requirement.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/federal-appeals-court-upholds-florida-voting-law-judge-found-discrimination
…there oughta be a law against it…a real one…not just the whim of some pet court…& I’m pretty sure there’s a name for it
Former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani has admitted to a “dirty trick” that his campaign used to suppress the Hispanic vote during the city’s 1993 mayoral race.
On Tuesday, Giuliani revealed his voter suppression tactics to the far-right Donald Trump ally Steve Bannon and Arizona’s defeated Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake during a discussion on his America’s Mayor Live program.
In the conversation, Giuliani – who was central to Trump’s efforts to subvert the result of the 2020 presidential election – lamented that he had been “cheated” during the 1989 mayoral race in which he lost before explaining his 1993 campaign strategy, saying: “I’ll tell you one little dirty trick,” to which Lake replied: “We need dirty tricks!”
“A dirty trick in New York City? I’m so shocked,” Bannon sarcastically responded. Giuliani then interrupted the former Trump adviser, saying: “No, played by Republicans!”
“Republicans don’t do dirty tricks,” Bannon said before Giuliani enthusiastically said: “How about this one?” Bannon replied: “Okay give it to me.”
Giuliani explained that he spent $2m to set up a so-called Voter Integrity Committee which was headed by Randy Levine, current president of the New York Yankees baseball team, and John Sweeney, a former New York Republican congressman.
“So they went through East Harlem, which is all Hispanic, and they gave out little cards, and the card said: ‘If you come to vote, make sure you have your green card because INS are picking up illegals.’ So they spread it all over the Hispanic …” said Giuliani, referring to the now defunct US Immigration and Naturalization Service before trailing off.
…collude-y rudy sure does love a “clever” name…like that lev parnas joint that paid him pretty handsomely…what was that, again? …oh, yeah…”fraud guarantee“…the d-for-dishonest(/disembling/dastardly/dumber-than-shit) on the end is allegedly silent…rather unlike lev, as it goes
“[Then-attorney general] Janet Reno is coming after us, we violated civil rights,” Giuliani recalled his lawyer Dennison Young telling him. Giuliani then reassured Young, saying: “What civil rights did we violate? They don’t have civil rights! All we did was prevent people who can’t vote from voting. Maybe we tricked them, but tricking is not a crime.”
“In those days, we didn’t have crazy prosecutors. Nowadays, they’ll probably prosecute you for it … and that’s the way we kept down the Hispanic vote,” Giuliani said.
“Not the legal vote, the illegal vote,” Lake interjected.
“Of course! The Hispanic illegal vote, which takes away the Hispanic legal vote,” Giuliani responded.
…how high on your own supply…or just far fucking gone…do you need to be for that to sound like clap-on-the-back material & not the sort of thing listening to which first-hand makes people into material witnesses?
The Huffington Post compiled a handful of media reports from the time which collectively point towards Giuliani’s voter suppression tactics during the election.
…it’s not new-news
A 1993 New York Times article published at the time of the election reported that Dinkins had called for a news conference to “accuse the Giuliani camp of waging ‘an outrageous campaign of voter intimidation and dirty tricks’”.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/29/rudy-giuliani-hispanic-vote-suppression-new-york-election
[…]
Similarly, a Washington Post report published days after the election cited complaints surrounding voter suppression in the city.
…but…thinking 30 years might be enough time to make those kinds of tricks beyond even the perma-tanned pale rather than the foundation of at least half a two party system…makes me the crazy one
Two legislators removed — however temporarily — from their positions in Tennessee. A legislator in Montana ordered to remain outside the chamber. In Missouri, a proposal that would make it easier for Republicans to amend the state constitution and harder for Democrats to do so. In states across the country, an embrace of legislation reflecting partisan dominance instead of compromise.
There’s an obvious reason for this pattern. Over the past 15 years, the number of state legislative bodies dominated by one party or the other has increased dramatically. And with that increase, there’s less need to reach across the aisle.
[…]
But we’re interested not only in majorities, since a small majority hardly prevents the need for legislators to work together. Instead we’re interested in super majorities — which we’ll here define as a chamber in which at least 67 percent of legislators belong to one party.In 2009, only 14 lower chambers and 17 upper chambers had such lopsided partisan dominance. Most of those were controlled by Democrats (including in West Virginia and Arkansas). In 2023, at least 30 states have such margins in either chamber. Most of them are controlled by Republicans.
[…]
The number of states in which both chambers have partisan supermajorities has also increased — again, disproportionately for Republicans.In fact, the number of supermajorities for Democrats hasn’t changed much since 2009 (though the states in which those supermajorities exist have). It’s largely a function of a surge in supermajorities for Republicans in various states.
There are a number of reasons for this. An increased willingness to gerrymander state legislative districts is one. The nationalization of politics is another. The increased partisanship of states, particularly more-rural ones, is a third. The effect, though, is more states in which one party generally has the ability to enforce its will without checks on its power — which, of course, often affects gerrymandering at both the state and federal level.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2023/04/28/supermajority-state-legislatures/
…it’s not just me…plenty of people aren’t happy about this stuff
…& hell…plenty of folks aren’t wild about another round of joe biden…& I’ll grant that not all encores are a good thing
…but
…if he’s all his side of the aisle has on the menu…given the alternative
…rooting for things to go the other way is an act of sheer insanity
…maybe
…you just need to speak the right language
…see…that was funny…right? …so…it doesn’t have to be a bad day…just…stay the hell away from the crazy, I guess…plenty of time for that shit on a workday
Not shocked by any of this.
Joe seemed more Obama-White, but has done a decent enough job and proving he’s not entirely centrist. No he’s not perfect, but considering the alternatives… sheesh.
…see, that’s what did for me…I’m not…sad to say…surprised by any of it…more of the same…the beatings will continue until morale improves…pick your cliché & all
…but…it does still shock me?
…not in the sense of jaw-dropping disbelief…but in the sense of offensive to the core?
…like…people who might even turn out not to be people post an unbelievable amount of inflammatory bullshit online…& some of it is harmful enough you could even argue it’s something that requires some sort of equal & opposite reaction to counter its counterfactuals…& plenty of that can go for “debate” over the gun thing
…but if merely reading at a distance the plain facts of that pair of incidents in texas engendered the visceral sensation I’m calling shocking mostly because words fail me but lightning & thunderbolts & other features of old testament judgement are at the very least visible from there
…I can’t help thinking guns could have less laws governing their ownership & it wouldn’t matter because people wouldn’t treat them in a way that allowed for killing folks stone fucking dead over triflingly trivial bullshit
…but…you know…I’m kinda in a mood today?
Congrats to the Maple Leafs and fans like myopicprophet who have not lost the faith (unlike yours truly) who was probably running around screaming at 12am with 19 years of frustration removed with a single Over Time goal.
The march to remove the stink of 1967 onward begins.
…in so far as such scripture is comprehensible to a heathen such as I
…congratulations to @myopicprophet & any other pilgrims who kept the faith long enough to see the promised land
Trump would have been one of those loudmouths howling in 1947 wailing about the desegregation of the US Armed Forces. Bemoaning the fact that you can’t call enlisted black soldiers N-words or white enlisted men taking orders from a black officer.
I might not have served (which makes me the same as dipshit Dump) but I know how to build a team. Excluding certain people because of their race is not a great way to build a team. TEAM = Together Everyone Achieves More. The truth is we are more than our differences.
I’ve worked with narcissistic meatheads like Trump too. They also inspire loyalty (it is painful for me to admit they do) and team (TEAM = ME). Even some know how to build a team of sorts (a team of motherfuckers.)
The thing I know is that any idiot can run a team when times are good, but the difference between a real one and a phony ass loser one is when the shit hits the fan. As much as my teams howled and complained about things, they never failed in completing their task. I will be forever proud of the work they’ve done.
You have to earn that trust the person next to you to do their job and do it well. And admit to mistakes or failures.
Trump (despite his lousy stupid so called reality show) never did that. His idea was a bunch of hyperactive phony greedy me-first motherfuckers competing for daddy Trump’s so-called love.
…so…this post was enough https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/28/ron-desantis-guantanamo-bay-allegations a downer already…but another thing I was reading about was a man I’ve begun to think of by what I consider to be his drag name out of sheer spite…so…ronda satanist
…so…while cadet bone spurs got a sicknote…ronda served…he was a JAG…& he worked a base where among other things three dead folks showed up in adjacent-but-one solitary cells…all strung up…all with hands bound…a bunch of cloth blocking the view in from outside that…along with the stuff down their throats…wasn’t in evidence the last time anyone checked those cells…which I imagine @lemmykilmister would agree is a thing that happens not infrequently as a rule…& ronda…who seems to think he’s tom cruise in a few good men & not kevin bacon
…so…I figure ronda might keep some sort of faith…but the only one that seems to fit the bill is is the pro-hell & damnation option
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/apr/28/ron-desantis-guantanamo-bay-allegations
It takes an incredible lack of empathy to engage in the torture of people (even if they’re guilty), let people die in a pandemic and attack the most vulnerable among us.
DeathSentence probably thinks this is what makes him tough. Only on the surface, when confronted he’s more brittle than glass.
…& the further from home turf he strays…the less well it seems to play
https://www.politico.eu/article/ron-detedious-how-desantis-underwhelmed-britains-business-chiefs/
…so he doesn’t appear to have any choices he’s willing to make that involve anything but staying in the lane he’s walled himself into…& I’d love to see that be an absolute train-wreck of a collision course with the once & future king of the dumpster fire just give the next term to a full court press starring a three for three supermajority for the next term of office
…but the collateral cost of a situation for which that counts as a bright side is proving tough to swallow today
These types of reports have been circulating in Florida for a while now, but now that Ronnie is trying to impress people in other places, it’s getting more press. He’s definitely incapable of relating to other human beings — I guess that’s sociopathy? He’s absolutely awful at speeches and appearing in public. It’s like he can’t bring himself to care. And he’s got serious anger issues — Florida Republicans are starting to turn on him over the Disney thing (can’t take the kids to the parks for free any more, so little Jimmy’s birthday is gonna be bleak).
I love this description from the Politico article:
One U.K. business figure said DeSantis “looked bored” and “stared at his feet” as he met with titans of British industry in an event co-hosted by Lloyd’s of London — the world’s largest insurance marketplace.
“He had been to five different countries in five days and he definitely looked spent, but his message wasn’t presidential,” they told POLITICO. “He was horrendous.”
A second business figure who was in the room said it was a “low-wattage” performance and that “nobody in the room was left thinking, ‘this man’s going places’.”
They said: “It felt really a bit like we were watching a state-level politician. I wouldn’t be surprised if [people in attendance] came out thinking ‘that’s not the guy’.”
Roy Wood Jr. Had a great retort after making a school shooting joke:
“Don’t groan; pass legislation”
“Stay the hell away from the crazy” . . . Words to live by.
Easy to say, hard to listen to.
See Cokehead Narcissist
I appreciate the lead piece blowing away the supposed nuance in Carlson and the later bit about how the right muddies and attenuates legitimate discourse about Black Lives Matters and Trans rights.
They’re two good cases of how PR and propaganda work. When they have a problem, they encourage people to subdivide it into tinier and tinier pieces and then rebuild it into a completely different thing by whatever tools they have.
Which is why it’s critical to watch out for this kind of thinking, and always ask what it’s trying to accomplish.
There is definitely important work to be done at the micro level to help diagnose issues. But you always have to ask who is doing this? Are they being driven by a solution to a clear larger problem? What are their motives?
The Carlson piece is an explicit rebuke to a terrible bit in The American Prospect which lionized Carlson in a “well actually” piece. To the Prospect’s credit, they quickly acknowledged it was poorly thiught out and ran a rebuke.
The NY Times ran an eerily similar “analysis” in the guise of a news piece by reporter Jeremy Peters claiming Elon Musk somehow wasn’t a right winger, but in contrast never admitted the wrongness, nor ran a rebuttal. But then they will never admit that they’ve broken the line between reporting and opinion, and so will never be able to fix any of their screwups when they inevitably happen.
When they insist their subjective opinion pieces are objective reporting grounded in essential truths, they have no room to retreat.
The whole thing was completely over thought—especially the part about Ukraine. You know why Carlson (and every other Republican) opposes helping Ukraine? Because Trump does. Full stop.
In a Tampa Bay ray (ha!) of sunshine, Lynn Hurtak beat Janet Cruz for a seat in the Tampa Bay city council.
https://www.abcactionnews.com/news/region-hillsborough/lynn-hurtak-retains-tampa-city-council-seat
Former Deadspin video whiz Tim Burke has been a big Hurtak supporter. Cruz was the equivalent of a Cuomo flunky, known as a backer of a faltering, exhausted Democractic leadership, while Hurtak is a progressive organizer who wants to rebuild the party from the ground up.
sorry mate…do not have the brain capacity for this one today
ive been on the lash watching motorsports since noon and its quarter past six now
so no disrespect intended but
“does not compute”
…for someone claiming to have skipped the post I’d say you seem to have mastered the brief?
i may be a natural talent….gifted even… modest too
or could be i just got lucky
you know….i think microsoft phone link is a phenomenally bad idea…
i just found the icon and clicked it…and now im in the missusses phone
not just a little bit either… ive got full access….photos…apps…incoming messages
i feel a little bit dirty now
seems like you’d at least want password protection on that shit
also also also….
is biden v trump really the best you can do america?
i dont personally have any issues with biden…other than that it seems cruel to force someone that old to keep working
but fucking really?
that’s your cream of the fucking crop?
I think part of it is that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are also old and perhaps don’t think they can last 4 years in good health.
Also Trump is a douchey old white racist man. I think there’s a very real concern that if a black person or woman runs for the dem ticket, it will rile up the racists and sexists too much.
i like bernie…i really do… hes the closest youve got to my ideals
but youve got a serious old ass people running the show problem over there
i mean.. the very oldest minister weve had was 67
our current near dictactor is only 56…..and hes been running the show for a while
you know……over here we believe people need to retire at some point
Oh completely agreed.
If you have to be over 35 to run for president, we can cap how old you can be as president too.
i mean asides from the whole people over 65 deserve some time off thing
if you are not going to be around to live with your decisions…..you shouldnt get to make them for everyone else….like
…not sure if he’d be remembered overmuch at this point but there was a lib dem leader for a while back in the day called paddy ashdown…ex military guy…referred to in at least one tabloid as paddy pants-down in account of not always colouring inside the matrimonial lines…but by some others on occasion as “the best prime minister britain never had”
…can’t prove a negative & all…but I can’t help feeling like there’s a chance that in a parallel universe where warren was in office this last term…the US wouldn’t be the only bit of the world that was doing better that it is in this one?
Biden v trump is certainly not our best. Progress here only moves as fast as the lowest, slowest common denominator. And given the political divide being wider than the Grand Canyon, both sides are stuck putting up not the best, but who they think can win. Fortunately, I think the Dems have the numbers to win, they just have to show up.
Prior to Roe v Wade being overturned, you had to wait three days to get an abortion in Missouri. You know, because it was an important decision and you feeble ladies with your feeble ladybrains couldn’t possibly have thought it through prior to going to the one Planned Parenthood that still offered them in the state.
I think about that every time the ammosexuals freak out about a 3 day waiting limit to buy a gun.
…there are cooling off periods available with some major purchases just on the basis that when you spend that much sometimes it’s important to be able to take it back if you change your mind…not to equate those circumstances or anything…but to throw a bit of caveat emptor in the mix…which they don’t have a problem with when they want to return something
…& I guess you could argue that repo men are the flip-side of that coin…on which topic many of the same “they” tend to hew rather closer to all-sales-are-final & possession is
a misdemeanor9/10 of the law…but somewhere along the way the logic performs a similar flip flop?…& cars can kill people…but mostly only when something happens that wasn’t intended…& it’d be irresponsible (& I believe legally culpable) to, say, knowingly sell a car to someone premeditating a hit&run, or a drive-by, or a smash&grab…so…if you sell things to people explicitly designed for the express purpose of killing somethings or someones with…it would make sense to me that you might want something similar where you could make a sale on the spur of the moment but repent of it when it turns out after due diligence that the buyer misrepresented their end of the deal…or otherwise gives you grounds for wanting to exercise your discretion to refuse service the way a barman gets to cut off a drunk
…even if it were only a hedge against moral rather than legal or financial culpability/liability…that would sound conspicuously more like a feature than a bug to me
…whatever arcane mystery of transubstantiation gets them from “people should be able to own guns” to “barriers (even reasonable & surmountable ones) between people who can’t be trusted with guns & the arsenal of their heart’s desire are an intolerable infringement on the principle that it shouldn’t matter whether or not you can be trusted with an instrument of carnage” escapes me
…every bit as much as the directors commentary for the world’s shittest reality show incessantly suggesting somehow the responsible thing to do anytime the idea comes up…is to throw a deranged tantrum designed to call into question whether allowing you that trust by default might in fact be a worse public health policy than…I dunno…banning seatbelts & making smoking compulsory
…& yet “rolling coal” is a thing
…kinda thought for a hot minute growing up that humanity might have it in us to be better than that…& I’m still not entirely sold on the idea we don’t…but collectively speaking we make a really weak case for it a lot more of the time than it seems like we ought to be this comfortable with?
…maybe ignorance really is blissful…& that shit is addictive…I mean…kinda feels like that could maybe explain a lot?