Youtube comments of Meh Pluribus Unum (@pluribus_unum).
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TLDR; The word that Trump's lawyers' argument hinges upon is "otherwise¹" in the following law text:
USC 18 - 1512 (c)
Whoever corruptly—
(1) alters, destroys, mutilates, or
conceals a record, document, or
other object, or attempts to do so,
with the intent to impair the object’s
integrity or availability for use in an
official proceeding; or
(2) *otherwise*¹ obstructs, influences, or
impedes any official proceeding, or
attempts to do so,
shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than 20 years, or both.
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Disaster aid is common sense and a federal responsibility, whether it's for Manhattan, Puerto Rico or Mayfield.
Concerning Rand and his "compatriots in craven cause", harboring traitors is not compassion, comity, nor kindness.
We, as Democrats, will always work for the benefit of, and in service to, all Americans -- regardless of race, gender, sexual orientation, creed or political affiliation.
We, as Americans, must call out enemies, both foreign and domestic.
It is evident that the Republican party's autocratic and white nationalist faction is in control of the party now, and they mean to use the money and means at their disposal to dismantle democracy district by district, state by state until their theocratic apartheid regime is installed by felony and/or by force.
Patriotism requires all those who oppose this warfare upon our Republic to disown, condemn, and combat this faction and the Republican party they've made in their image.
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“I no longer believe that freedom and democracy are compatible.” - Palantir founder and Chairman, Peter Thiel
Palantir is not a hero, they are a huge and ever-growing threat to personal privacy and democracy.
Read up on Palantir, Thiel, MAGA, and Trump.
"Peter Thiel is far from the first billionaire who has wielded his fortune to try to influence the course of American politics. But in an election year when democracy itself is said to be on the ballot, he stands out for assailing a longstanding governing system that he has described as “deranged” and in urgent need of “course correction”.
"The German-born investor and tech entrepreneur, a Silicon Valley “disrupter” who helped found PayPal alongside Elon Musk and made his fortune as one of the earliest investors in Facebook, has catapulted himself into the top ranks of the mega-donor class by pouring close to $30m into this year’s midterm elections."
"He’s not merely favoring one party over another, but is supporting candidates who deny the legitimacy of Joe Biden’s election as president and have, in their different ways, called for the pillars of the American establishment to be toppled entirely."
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🗽🇺🇸 VOTE! 🇺🇸🗽
Even if you're not registered in these 20 states and DC -- you can REGISTER AND VOTE TODAY -- NOVEMBER 5th, 2024
CA, CO, CT, DC, ID, IL, IA, ME, MD, MI, MN
MT, NH, NV, NM, UT, VT, VA, WA, WI, WY
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@michimatsch5862 - He already has helped.
He would've helped more, but the courts intervened.
"Biden gives small meat processors $1B to support competition"
"President Joe Biden announced a plan to increase competition in meat processing and ultimately lower prices for consumers by providing $1 billion in American Rescue Plan funds to help independent producers. In a statement, the president said his administration aims to help small processors compete with the four industry giants who dominate anywhere from 55% to 85% of U.S. beef, pork and poultry production."
"USDA will offer grants totaling $375 million for independent processing projects, as well as funds to boost financing options for small producers, provide technical expertise, assist with inspection pressures and support worker safety and create jobs with fair wages in rural parts of the country."
"This latest effort at boosting independent processors and industry competition comes after the Biden administration announced plans last September to crack down on alleged meat price fixing among large meat processors."
...
"The program, included in the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) signed by U.S. President Joe Biden on Tuesday, follows an earlier debt relief program that provided aid based on race but ended in a web of litigation after white farmers sued to stop payments."
"The new program, which makes farmers eligible for relief based on economic precariousness rather than race, is likely to end that litigation and free up resources allowing the Department of Agriculture (USDA) to help farmers - including those of color - avoid foreclosure."
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No major NATO member country has a clean slate, especially the US, UK or Germany.
That said, Russia's history and scale of war crimes in Chechnya and Syria is atrocious and worth timely reexamination.
Let's hope they don't do in Odessa, or anywhere else, what they did in Grozny or Aleppo.
Intentional targeting of hospitals, ambulance workers, firefighters and schools, and indiscriminate targeting of civilians, including with the confirmed use of banned¹ weapons, and the alleged use of chemical weapons.
Looting of homes and businesses, arbitrary detention and beatings, systematic rape of women, men and sometimes children.
Typical goon squad stuff all armies without civilian oversight, entirely or effectively, end up engaged in.
____________________________
¹ Geneva Conventions of 1949
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@otmargreb6110 - The key distinctions between Social Democracy (what is erroneously called socialism by you here) in capitalist economies and actual Socialist economic systems [are] vast.
Social Democracy could be summed up as, capitalism with some important, and life-saving, limitations on the intrinsic cruelty it otherwise sure seems to engender.
With different degrees of social support, the U.S., Canada, the U.K., Germany, the Netherlands, et. al., are capitalist economies -- albeit with massive state intervention in the markets -- with social democratic governmental policies regarding the provisioning of health care, education, housing, food, and employment.
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The real reason there is a sharp rise in hospitalizations is because the Omicron variant is much, much more infectious than any previous strain.
You are 14x more likely to die from COVID-19 if you are unvaccinated. The more unvaccinated people there are, the more mutations the virus is capable of.
In fact, Omicron is the direct result of a large population of unvaccinated contracting the virus and it performing an astounding number of mutations in the people of the Netherlands, Austria, Belgium, Czechia, Denmark, Germany, Italy and Portugal, where it actually first appeared.
South Africa is suffering like Spain did in the flu epidemic of the 1920s because they had the first massive surge that the global media was able to report on because of good testing data out of the country.
The high testing in South Africa combined with low vaccination rates meant the surge's occurrence was well documented in the testing and hospitalization data and journalists ran with the story, often profiting off of an anxious -- sometimes xenophobic -- audience.
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@scabcrawler632 - Your fantasies aren't a counterpoint.
There is no equivalent extremism on the left. Period.
" First, right-wing attacks and plots accounted for the majority of all terrorist incidents in the United States since 1994. In particular, they made up a large percentage of incidents in the 1990s and 2010s. Second, the total number of right-wing attacks and plots has grown substantially during the past six years. In 2019, for example, right-wing extremists perpetrated nearly two-thirds of the terrorist attacks and plots in the United States, and they committed over 90 percent of the attacks and plots between January 1 and May 8, 2020. Third, although religious extremists were responsible for the most fatalities because of the 9/11 attacks, right-wing perpetrators were responsible for more than half of all annual fatalities in 14 of the 21 years during which fatal attacks occurred."
Center for Strategic and International Studies: June 17th, 2020
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To those claiming fIghting Russian autocracy and white nationalism isn't a progressive issue: YOU'RE 100% WRONG.
You aren't familiar with U.S. progressivism at all:
"...the main objectives of the Progressive movement were addressing problems caused by industrialization, urbanization, immigration, and political corruption."
From Franco, to Mussolini, to Hitler, to Trump, to Putin -- anti-fascists and progressives have taken up the fight (including taking up arms) to combat the enemies of the progressive cause.
Read up on the Spanish Civil War, the pre-WWII Lincoln battalion, or the progressive veins in the resistance during WWII.
Progressivism isn't pacifism, and it never has been.
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@jimcarrington6744 - Wrong.
The best things Democrats have passed are filibustered without allowing even debate by Republicans, but a simple read of any of the three versions of The For the People Act (2019, 2020 or 2021) they've passed makes clear that Democrats are passing legislation that the public demands.
Looking at things that have passed in the Senate, The American Rescue Act, the stimulus bills, The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act -- all represent massive reinvestment in American social democracy and widening of the social safety net.
In fact, they include landmark social democracy investments in a scale that we haven't seen since FDR and the New Deal.
The Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, for example, "isn’t a stimulus bill; it’s not a singular response to a specific economic crisis. IIJA represents a longer-term patient approach to rebuilding American competitiveness through infrastructure."
In other words, addressing the damage of neoliberal economic policies and returning to investing in American workers, the national infrastructure and American competitiveness.
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More can always be done, but it's also true that the diplomatic, financial, economic, commercial and military efforts targeted at Russia and their presence in Ukraine -- and largely led by the United States of America -- amount to the most severe [multilateral] sanctions on one country [a major global economy] in history, and the biggest single military assistance effort in Europe since Lend/Lease to fight the Axis Powers in WWII.
I believe that the UN and the State Department, infamously slow-moving and large entities, have moved uncharacteristically rapidly to confront Russia's bald aggression.
Under the last three Presidents combined, over $2 trillion in military aid to Ukraine has come from the US, which supplies over 90% of Ukraine's military aid.
Under the current President, due to Russia's buildup and invasion, over $3 trillion in military aid has already gone to Ukraine, with over $6 trillion more headed to fight this potentially genocidal force from Russia.
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@dexterramey8787 - It just isn't a factor, and the slow down wasn't because of Obama's comments.
"Some research has suggested that messages like these can affect how migrants think about making the journey, but no research has proved that it actually stops them from coming."
“It’s not that messaging has no effect,” Aaron Reichlin-Melnick, policy counsel at the American Immigration Council, an immigrant advocacy and legal aid group, said. “It’s just that the role of messaging as something that could potentially stop people from choosing to come in the first place — there’s no evidence."¹
... and ...
"The evidence of a widespread and sustained decline in undocumented migration to the United States is irrefutable. In a more fact-based era, this would be recognized as a major national accomplishment. Moreover, the steady decline in the population since 2010 refutes the recurrent argument that consideration by Congress of an earned legalization program or the DREAM Act, or even the establishment of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program — all of which occurred during this time-frame — invariably leads to increased undocumented immigration. In addition, as previously documented by CMS, the United States has turned a significant corner in immigration enforcement. The remaining US undocumented population has extremely long tenure, strong equitable ties, and firm roots in the United States."²
_____________________________________________
¹ The US is telling migrants “don’t come.” They might not be listening.: How much does Kamala Harris’s messaging about the border matter? by Nicole Narea, June 8th, 2021 - Vox
² The US Undocumented Population Fell Sharply During the Obama Era: Estimates for 2016 by Robert Warren, February 22nd, 2018 - Center for Migration Studies
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@taylorlibby7642 - "Mexico is a wonderful country. Warner than the U.S. even. Stay there." reveals the anti-immigration sentiments you harbor.
You do know there's rising climate catastrophe [that] is causing many to immigrate in order to survive, right?
"Recent studies and migration statistics show that the paths followed by migrants and climate disasters in the region are intertwined."
"Between 2000 and 2019, Cuba, Mexico and Haiti were the hardest hit, by a total of 110 storms which caused 39 billion dollars in damage, affected 29 million people and left 5,000 dead, 85 percent of them in Haiti, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs."
"In 2020, internal and external displacement due to disasters soared in El Salvador, Guatemala, Haiti and Honduras. But the international migratory framework has not yet accepted the official category of climate refugee, despite growing clamor for its inclusion."
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I like Presidential candidates who belong to a political party who doesn't surrender...to a white nationalist coup d'etat.
— McConnell told top advisers, “The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a b---- for us,” after it became clear that Democrats were going to impeach Trump in the House, adding, “if this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is.”
— On a conference call with top Republicans, McCarthy said Trump’s conduct was “atrocious and totally wrong,” blamed him for inciting the crowd and “inquired about the mechanism for invoking the 25th Amendment … before concluding that was not a viable option.”
— McCarthy told Republican leaders he “planned to call Mr. Trump and tell him it was time for him to go. ‘What he did is unacceptable. Nobody can defend that and nobody should defend it,’ he told the group. Mr. McCarthy said he would tell Mr. Trump of the impeachment resolution: ‘I think this will pass, and it would be my recommendation you should resign.’”
— McCarthy also told GOP leaders that he wished Big Tech companies would strip some Republican lawmakers of their social media accounts, ‘We can’t put up with that,’ Mr. McCarthy said, adding, ‘Can’t they take their Twitter accounts away, too?’”
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@joemendiuk5683 - According to the bible, God gave us the earth to care for, including each other. God even used quarantine and other anti-pandemic science.
Get vaccinated. Save lives. Maybe your own.
"...it is noteworthy that sometimes God commanded his people to act in ways that modern medical science’s progress in fulfilling that mandate¹ can finally explain. In Leviticus, God commands the priests to quarantine some individuals for some skin conditions (see Lev. 13, especially vv. 3, 5, 8, 45-46), to burn some moldy garments (see Lev. 13:52, 55), and to destroy the houses in which some molds were growing (see Lev. 14:43-45). This means he was in effect commanding the Israelites to practice medicine before they knew enough to understand the reasons for the practice."
"In fact, given the infrequency of miraculous healings to ordinary cycles of health and sickness in the Scriptures, it is clear that God generally exercises his providential care for his people through the world’s ordinary structures and processes. People generally reap the fruit of their ways, good or bad (see Prov. 14:14)."
- Mark Talbot
September 16, 2021
Center for Pastor Theologians
________________________________
¹ The mandate for humanity to "exercise dominion" over earth "by grasping its potentialities, patterns, and processes".
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@akalen2010 - No other peer nation with equivalent mental health problems has the violent crime rates the U.S. does.
Why?
Because, unlike the U.S., those nations have firearm safety and regulatory laws that prevent firearms from getting into the hands of likely violent offenders in the majority of cases.
But, not the U.S., where the Republican party banned any federal funding for research into gun homicides and suicides and refuses to enact the 2nd Amendment compliant laws their voters -- and even a majority of NRA members -- want made into law.
The Democrats have passed dozens of bills, covering everything from mental health resource funding, additional grants for school security, voluntary gun buybacks, sustained funding for research and analysis of gun deaths, closing loopholes in our existing background check laws, and increased regulation in the sales and tracing of firearms.
So, your move, Republican voters and civil servants.
Show America your spine when it comes to dealing with the number one cause of death for U.S. children; death resulting from the accidental or homicidal discharge of a firearm.
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@jordanbolm8517 - I do see what you're getting at, and you disagree with the Biden admin and NATO's assessment of what is defensive versus offensive armaments.
Nothing wrong with that.
But, $800 million in new military assistance, including those "game changer"¹ Switchblades, 800 Stinger anti-aircraft systems, 2,000 more Javelins, plus the 6,000 Swedish AT-4s is a major upscaling of the military support we were sending up until now.
_____________________________________
¹Fmr. CIA Director and Ret. Gen. David Petraeus, March 31, 2022 on The Story with Martha MacCallum.
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@NPC-bs3pm - @BAVidmar17 is right, in fact.
"The United States often exacerbated these conflicts, deploying the U.S. Marines in Latin America whenever political uprisings seemed to threaten U.S. business interests or national security."
"Conservative political elites often responded to these movements by inviting the military to take power, and the resulting conflict would eventually develop into civil wars in Guatemala (1960-1996), El Salvador (1980-1992) and Nicaragua (1979-1990). The United States played a central role in many of these conflicts, propping up military dictatorships and supporting them with logistical aid, money, training and weapons, even as many of them committed human rights atrocities. These conflicts generated huge surges in emigration from Central America, establishing the migration patterns that persist today."
"A final push factor—with a very important transnational history—is gang violence. MS-13 is now one of the largest gangs in the world, and has contributed to violent crime across the region. What many Americans don’t know is that MS-13 was founded in poor neighborhoods in Los Angeles in the 1980s, within communities of Central American refugees who had fled civil wars. Many of these gang members were subsequently imprisoned in the United States, and then deported to Central America through a program that began under President Bill Clinton."
"There’s a reason why the U.S. government has failed for so many years to “control” the border: none of these policies have addressed the real reasons for migration itself. In migration studies, these are known as “push” and “pull” factors, the causes that drive migrants from one country to another.
Today, the countries sending the most migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border–especially the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador–are experiencing a combination of push factors that include poverty and inequality, political instability, and violence. And while the current situation may be unique, it is also deeply rooted in history."
- The Situation at the U.S.-Mexico Border Can't Be 'Solved' Without Acknowledging Its Origins by Julia G. Young - March 31st, 2021 - TIME Magazine (online)
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To wit:
1) "One problem, though: Peer-reviewed, largely overlooked research publi: shed in December [2021] shows that undocumented immigrants in Texas likely aren’t part of a crime wave. In fact, they’re much less likely to be arrested for serious crimes than are people born in the United States."
"Between 2012 and 2018, U.S.-born people were twice as likely as the undocumented to be arrested for violent crime in Texas and two-and-a-half times as likely to be arrested for drug crimes."
2) "It's too soon to declare victory over inflation, but from gas to chicken to big-screen TVs, there are, increasingly, signs that inflation's grip on American pocketbooks may be loosening."
"Gas prices are back to last year's levels, after spiking to a record high of just over $5 a gallon this summer. For perspective, a gallon of regular has fallen by almost 50 cents in just a month, making it about $10 cheaper to fill up an average SUV today than a month ago."
3) "The research shows that an increase in the absolute number of immigrants in a particular county from 2000–2010 results in corresponding economic gains—increased demand for locally produced goods and services, a corresponding inflow of U.S.-born individuals—that are reflected in the housing market."
"Importantly, the research finds that immigrants revitalize less desirable neighborhoods in costly metropolitan areas, opening up new alternatives for middle- and working-class Americans to buy homes, and immigration supports the housing market without exacerbating the nation’s worst affordability problems, because immigrants themselves tend not to settle in the most expensive places. Immigrants are also drawn to Sun Belt cities like Houston where housing has been consistently affordable."
4) "[Closing hospitals] cited high poverty and uninsured rates in rural communities, high rates of Medicare and Medicaid coverage, and declining populations. In each community, poverty rates were higher than state and national averages and median incomes were lower, and the population was shrinking."
"In all three case studies, respondents reported that, prior to the hospital closure, community residents with private insurance or other resources typically travelled to bigger, newer hospital systems outside the community, weakening the hospital’s payer mix and also reinforcing local perceptions – often based on anecdotal accounts from friends and family members — that the local hospital was of low or poor quality."
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Make no mistake, U.S. Republican leaders will pull the rug out from underneath Ukraine and betray their voters, their constituents, and their country if they gain the Senate or the White House in 2024.
“There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” [Kevin] McCarthy¹ (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016, exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and Russia." - May 17th, 2017
______________________________
¹ Currently the Republican House Majority Leader, Representative Kevin McCarthy, who thanked Trump recently for aiding his historically difficult campaign to be the Republican party leader in the lower house of the legislature in the U.S.
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A Ukrainian victim of Stalinism took the U.S.S.R. to the moon. Russia has never been outside its membership in the U.S.S.R.
Sergei Korolev: Father of the Soviet Union’s success in space - September 3rd, 2007 - European Space Agency
"Sergei Korolev is the man responsible for the first human spaceflight. Although the world knew of his achievements - Sputnik, Vostok, Soyuz - the man himself remained a total mystery until his death, as his identity was a well-kept state secret. A victim of Stalinism, after his death he became an icon of Russian rocketry and both his rocket and spaceship designs are still flying today.
Sergei Pavlovich Korolev was the son of a teacher of Russian literature, he was born on 12 January 1907 in Zhytomyr, Ukraine. Fascinated by aircraft, he designed his first glider when he was only 17. After graduating from the Kiev Polytechnic Institute, he joined the University of Moscow and his interest shifted to rocket propulsion, at the time still a theoretical subject only."
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What motivates most suicide terrorism, in order of prominence:
1) Revenge
2) Liberation/De-occupation
3) Religion
4) Nationalism
5) Political Cause
As concerns religion, Jewish suicide bombers also exist, but religion pales in comparison to revenge or liberation/de-occupation as motivation for suicide bombing. Even when religion is the motivator, it's nowhere near the main cause in Afghanistan, Iraq, Israel, or anywhere else.
"Religion is not a motivator for all suicide attackers, an example being the LTTE. Also some Middle Eastern groups which use suicide attacks are secular and not Islamic fundamentalists. Pape’s (1) opinion is that there is little connection between suicide terrorism and Islamic fundamentalism, or any other religion, but that suicide attacks target specific secular and strategic goals. He writes that religion is rarely the root cause but can be used by terrorist organisations for recruiting and motivation."
- Intrinsic and External Factors and Influences on the Motivation of Suicide Attackers - Journal of Military and Veteran Health
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@humanbean5547 - Nope. Thanks for the Polanski add, though.
While Herzog’s films have attracted great admiration they have also provoked a lot of criticism and the show boldly addresses this in a strand called ‘Controversies’. This consists of smaller screens showing either talking heads or relevant sections of the films under scrutiny accompanied by short wall texts discussing the problem at hand. The five charges against Herzog can be summed up as follows: exploiting people with disabilities, manipulating material for dramatic effect, beautifying horrific acts or events, looking at the world through a colonial gaze and, finally, the collaboration with Kinski; a mentally disturbed man who, some would say, should never have been put in front of a camera in the first place. The show presents and illustrates all these arguments as well as their counter-arguments, but leaves us to reach our own verdicts.
- The case for and against Werner Herzog by Emilie Bickerton 18 in Apollo Magazine, August 18th, 2023
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Biden and the Democrats are on the job with proposals to deal with the historic shortage in affordable housing.
Working directly with Governors, through Executive Orders, and in the U.S. House, where their majority is definitive.
However, the Senate Republicans are the impediment to the Democrats' legislation to build and preserve affordable housing to help deal with the problem.
National Low Income Housing Coalition (NLIHC) Statement on President Biden's Housing Supply Action Plan - May 16, 2022
"The plan released by the Biden administration includes important measures to increase the supply of housing. The administration’s commitment to using federal transportation funds to reduce restrictive local zoning laws, which can inhibit or prohibit the construction of apartments and are often deeply rooted in racial exclusion, is especially promising. By supporting manufactured housing, accessory dwelling units, and small-scale developments, the administration can increase affordable housing options in communities nationwide. Streamlining federal financing and funding sources can help lower costs and speed development."
"We join President Biden in continuing to call on Congress to enact a budget reconciliation bill that includes the targeted housing investments passed in the House, including: $25 billion to expand rental assistance to an estimated 300,000 households, protecting these households from the harmful impacts of inflation and preventing housing instability and homelessness; $65 billion to preserve public housing for its 2.5 million residents and future generations; and $15 billion in the national Housing Trust Fund to build or preserve more than 150,000 units of affordable, available, and accessible homes for people with the lowest incomes."
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@Snuffalaffagas - No counter analysis provided, I see.
The research I cited was also reinforced by another study using a neutral bot network conducted by an entirely unrelated team looking at the allegation.
Neutral bots probe political bias on social media. Nature Communications Article 5580:
"In summary, our experiment demonstrates that even if a platform has no partisan bias, the social networks and activities of its users may still create an environment in which unbiased agents end up in echo chambers with constant exposure to partisan, inauthentic, and misleading content. In addition, we observe a net bias whereby the drifters are drawn toward the political Right. On the conservative side, they tend to receive more followers, find themselves in denser communities, follow more automated accounts, and are exposed to more low-credibility content. Users have to make extra efforts to moderate the content they consume and the social ties they form in order to counter these currents, and create a healthy and balanced online experience."
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Citing witness accounts shared by the Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Monitor and journalists, OHCHR said that while raiding a Gaza City building where multiple related families were sheltering on Tuesday night, "the IDF allegedly separated the men from the women and children, and then shot and killed at least 11 of the men, mostly aged in their late 20s and early 30s, in front of their family members."
"The IDF then allegedly ordered the women and children into a room, and either shot at them or threw a grenade into the room, reportedly seriously injuring some of them, including an infant and a child," added the office, which has confirmed the killings at Al Awda building—also known as the Annan building—but not the other details.
UN Office Details Alleged IDF 'Summary Killing' of Gaza Men in Front of Families: OHCHR noted that reporting on the killings "raises alarm about the possible commission of a war crime." by Jessica Corbett on Dec 20, 2023 in Common Dreams
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There's nothing fiscally conservative about the Republican party today.
At the end of January, the outlet dinged the RNC for allegedly spending, among other things, nearly $300,000 on office supplies (the Democratic National Committee, by comparison, spent $45,000); over a million dollars on management consulting; $263,000 on limo rentals; and splurging on more than $70,000 on floral arrangements, which is down from the $321,000 it spent during the 2022 election cycle. (According to RedState, the DNC’s floral arrangement budget between October 2022 and November 2023 was $7,000.)
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"The widespread reaction calling out these questionable pieces of evidence has weakened Israel’s credibility, according to some experts, and could lead to a boy-who-cried-wolf situation unless concrete evidence for a Hamas headquarters is found beneath Gaza’s Al-Shifa hospital, one of Israel’s key contentions at this stage of the war.
“The irony is they might find something and nobody is going to believe them,” said H.A. Hellyer, a senior associate fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a Washington, D.C., think tank. “At this point their credibility is shot.”
Polling suggests much of the outpouring of goodwill Israel received after the Oct. 7 attacks has now ebbed in the face of images showing mass casualties and destruction in Gaza."
- NBC, November 19th, 2023
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@connor502 - The Trump administration and Republicans are responsible, because the train would've been covered by the braking regulations, if they hadn't undone thousands upon thousands of safety regulations, oversight, and limited legal damages.
"While it has been noted that, technically, the rule would not have required the Norfolk Southern train that derailed in Ohio to have such brakes, some believe it would have if not for Trump. “He should be embarrassed,” Cynthia Quarterman, who helped craft the rule, said of Trump in an interview with Bloomberg. “Regulations force people to advance technology,” and if the train at the center of the derailment had had the advanced braking system, “there is no question the accident would have been less dramatic.” As Bloomberg notes, the Obama mandate, which was introduced along with a bunch of other new safety rules, would have forced trains to swap out what the then head of the Federal Railroad Administration likened to a “Civil War–era braking system.”
"The other rules scrapped by the 45th president were for recurring safety audits of railroads and the requirement of having at least two crew members aboard freight trains. (Though the Norfolk Southern train that derailed had three crew members aboard, Politico notes that in regard to the two-member rule, the Trump administration claimed “a train crew staffing rule would unnecessarily impede the future of rail innovation and automation.”)"
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@hamidhamidi3134 - Erasure is often the beginning of genocide.
Golda Meir was engaged in the ethnic cleansing and systematic dispossession of the Palestinian people, but even she admitted Palestine existed.
The same lies Golda Meir told are mirrored by Putin today, and for the same reason; to dehumanize.
1970: "When were Palestinians born? What was all of this area before the First World War when Britain got the mandate over Palestine? What was Palestine, then? Palestine was then the area between the Mediterranean and the Iraqian border. East and West Bank was Palestine. I am a Palestinian, from 1921 and 1948, I carried a Palestinian passport. There was no such thing in this area as Jews, and Arabs, and Palestinians, There were Jews and Arabs. [...] I don't say there are no Palestinians, but I say there is no such thing as a distinct Palestinian people." - Golda Meir
2020: Putin claims that Ukraine didn’t exist as a separate state and had never been a nation. Instead, he argues, Ukrainian nationality was always an integral part of a triune nationality: Russian, Belorussian, and Ukrainian. Putin also writes that Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians share a common heritage—the heritage of a realm known as Kievan Rus (862–1242), which was a loose medieval political federation located in modern-day Belarus, Ukraine, and part of Russia.
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@wmdavidhamilton - The rhetoric and actions before, during and after the 2020 elections by the Republican party leadership and the majority of its voters, based upon the election results, are clearly authoritarian.
Millions of them have chosen Trump and believe he is anointed by God to bring Christianity into education, the military and government, with a clear bias for white, Christian Americans and indisputable bias against Black Americans, Americans of color, Muslims and other non-Christians and immigrants.
The goal of theocratic authoritarianism is avowed and plain-spoken by these Republicans, and the majority of their elected representatives in Congress will not disabuse them of these designs and, frankly, delusions.
That is to say, the evidence that white nationalist autocratic theocracy is the goal that Republicans use, explicitly or tacitly, to get out their most reliable voters, the religious right voters is as plain as day. That a significant number of these followers would employ violence, extrajudicial killings and insurrection to bring about this goal has been demonstrated on multiple occasions, often at the prodding of Trump and other GOP elected leaders -- most vividly on January 6th, 2021. A day of infamy equal to August 24, 1814 and as impactful upon future generations of Americans as September 11th, 2001.
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@TheSvRoma - According to the latest survey¹, a majority of Palestinians (51%) supported a two-state solution based on the 1967 borders, with slightly more support seen among residents of Gaza than among West Bank Palestinians. A quarter of respondents also said they supported “armed resistance” as a preferred solution to Palestinian-Israeli conflict.²
The results also revealed a very low level of support among Palestinians for institutions, whether it be the Palestinian Authority or Hamas.
_______________________________________
¹ Prior to the terrorist attack by Hamas in Israeli occupied and sovereign territory on October 7th, 2023.
² Source: Arab Barometer - In early October, Arab Barometer, a central resource for quantitative research on Arab countries, completed its most recent survey in Palestine, offering unique insight into the views of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza. The next day, Oct. 7, Hamas launched its surprise attack on Israel.
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We don't like to talk about it much, but post-Soviet Russia has sometimes been an indicator of what the US will confront about 10 years later.
The mainstream political rise of ethno-nationalists in Russia has been mirrored in the US, again with that approx. 10 year lag.
Some key similarities aiding the rise of ethno-nationalism in both countries:
1) Massive Income Inequality
The US and Russia have vast income disparities. In the US, CEOs were making 351x what an average worker made in 2020. And it's not changed much in two years.
2) Money Dominates Politics
Money corrupts politics in Russia and the US. Due to Republican obstruction, the 12 years under the Citizens United ruling with no campaign finance reform means the wealthy can dominate politics.
3) Elections Aren't Representative
In Russia, rigged elections mean votes aren't representative of the public will.
In the US, gerrymandering, racist hurdles and obstacles, racist voter roll purges, closing polling locations, and the discriminatory allocation of equipment, staff and materials result in elections they are not representative of the public will.
4) "Patriotic" Nationalism
The Cold War created a lot of hubris, arrogance and machismo politics, all of it wrapped in a thick blanket of nationalism, for the US and Russia in particular.
We are so marinated in nationalism that we rationalized our own illegal invasion and high civilian-toll bombing campaign under what amounted to a marketing slogan, "Shock and Awe".
5) Sexual Violence
The United States is ranked 11th in the world for sexual violence. Russia, in 2017, decriminalized domestic violence, leading to a massive increase in cases, including a large increase in rapes.
6) Declining Social Status and Living Standards
Russia's collapse was dramatic, and a great shock to Russians. Though the US hasn't collapsed, millions are seeing declining social status and a lower standard of living.
Many millions more whites suffer from a perception of declining social status because their long-held privilege is being challenged and in some cases corrected.
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@zinjanthropus322 - Elon and Peter don't love you back. I'm not talking about their ability to be secure for their trusted, paying clients in the private or government/military sectors. I'm saying, private citizens across the globe are not respected as having privacy in his eyes.
For him, our activities, purchases, browsing, connections, location, biometrics, accounts, relationships, family, and an applied behavioral and psychological model of us are "fair use" to leverage as a commodity of very high value for himself and his trusted clients.
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Elon has no love of free speech.
In fact, he employs it, benefits from it (he's sued customers, stalked and attempted to SWAT a whistleblower employee, as well as uses his cult-like following on social media to bully, threaten, intimidate, and silence critics of Musk, Tesla, SpaceX or "bro-tocracy" in general).
"CEO Elon Musk reportedly asked the Chinese government to censor social media posts critical of Tesla, in a move that seems highly incongruous with the tech billionaire's stance on government regulation and censorship in the United States, according to a Bloomberg report that "buried the lede" to bizarre depths."
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@springbloom5940 - "Obama Says U.S. Will Boost Military Presence in Europe, Warns Russia"
"The White House said Obama will call on Congress to support a "European Reassurance Initiative" of up to $1 billion to increase U.S. military rotations on the continent." - NBC News - June 3, 2014
"Trump, who was impeached for withholding nearly $400 million in military aid from Ukraine, said 'this deadly Ukraine situation would never have happened' if he were in office" - Business Insider - Feb 24, 2022
"Biden seeks $10 billion for aid to Ukraine, $22.5 billion for COVID expenses" - Associated Press - March 3rd, 2022
"How U.S. Military Aid Has Helped Ukraine Since 2014"
"U.S. assistance makes up 90% of Ukraine's foreign military aid, according to the Independent Defence Anti-Corruption Committee, a nongovernmental watchdog group in Kyiv" - NPR - December 18, 2019
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@springbloom5940 - Again, CITATIONS FUCKING SUPPLIED:
"Today I met with fellow leaders from our NATO Allies to discuss our shared commitment to collective defense and Transatlantic security. As President Putin threatens the very foundations of international peace and security, NATO is once again demonstrating that it stands for freedom and democracy."
"As I said yesterday, the United States will defend every inch of NATO territory. Our commitment to Article 5 is ironclad. I have ordered the deployment of additional forces to augment our capabilities in Europe to support our NATO Allies. And I strongly welcome the decision to activate NATO’s defensive plans and elements of the NATO Response Force to strengthen our collective posture, as well as the commitments by our Allies to deploy additional land and air forces to the eastern flank and maritime forces from the High North to the Mediterranean."
"We were joined today by our close partners Sweden, Finland, and the European Union. President Putin has failed in his goal of dividing the West. NATO is as united and resolute as it’s ever been, and NATO will maintain its Open Door to those European states who share our values and who one day may seek to join our Alliance. As we navigate this crisis, we pledged to work even more closely together in our defense of freedom and the democratic values that imbue our Alliance with purpose and power." - White House Press Office, February 25, 2022
"Obama Says U.S. Will Boost Military Presence in Europe, Warns Russia"
"The White House said Obama will call on Congress to support a "European Reassurance Initiative" of up to $1 billion to increase U.S. military rotations on the continent." - NBC News - June 3, 2014
"Trump, who was impeached for withholding nearly $400 million in military aid from Ukraine, said 'this deadly Ukraine situation would never have happened' if he were in office" - Business Insider - Feb 24, 2022
"Biden seeks $10 billion for aid to Ukraine, $22.5 billion for COVID expenses" - Associated Press - March 3rd, 2022
"How U.S. Military Aid Has Helped Ukraine Since 2014"
"U.S. assistance makes up 90% of Ukraine's foreign military aid, according to the Independent Defence Anti-Corruption Committee, a nongovernmental watchdog group in Kyiv" - NPR - December 18, 2019
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@primusyshu941 - The democratic Republic whose true exceptionalism is that it's founded on shared values and ideals -- not a shared geography, history, an ethnicity, ideology, or religion.
We, the people, in order to form a more perfect Union...
Continuing to perfect, protect, and progress that Union is our unique inheritance and legacy.
What we do in these times to protect the Union will determine whether we remain a democracy.
We either support plutocratic and oligarchic white Christian nationalism ... OR We uphold the rule-of-law not the rule-of-man, educate future generations on the true meaning of the Great Melting Pot, the Separation of Church and State -- for the benefit and preservation of both -- as well as civic duties and common decency, and continue to perfect this 248yr old imperfect Union.
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The coup attempt is ongoing. #VOTE
Don't buy into the "failure" of Biden manufactured out of the cuts from a thousand lies.
1) Fastest economic recovery on record
2) Millions of lives saved at home and abroad by the "whole of government" response to the global COVID pandemic
3) Record $1.2 trillion infrastructure bill
4) Millions saved from bankruptcy, homelessness, and even death by the American Rescue Plan
5) Record low employment, the lowest since 1970
6) Appointment of more federal judges to the bench than Reagan -- in 2021, Biden appointed more than double the number appointed by Reagan in 1981.
7) Halted all federal executions
8) Removed the ban on trans service members
9) Restored the U.S. commitment to global action on climate change, including rejoining the Paris Accords and vastly broadening the effort
10) Boosted wages by 2.4% with pro-labor policies and anti-monopoly executive actions
11) Record job creation -- more than 8.3 million jobs created
12) More than $25 billion in student loan debt forgiven, with more coming
13) $350 billion in reduced deficit spending
14) Restored and supercharged NATO
15) Cut child poverty in half.
16) The most diverse cabinet and government in U.S. history, including the first woman Treasury Secretary, first Native American Secretary of the Interior., first woman Director of National Intelligence, first openly gay Cabinet member, first Black woman on the Supreme Court, etc.
17) Rebuilt, and restored oversight of, the entire U.S. Immigration system the Republicans intentionally broke and made more xenophobic and corrupt.
18) Has never threatened to nuke Mexico or a hurricane
...ALL OF THAT and still running a smaller deficit than Trump, with a course charted to surplus again -- like Clinton and Obama did before.
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RE: the sponsor -- If you want to stop using nicotine habitually, quit nicotine altogether.
If you want to use nicotine habitually, but don't want to smoke -- use Füm.
If you’re ready to quit smoking, there are proven ways to give up the habit—and electronic cigarettes are not one of them.
In fact, the U.S. Food & Drug Administration recently issued a list of effective products for quitting smoking, and e-cigarettes are not included. That’s because despite media portrayals, advertising campaigns, and occasional scientific advice, e-cigarettes and “vapes” are a dangerous alternative to smoking, not a way to help you quit. In fact, the FDA has not authorized any electronic nicotine replacement system (ENDS) as a tool to help people quit smoking. - MedStar Health
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@billcrowley3rd - Clinton rode the decisions corporate America made after being unleashed by Reagan to put profit before patriotism.
As usual, you blame the Democrats for inheriting the mess Republicans created.
If you were honest, you would lay the blame where it lies, with Reagan for the double-dip recession that caused the situation that led to the loss of American industrial and manufacturing capacity, and then you can also blame Clinton for being unable to undo it because it's nigh irreversible.
"...[in] the Reagan era. ...Japanese manufacturers had developed a superior management style to their American rivals and, frankly, started eating our lunch."
"Instead of keeping a wall between management and workers, Japanese manufacturers adopted “organizational integration,” which put technical specialists and shop-floor workers together. The result was better products made faster in Japan, and jobs lost permanently in the United States."
"The adverse impact of Japanese competition on US employment became particularly harsh in the double-dip recession of 1980-1982 when large numbers of good blue-collar jobs disappeared from US industry, as it turned out permanently (Bednarzik 1983)."
"Previously, in a more stable competitive environment, US manufacturing companies would lay off workers with the least seniority in a downturn and re-employ them when economic conditions improved. Now companies were much more likely to shutter whole plants (Harris 1984; Hamermesh 1989)."
__________________________________________
Source: The White House is only telling you half of the sad story of what happened to American jobs by Linette Lopez for Business Insider, July 25th, 2017
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Here's 30 years out-of-date military intelligence (not strategy) expert Scott Ritter peddling Putin's lies.
"On March 1st, Russia’s “First Channel” aired a news story about the war in Ukraine, which featured interviews with Scott Ritter, the U.N. Weapons Inspector in Iraq from 1991-1998, and American writer Gonzalo Lira, who argue that Russia is not targeting the Ukrainian population, unlike Zelenskyy, who wants to create an artificial humanitarian crisis in Ukraine."
Scott Ritter’s interview with Syrian journalist Richard Medhurst, featured in Russian “First Channel” story, was disseminated through [various Russian] platforms"
"The aforementioned videos contain three pieces of disinformation: 1. Even a week after the start of hostilities in Ukraine, the city of Mariupol was not captured by Russian troops. 2. Disconnecting Russia from SWIFT has not had any severe impact on the United States, and while the ruble continues to depreciate, the value of the U.S. dollar has been rising. 3. As of March 2nd, Russian hostile actions in Ukraine resulted in more than 2000 civilian casualties."
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Dana Bash knows full well he isn't the authority to refer an indictment for criminal charges against the former President. It throws Constitutional issues into the mix which are unnecessary and pointless.
The Democratic party led two bipartisan efforts that resulted in Trump being impeached twice in the House and they then sent the indictments against him to the Senate, where Republicans ignored the threat of a coup d'etat attempt that was literally illustrated to them in the closing arguments of his first Senate trial, and then lost their spine to hold him accountable, with Mitch McConnell telling top Republican advisors, "The Democrats are going to take care of the son of a b---- for us...if this isn’t impeachable, I don’t know what is.” But, they continued to lie to their voters about the process, their view of Trump, and refused to hold him accountable for his crimes, this time including sedition and a coup, leaving their oaths unfulfilled yet again.
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@avae5343 - NATO isn't America and America isn't NATO.
If you want the US out of NATO, lobby for that.
It's more than NATO at issue, though. Since GW Bush, the US support for Ukraine had increased year over year under every President.
Under Obama the US began supplying 90% of Ukraine's security, defense, intel, and military aid.
Trump's extortion plot used an increase in the aid Obama was already delivering.
Biden and Congress have recognized the threat and, especially post-invasion, have made it possible for Ukraine to fight as hard, as well, and as long as they have.
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"Citation needed". Or shorter; no it wasn't.
"In the 1760s, Britain was deep in debt, so British Parliament imposed a series of taxes on American colonists to help pay those debts."
"The Stamp Act of 1765 taxed colonists on virtually every piece of printed paper they used, from playing cards and business licenses to newspapers and legal documents. The Townshend Acts of 1767 went a step further, taxing essentials such as paint, paper, glass, lead and tea."
"The passing of the Tea Act imposed no new taxes on the American colonies. The tax on tea had existed since the passing of the 1767 Townshend Revenue Act. Along with tea, the Townshend Revenue Act also taxed glass, lead, oil, paint, and paper. Due to boycotts and protests, the Townshend Revenue Act’s taxes were repealed on all commodities except tea in 1770. The tea tax was kept in order to maintain Parliament’s right to tax the colonies. The Tea Act was not intended to anger American colonists, instead it was meant to be a bailout policy to get the British East India Company out of debt."
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Thom Hartmann and Lamar Waldron¹ recently discussed the scheduled release of these documents, and speculated Biden would push out the release date again, as other President's had done.
According to Waldron, it was a plot to kill Castro and pin the blame on a "lone-wolf" Russian asset that was put together by the CIA with the Mafia supplying the assets and shooters on the ground in Cuba, that was turned on President Kennedy by either just the Mafia, or the Mafia and the CIA together.
At that point, he goes on, Robert F. Kennedy got involved in the cover-up because he (and many others in the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations) believed if the US plot to assassinate Castro was known by the Soviets, nuclear war would erupt, annihilating humanity.
_________________________________
¹Lamar Waldron has written extensively on the assassination of JFK, the Warren Commission, the withholding of the Commission's report, etc .
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@padredemishijos12 - You are working to peddle the same lies, Tahuan.
Here's Ritter lying for Putin:
"On March 1st, Russia’s “First Channel” aired a news story about the war in Ukraine, which featured interviews with Scott Ritter, the U.N. Weapons Inspector in Iraq from 1991-1998, and American writer Gonzalo Lira, who argue that Russia is not targeting the Ukrainian population, unlike Zelenskyy, who wants to create an artificial humanitarian crisis in Ukraine."
"Scott Ritter’s interview with Syrian journalist Richard Medhurst, featured in Russian “First Channel” story, was disseminated through [various Russian] platforms."
"The aforementioned videos contain three pieces of disinformation: 1. Even a week after the start of hostilities in Ukraine, the city of Mariupol was not captured by Russian troops. 2. Disconnecting Russia from SWIFT has not had any severe impact on the United States, and while the ruble continues to depreciate, the value of the U.S. dollar has been rising. 3. As of March 2nd, Russian hostile actions in Ukraine resulted in more than 2000 civilian casualties."
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@albertgreen8347 - Please learn to do you own research.
George W. Bush and Republicans touted their votes for and his signature on the 1990 Gun-Free School Zones Act as a better solution than firearm safety laws.
Now they are pushing "Fire Exit-Free School Zones" instead of firearm safety laws and loophole fixes for the background check system.
"Yearly changes in the rates of mass shootings showed that, on average, restrictive states had lower rates of mass shootings than most permissive states, for most years."
"And from 2010 onwards, the gap between permissive and restrictive states started to widen, with rates falling in restrictive states and rising in permissive states."
"Levels of gun ownership were also significantly associated with mass shooting rates."
"After taking account of key factors, a 10 unit increase in state gun law permissiveness, as defined by the scale, was associated with an 11.5% higher rate of mass shootings."
"These findings held true, even when different factors were accounted for and whether or not the mass shootings were perpetrated by someone in a close relationship with the victims."
"And a 10% increase in gun ownership was associated with a more than 35% higher rate of mass shootings."
"“On the absolute scale, this means that a state like California, which has approximately two mass shootings per year, will have an extra mass shooting for every 10 unit increase in permissiveness over five years,” explain the researchers."
“It will also have three to five more mass shootings per five years for every 10 unit increase in gun ownership,”
"...year after year, states with strong gun laws, including New York, have the lowest gun deaths in the nation, whereas states with weak laws have the highest."
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The Democrats and Biden have done more for Florida with disaster preparedness in two years than Governor DeSantis or Trump have ever done.
DeSantis knows it too.
"Governor Ron DeSantis Requests President Biden Approve Major Disaster Declaration and 100 Percent Federal Cost Share for 60 Days for Hurricane Ian."
"As Hurricane Ian approaches Florida, President Biden has directed the heads of Federal agencies across the government to surge all available resources to the region in preparation for potential impacts and to support response and recovery efforts in the aftermath of the storm."
"Yesterday, the President held calls with Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, Mayor Jane Castor of Tampa, Mayor Ken Welch of St. Petersburg, and Mayor Frank Hibbard of Clearwater to discuss preparations for the potential impacts from Hurricane Ian. In the last week, FEMA Administrator Deanne Criswell has held calls with Governor Ron DeSantis of Florida, Governor Henry McMaster of South Carolina, and Governor Brian Kemp of Georgia, and she visited Florida on Monday, September 26."
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Hedges is a useful idiot for neo-nationalists because he's a progressive with a major dollop of lilywhite Puritan culture scolding.
"The physical and moral decay of the United States and the malaise it has spawned have predictable results. We have seen in varying forms the consequences of social and political collapse during the twilight of the Greek and Roman empires, the Ottoman and Hapsburg empires, Tsarist Russia, Weimar Germany and the former Yugoslavia. Voices from the past, Aristotle, Cicero, Fyodor Dostoevsky, Joseph Roth and Milovan Djilas, warned us. But blinded by self-delusion and hubris, as if we are somehow exempt from human experience and human nature, we refuse to listen." - Chris Hedges, 2020
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We don't know if no one has been able to or not, technically.
"In December 2002, a joint Senate-House intelligence committee published its findings on the horrendous 9/11 terrorist attacks, which included evidence of possible links between the government of Saudi Arabia and some of the 15 Saudis involved in the bombings of the Pentagon and Twin Towers that cost nearly 3,000 American lives. For national security reasons, the 28 pages detailing that information were never published. But they may be shortly and revive yet another intense examination of alleged Saudi support for anti-American terrorism." - Saudi Arabia Faces the Missing 28 Pages - from The Wilson Center in 2016
"On September 11, 2021, following an executive order by Joe Biden, the FBI started releasing a series of redacted documents related to Saudi Arabia's links to 9/11 and the role of Saudi nationals in the attacks. For security purposes, not all the information was released, and the documents were abridged." - Alleged Saudi government role in the September 11 attacks from Wikipedia
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@saltmerchant749 - The bar against the torture or summary execution of anyone is covered in the Geneva conventions, according to most interpretations. I believe mercenary forces would fall under unlawful combatants, based on these interpretations.
Where you've got a point is if they are deemed 'unlawful belligerents', a term not covered in the Geneva conventions, but which was used by the GW Bush administration to describe terrorists, and formed the basis of justification for using Guantanamo to detain them indefinitely. Using foreign soil under military control meant they could proceed without having to define that term under US civilian law either.
In practice, I'd imagine many Ukrainians aren't adhering to the conventions, and we know the Russian forces aren't.
Without suggesting there is an equivalence, Zelensky's encouraging of civilians to fight is also against the conventions, but a rational and realistic decision nonetheless.
I think it's likely that your sentiment is shared on the ground in Ukraine by many, regardless of the laws of war.
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The right-wing Christian nationalists in the U.S. have significant funding and training ties with Russian ethno-nationalist groups.
The Republican party, in fact, knowingly used the NRA as a Russian oligarch money laundromat for the campaigns of numerous politicians in office today.
Those politicians include figures like Mike Lee, one of the MAGA caucus ready to blow up the world economy if they can't cut Social Security, Medicaid and Medicare.
Also never forget, current House Speaker Kevin McCarthy told Republican strategists and elected members he thought Trump and former House Committee Chair Rohrabacher were directly paid by Putin.
"There’s two people I think Putin pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) said, according to a recording of the June 15, 2016, exchange, which was listened to and verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and Russia." - The Washington Post, May 17th, 2017
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REMEMBER:
Trump literally extorted Zelensky with the aid, only delivering it when the Pentagon pointed out it was illegal, and Ukrainian immigrant and whistleblower Lt. Col. Alexander Vindman (Purple Heart recipient) caused him to be impeached by Democrats as Republicans smeared Vindman and questioned his patriotism, as a part of making excuses for Trump.
In the end, Trump's scheme meant $38 million of the $400 never reached Ukraine because its appropriation had expired. Biden restored the lost $38 million and way more ($500 million, plus).
Obama: Creates the European Defense Initiative to vastly expand aid to Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
Commits $314 million in defense, security, and military equipment and aid to Ukraine.
Trump: Withholds $400 million in defense, security and military equipment and aid to Ukraine (mainly remaining Obama era commitments, plus an added $211 million for EDI).
Biden: Delivers $250 million in defense, security and military equipment and aid via Obama's EDI last month alone, plus another $350 million on the way now -- for $550 million; more than twice what Trump added, then held up.
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@MirceaKitsune - The real solution to mass shootings is keeping military style rifles of[f] the street, and all guns out of the hands of those likely to harm themselves or others based upon mental health evaluations, and/or a record of prior misdemeanors or criminal behavior.
All of those solutions have been passed as pending law [for over a decade by Democrats] and sent to the Senate where Republicans refuse to even debate them again and again.
Stop using deflection to ignore the core issue; the current insane state of U.S. firearm safety laws due to Republican obstruction for three decades.
"...contrary to the rhetoric from Fox & Friends and the NRA, whatever Congress does or doesn’t do in response to El Paso and Dayton, the Constitution is not to blame."
"Until 2008, the court had never held that the Second Amendment protects private gun ownership. The reason is obvious: unlike most constitutional clauses, the Second Amendment actually sets out a reason for the right in question. The text reads, in full (and with the odd punctuation in the original): “A well regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.”"
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@charlesvan13 - What I claim is you are misinformed or disinformed.
Putin aided Trump in 2016¹ and 2020², including numerous instances of coordination, including asking for Russia to hack presidential candidate and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on live television.
________________________________________________
¹ "Tuesday’s bipartisan report, from a panel chaired by North Carolina Republican Richard Burr, undercuts Trump’s years of efforts to portray allegations of Kremlin assistance to his campaign as a “hoax,” driven by Democrats and a “deep state” embedded within the government bureaucracy."
"The intelligence community’s initial January 2017 assessment of Moscow’s influence campaign included “specific intelligence reporting to support the assessment that [Russian President Vladimir] Putin and the Russian government demonstrated a preference for candidate Trump,” the committee’s report says. The panel also found “specific intelligence” to support the conclusion that Putin “approved and directed aspects” of the Kremlin’s interference efforts."
² "A new report by the U.S. intelligence community on Tuesday says Russia sought to help former President Donald Trump in last year's presidential election. But the document also emphasized there was no indication Russia or any other country attempted to alter actual votes."
"Russian President Vladimir Putin authorized "influence operations aimed at denigrating President Biden's candidacy and the Democratic Party, supporting Trump, undermining public confidence in the electoral process and exacerbating socio-political divisions in the U.S," says the report by the Office of the Director of National Intelligence."
"The unclassified document is the most comprehensive look the intelligence community has released regarding foreign efforts to meddle in the 2020 election."
"But the central message is the same one the intelligence community has been delivering since last August: Russia wanted Trump to win, though its effort was not on the same scale as in the 2016 election."
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@spartanx9293 - Exactly.
2014 - "...the United States committed more than $600 million in security assistance to Ukraine between 2014 and 2016, including body armor, night-vision goggles, vehicles and training."
2017-2019 - "...Trump first approved the sale of $47 million worth of 210 Javelin missiles and 37 launchers to Ukraine in December 2017. Delivered in April the following year, they were not deployed to the front lines of the still-simmering separatist war. Under the terms of the sale, they were kept boxed in a military storage facility far from the front lines, where they were to serve symbolically as a “strategic deterrent” to Russia."
"In the summer of 2019, Trump froze an additional $400 million in congressionally approved security assistance to Ukraine, an action that later became a centerpiece in his first impeachment. Based in large part on a July 25 telephone call with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that year, in which Zelensky expressed interest in buying more Javelins, Trump deflected the request and instead asked Zelensky for the “favor” of digging up dirt against then Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden, and the Ukrainian business dealings of Biden’s son, Hunter."
2021- current - "...Since August [2021], U.S. military aid to help Ukraine repel Russia has surpassed $3 billion under Biden."
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@p1randymarsh618 - The statistics show that higher tax revenues from many sources, when combined with transparency laws, oversight and audits, produces better standards of living. Republican tax policy is generally in denial of this reality and still uses the disproven "trickle-down" theory
The tax policies dominating Republican politics for five decades have produced a major decline across many metrics both in "red" states domestically, and consequentially the US internationally.
A 50-year comprehensive study on tax cuts like Reagan's and Trump's showed they make the rich richer, increase income inequality, and do nothing for economic growth, while contributing to declining investment in research, education, infrastructure, health care, and as a result of that decline in national investment, they result in a decline in global competitiveness.
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@haroldbridges515 - Thanks for elaborating on your view. I'm glad the Monica Marks' interview was interesting.
Imo, Saied is corrupt, but, as you said, that's my opinion.
CSIS no doubt has a 'West colored' glasses view of democracy, and any authoritarian moves are viewed by them with a jaundiced eye.
For instance, I think a prevalent Western blindness to the depth of the threat of authoritarianism in the US is on display in this CSIS take on the US' January 6th violent insurrection and coup attempt by former President Trump and his cronies:
"The nation, at all levels of government and in civil society, should elevate civic education as a national security imperative. Our democracy is strong but not invincible. It must be fought for in the face of attacks from enemies domestic and foreign. It is worth fighting for not because it is perfect, but because, unlike authoritarian regimes, it is capable of change through peaceful, constitutional means. On January 6, we witnessed an effort at change through violence—an insurrection. All Americans should be equipped to be effective agents of change within our system and to do their part in sustaining our democracy. Civics education is a national security imperative because it is how we empower ourselves to preserve our republic."
All the best to you and yours.
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@haroldbridges515 - CODA: "You keep on using that word, but I do not think it means what you think it means."
Types of Political Corruption: bribery, lobbying, extortion, cronyism, nepotism, parochialism, patronage, influence peddling, graft, and embezzlement.
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@bigtt87 - These issues are resolved now with the latest ruling, and best rebutted by the US Soccer men's team's amicus brief in the case.
"The U.S. men’s soccer team argued in a court filing Friday that members of the women’s national team should have been paid more than the men’s team, siding with the women in the appeal of their high-profile equal pay case against U.S. Soccer."
"In a blistering amicus brief Friday, the men’s team claimed U.S. Soccer had underpaid and discriminated against its women’s national team players for decades, arguing that a district court judge had wrongly decided against the women last year."
"[A] judge ruled last spring that the women’s team had not been discriminated against because they agreed to a different contract structure, and that their claim was undermined by the fact that they had ultimately been paid more than male players. But the men’s team called the ruling “flawed” and “oversimplified,” saying that the court had wrongly ignored the fact that the women’s pay relied on their performance, not just the number of games they played."
"In equal-pay case, U.S. women’s soccer players argue [the previous] judge ‘penalized’ them for their success."
"The men’s team argued that, contrary to the [previous] judge’s ruling, the women had been “pressured” to accept “an unfair and unequal" collective bargaining agreement."
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@bigtt87 - What it means is, your view is blinkered and an old saw to fight equity by asserting equality for the future without accounting for the past is the same thing as equity, which accounts for the past and present inequality as well as the setting of an equal footing in the future.
"[Women] players get to games through second-class travel, are denied equal training and medical support, use more dangerous, inferior facilities, and are under-promoted compared to their male peers, among a range of inequities."
"A lawsuit settlement Tuesday to end the prolonged fight delivers $24 million, mostly back pay for the women, and an agreement that the national men’s and women’s teams will be paid the same from now on, as is fair and just."
"Global soccer is inequitable in its treatment of women’s teams, as shown by a Goal()com 2021 report on prize money. FIFA’s men’s World Cup prize purse in 2018 amounted to $400 million in total payouts for the 32 competing teams; the winning side, France, got $32 million. The next year, Women’s World Cup teams competed for $30 million total. That’s right: the total tournament pot for 24 women’s teams was less than France’s men got by themselves. This imbalance won’t improve until member nations push for change and do better by their own athletes."
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Henry Kissinger is the guy who told President Carter that if he didn't let the corrupt U.S. puppet, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi (the former Shah of Iran) into the U.S. for likely life-saving cancer treatment, that he would be able to, and would, kill the SALT nuclear weapons control agreement treaty ratification in the Senate.
Carter caved, understandably. The revolution and the taking of the U.S. Embassy and its occupants as hostages followed.
"That point of decision has most often been explained as a spontaneous, compassionate response to a medical emergency. But, examined in the light of interviews with more than 50 people who played a part, it emerges as a much more complicated act. It reflected a calculated political gamble taken in response to highpressure lobbying within and outside the Administration and with an eye on the upcoming Presidential campaign. And it led directly to the trauma of the following weeks and months: the seizure of the American hostages in Teheran (see ''How a Sit-In Turned Into a Siege,'' page 54), the shattering of relations between the United States and Iran, the altering of strategic realities in the oil-rich Persian Gulf."
""What made Kissinger's intervention particularly sensitive was the fact that it came just as the Administration was completing the second Strategic Arms Limitation Treaty talks with the Soviet Union and preparing for what it expected to be the biggest political battle of Carter's first term. The President knew that Kissinger's position on SALT would influence the outcome of the ratification debate in the Senate. Both men say they never linked the two subjects in their discussions about the Shah, but explicit linkage was hardly necessary. ''SALT,'' Hamilton Jordan, White House chief of staff, observed later, ''was the background for all our discussions in those days.''"
"When David Rockefeller made that April 9 visit to the Oval Office, he said recently, ''I had some other matters I wanted to discuss with the President, and as we stood up, at the end of the conversation, I told him of my concern that a friend of the United States should be treated in such a way and said I felt he should be admitted and we should take whatever steps were necessary to deal with the threats (to the Teheran embassy). I didn't tell him how to deal with it, but I said it seemed to me that a great power such as ours should not submit to blackmail.''"
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Trump isn't the disease, he's a side effect. According to Pew polling from September 2022, 3/4ths of Republicans want to see the U.S. turned into a Christian nationalist state, despite knowing that it would be wholly unconstitutional.
In 2014, the Obama/Biden administration started the European Deterrence Initiative, and practically overnight the U.S.A. became the source of 90% of Ukraine's foreign defense, security, intelligence, imagery, training and strategic aid.
That Obama era program is what Republican President Trump used to try to extort President Zelensky. An extortion scheme focused upon a Russian active measure against the United States of America, our elections, and both the Republican and the Democratic parties.
Friends don't let friends vote Republican.
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@arkinyte13 - I understand you have your own metric for what is a progressive liberal, that's fine.
My point is, we should not lose sight of the history of progressive politics in the Democratic party as well as outside of it, and continue to leverage assets we have on hand today, and not trade-off what I see as the massive advantages of "additive" versus "reductive" political strategies.
In that spirit, I shared the fact about the number of members of the Congressional Progressive Caucus, in other words, elected Democrats and one Independent who identify as progressives, and the polling data from Pew and others that shows 15%-20% of Democratic voters call themselves liberal progressives (for added context, 25%-30% call themselves liberals, and 35%-40% call themselves moderates, 5%-10% call themselves conservatives, and 2%-5% call themselves very conservative).
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If you want to apportion blame, do it responsibly and blame all the [permanent] U.N. Security Council members, as well as the Arab League members: China, France, Russia, the UK, and the US and Algeria, Bahrain, Comoros, Djibouti, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon Libya, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, (since suspended), Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen.
"...the entire United Nations Security Council—rivals as well as friends—along with the Arab League, endorsed the intervention."
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Tommy Gunna - Politically expedient fallacies aside, here's one expert on what is the widely agreed upon reason for the timing, as I've shared before.
"Now that Russian President Vladimir Putin has launched a ground war against Ukraine that he apparently has been planning for years, many have wondered why he waited until now."
"Wouldn’t it have been easier for Putin to invade Ukraine when Trump was president? The United States had abdicated its traditional leadership role in global alliances and left much of the rest of the world open to expanded Chinese and Russian influence. Plus, NATO had already expanded eastward to Russia’s borders, and the Kremlin already controlled Crimea and had proxies in the Donbas."
"[Some American politicians and commentators on the political right have tried to answer the question by comparing the purported strength or weakness of President Joe Biden with that of Trump, alleging that Putin saw Trump as stronger than Biden, even though Putin’s own description of Trump¹ suggested the opposite. But beyond personality,] there’s a far more likely and logical explanation if you look at policy alignment between Russia and America during the two administrations: With Trump in office, Putin was already getting what he wanted. The election changed all that."
___________________________________
¹CNN host Farid Zakaria reminded President Vladimir Putin of his words about the outstanding talents of Donald Trump, the US presidential candidate, during SPIEF.
“Why do you distort everything? I said on the go that Trump is a bright person. Why not bright? the president replied.
Putin explained that he supports Trump's readiness for a full-fledged restoration of Russian-American relations. “Hopefully, the new American head of state’s sense of responsibility will motivate him to work with Russia and keep the peace.
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Beware the extremists in power in Russia. Beware the extremists in power at home. #VOTE2022
With tacit support from Putin and his party, United Russia, white nationalists in Russia coordinate, fund, and even train and arm white nationalists in the U.S.
"White nationalist groups in the United States do not operate in a vacuum, however. The transnational connections between such groups—especially between organizations in the United States and Russia—are deeply troubling. In 2004, white supremacist David Duke called Russia the “key to white survival,” while another white supremacist, Richard Spencer, recently characterized Russia as the “sole white power in the world.” With Russian President Vladimir Putin serving as a beacon of hope for many white supremacists in the United States, it comes with little surprise that there are connections between the nationalist groups of both of these countries."
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@RichRocketMan - ...or, if you prefer, straight from the horse's mouth:
Since 2018, White supremacists have conducted more lethal attacks in the US than any other domestic extremist movement, demonstrating a "longstanding intent" to target racial and religious minorities, members of the LGBTQ+ community, politicians and those they believe promote multi-culturalism and globalization, according to the report.
"As Secretary, I am concerned about any form of violent extremism," wrote acting Homeland Security Secretary Chad Wolf. "However, I am particularly concerned about white supremacist violent extremists who have been exceptionally lethal in their abhorrent, targeted attacks in recent years."
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@jackcaffrey8493 - Reagan was awful for the economy, which I know first-hand.
Your devotion to Trump, Reagan, and FOXNews isn't serving you well.
Reaganomics being an unparalleled success is a fairy tale.
"Note that President Reagan was never able to make good on the promise of reducing government spending (discussed in a moment) nor balancing the federal budget.
Interestingly, while the Economic Tax Recovery Act would become the most sacred cornerstone of modern day Republican Party ideology, the ideas were not immediately taken to heart by many Congressional Republicans of Reagan’s era. These Members, along with most Democrats, were skeptical of an approach that was designed to improve the economy by making life harder on the nation’s poor, not to mention the fear that such policies could negatively impact their own political futures."
"Nevertheless, and in no small measure the result of the sympathy felt for President Reagan when he was hit by an assassin’s bullet in July on 1981, the bill was passed into law approximately a month after the failed attempt on Reagan’s life."
"Mae no mistake—things most assuredly became harder for all but the wealthy who, as the primary beneficiaries of the across-the-board 24 percent tax cut, watched their net worth skyrocket as those less fortunate or less successful took a major hit.
With dramatic cuts to the social welfare safety net—including deep cuts even to the budget for kids who received their primary source of nourishment from school lunch programs—things were pretty grim for those without money. And they were about to get a whole lot worse as the Federal Reserve raised interest rates in response to the mad inflation that was growing annually at an astounding 14 percent.
Unable to borrow money at an interest rate they could afford, 17,000 businesses had failed by the fall of 1982 and unemployment reached record highs. With the national debt also at a record high, even supply-side gurus like David Stockman, Reagan’s budget director, pushed the President to raise taxes in order to put some money into the national treasury or face even greater debt as the nation would be forced to borrow to make up the difference.
Reagan agreed to rollback the corporate tax cuts and, to a much lesser extent, the individual income tax cuts. By the time he was finished with the adjustment, he had undone approximately one third of the tax cut put through the previous year."
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@allenvestal4474 - Biden caused the war in Ukraine now too? You aren't a serious person.
Putin was going to invade regardless. COVID-19 delayed him. Neither Trump, nor Biden mattered much in his plans.
"The truth is that during his administration, Trump’s policy alignment with Putin advanced the aims of Russia’s political elites, who could imagine that the United States was on their side. Their comfort with Trump was evident from the start; Americans may remember that Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was warmly received in the White House and photographed in the Oval Office, while Russian parliament members toasted Trump’s electoral victory in 2016."
"This comfort evaporated with the election of Biden. And for good reason: from the start, the Biden administration has been at odds with Putin on the issues Putin needs to care about to preserve his own rule. After Biden’s election, Russian political elites once again articulated profound, existential anxieties about a renewed United States projecting its power abroad. State television in Russia emphasized the Kremlin will not allow American influence in Ukraine, “regardless of the cost to us, and regardless of the cost to those responsible for it.”"
"The Biden White House has taken positions opposite those of the Trump administration on NATO. Biden has insisted on principles of state sovereignty, reaffirming and rebuilding the United States’ trans-Atlantic relationships, including strengthening NATO."
"Biden took meaningful steps to support Ukraine in defending itself. Far from undermining Ukraine’s democratically elected government, the Biden administration has tried to create roadblocks for the Kremlin by getting inside Putin’s decision cycle, declassifying and broadcasting intelligence about Russia’s plans to attack Ukraine. Biden exhausted diplomatic channels trying to come to a peaceful resolution and worked with allies to prepare a sanctions package in advance of a Russian invasion."
"And Biden has worked to protect democracy. Unlike Trump, rather than questioning the integrity of contests his party lost, Biden has spoken forcefully about the close legal scrutiny and fairness of all the 2020 elections. And he has supported congressional efforts to protect the franchise in the United States."
"In Trump, Putin had a fellow-traveler. Far from ensuring world peace, the Trump years instead offered Putin a useful pause he utilized to further military readiness and prime the Russian population for a hot war. Earlier this month, the Russian state adopted new standards for mass graves — not because of the coronavirus pandemic in Russia, but for situations that involve “urban destruction.”"
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@tonyboxofdonuts - Please stop spreading white nationalist propaganda. It makes you look like an irresponsible bigot.
Unless of course, that is what you are.
The violence of white terrorist mobs has always frustrated and weakened US democracy and undermined our founding principles.
It used to be the Democratic party which made a home for the white nationalist terrorists, but after the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act, the Republican party became their chosen refuge.
They should have no place in any major political party because the public should progress beyond the colonial thinking that retains that place for terrorism in politics.
Alas, individuals like you delay that day, but can't deny it its inevitable dawning.
"More than 70 years ago, a U.S. senator published a book warning of the same destruction of White civilization [as The Great Replacement Theory lie]."
"Theodore G. Bilbo, a Democrat, had twice been governor of Mississippi before he served in the U.S. Senate from 1935 to 1947, when “the growing intolerance among many whites toward public racism and anti-Semitism” led to his fall, according to an account in the Journal of Mississippi History."
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@arlandolittle7625 - Read up on the issue. In just one example, we made MS-13 in the U.S. and exported it back.
"A final push factor—with a very important transnational history—is gang violence. MS-13 is now one of the largest gangs in the world, and has contributed to violent crime across the region. What many Americans don’t know is that MS-13 was founded in poor neighborhoods in Los Angeles in the 1980s, within communities of Central American refugees who had fled civil wars."
"Today, the countries sending the most migrants to the U.S.-Mexico border–especially the Central American countries of Guatemala, Honduras and El Salvador–are experiencing a combination of push factors that include poverty and inequality, political instability, and violence. And while the current situation may be unique, it is also deeply rooted in history."
"Conservative political elites often responded to these movements by inviting the military to take power, and the resulting conflict would eventually develop into civil wars in Guatemala (1960-1996), El Salvador (1980-1992) and Nicaragua (1979-1990). The United States played a central role in many of these conflicts, propping up military dictatorships and supporting them with logistical aid, money, training and weapons, even as many of them committed human rights atrocities. These conflicts generated huge surges in emigration from Central America, establishing the migration patterns that persist today."
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@skypie1 - No, you just haven't read the facts about the problems, nor the actual comments by the U.S. President and Vice President regarding the problems you ostensibly care so much about.
"The strategy groups the root causes of migration into five pillars, offering several approaches for each:"
1 - "Addressing economic insecurity and inequality;"
2 - "Combating corruption, strengthening democratic governance, and advancing the rule of law;"
3 - Promoting respect for human rights, labor rights, and a free press;"
4 - "Countering and preventing violence, extortion, and other crimes perpetrated by criminal gangs, trafficking networks, and other organized criminal organizations;"
5 - "Combating sexual, gender-based, and domestic violence."
"Taken together, the five pillars can be seen as the administration’s effort to address the structural fragility that is so often at the root of why people leave the Northern Triangle."
"The newly released U.S Strategy for Addressing the Root Causes of Migration in Central America (heretofore referred to as the “root causes strategy” or simply “the strategy”) is the Biden-Harris administration’s blueprint for addressing irregular migration from the region. With an introduction from Vice President Kamala Harris (who was asked to lead the administration’s efforts in the region in March 2021), the strategy focuses on the Northern Triangle countries of Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras. The strategy “lays out a framework to use the policy, resources, and diplomacy of the United States, and to leverage the expertise and resources of a broad group of public and private stakeholders, to build hope for citizens in the region that the life they desire can be found at home.” It aims to build a broad coalition that will include Congress, the governments in the region, the private and public sector, and civil society organizations, with the aim of creating tailored and coordinated solutions to both short-term and long-term causes of migration."
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@@nicolasl2868 - I understand now. Thanks for elaborating.
I agree, and I don't want to be a "moral beacon", in no small part due to all the history behind that phrase.
And, not to say it's enough by any means, but we did just do the most by any country ever on climate change, despite Republican servitude to unfettered fossil fuel greed.
I feel we shouldn't shy away from leading by example where and when we can because -- for example -- we are still heavily laden with all our national and international crimes against humanity, and must continue like Sisyphus rolling the "rock of reconstruction".
I hold out all the hope -- but admittedly little confidence -- that this recent white nationalist surge becomes a final homicidal and grotesque reflection of ourselves that will get my demographic, white Americans, to start a massive truth and reconciliation process for the genocide of the civilizations we "discovered", five centuries of slavery and the consequences that demand real reparations.
I'm glad that 18-25 year old white voters, for the first time in over 10 years, turned out to vote for country over complexion; as coming into the 2022 midterms, a majority from all age groups of white voters had chosen Trump over Clinton in 2016, and then Trump over Biden in even larger numbers in 2020.
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The "both sides are out of touch and doing nothing" rhetoric is a lie by my Governor here at worst, and an earnest parroting of a popular fallacy at best.
Look at the two lists below, and compare the records of both parties on voter priorities yourself.
Pew 2021 Voter Priorities Poll:
1) Economy/jobs
(^ NOT inflation, which only got 4% in 2021)
2) COVID
3) Security/terrorism
4) Election security/Campaign finance reform
5) Healthcare
Quinnipiac 2022 Voter Priorities Poll:
1) Inflation
2) Gun Violence
3) Economy/jobs
4) Gas/Energy
5) Abortion
Economy/jobs - Biden and Democrats have delivered the fastest economic recovery in history, and consistent record-breaking job gains. Check for yourself.
COVID - No honest examination of the two parties regarding the global pandemic, from preparedness to combating it and saving lives shows anything but Democrats putting Republicans to shame on this priority.
Security/terrorism - Democrats restored the U.S. relationship with NATO, revitalized NATO's mission and got the U.S. out of Afghanistan in time to respond to Russia's second invasion of Ukraine, and Biden took out al-Zawahiri; the last big "face card" in the 911 deck of most wanted.
Election security/Campaign finance reform - Since 2010's Citizens United ruling that unleashed money in politics, the Democrats have consistently passed legislation to fix the problem in the U.S. House while Republicans have consistently blocked it (usually refusing to even allow debate or a vote) in the Senate.
Most of the Democrats legislation blocked by Republicans also vastly improved election security, ballot security, and better voter receipt/ballot record keeping, and expanded audit/recount capabilities and transparency.
Healthcare - Democrats are unmatched regarding the record on healthcare, it's laughable to assert any equivalence.
Inflation - Last month, inflation zeroed out and it's likely to trend down much more with the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act (which not a single Republican voted for, even less than the minor support they have to the largest infrastructure investment in the U.S. since the highway system was created)
Gun Violence - Biden and Democrats got enough Republican support to finally improve background checks and better red flag law enforcement. They have much more they want, and continue to work with Republicans on firearm safety and public safety to pass more legislation.
Gas/Energy - The Inflation Reduction Act is also the largest investment in U.S. energy independence, and unprecedented reinvestment in the industrial manufacturing sector (including historic apprenticeship requirements, plus fair wage and labor protections).
The U.S. is truly repositioning to lead the new energy sector with the IRA's 10 year plan and policies.
Abortion - This one's personal, I would never want anything than for each person to make their own assessment of the two major parties and their policy priorities here.
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Only pap-minded loonies believe Elon is interested in free speech.
"To be clear, no one has a legal right to tweet—that is, to post on Twitter, a platform owned by a private company."
"Musk's own commitment to free speech, however, has its limits. While Musk has criticized Twitter's leadership, he has repeatedly attempted to squelch speech that could negatively impact his economic interests. Musk's history underscores the risks of giving near-complete control of one of the world's most powerful communication networks to one extremely rich individual."
Tesla reportedly asks Chinese censors to block critical posts."
"Tesla, Musk's electric car company, is extraordinarily sensitive to any public criticism. China is an enormous market and in 2020 there were "reports on Chinese social media, vigorously disputed by Tesla, about the brakes failing in its vehicles.""
"According to Bloomberg there is "little-to-no concrete evidence there’s anything wrong with the brakes in Tesla’s China-built cars." But instead of attempting to win over Chinese consumers with facts, Tesla reportedly sought to leverage the power of China's authoritarian regime."
"According to people familiar with the matter, [Tesla] also complained to the government over what it sees as unwarranted attacks on social media, and asked Beijing to use its censorship powers to block some of the posts."
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@kevinpreston5590 - 9 in 10 white evangelicals support "somewhat more influence", and 7 in 10 white evangelicals support "a great deal more influence" from the Christian Bible over the executive, judicial, and legislative branches.
The open adulation of Donald Trump as the instrument of God draws a thick line under this fact.
There is no corresponding degree of anti-secularism among the left's faith factions. While there isn't much actual "religiosity" difference between the parties, only a 5% difference.
The latest polling says 43% of Republicans are absolutely certain God exists, while 39% of Democrats are absolutely certain God exists.
While the strongest supporters of "more God in governance" on the left are Black protestants, and [5]* in 10 want to see "great deal more influence" -- like white evangelicals -- they are understandably skeptical of "returning the Bible to the bench" in general, and esp. at the Supreme Court, or making any particular faith a litmus test for presidential candidates because of the intertwined history of chattel slavery and the white church.
Church attendance is usually overstated in polling, and it is only my conjecture, as stated, that there's many Republicans who claim religiosity because it's simpler than "swimming upstream".
____________________________
*CORRECTED
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@joycepino5346 - We all have eyes and ears, you know.
In 2020, The Daily Show ran a segment in which statements by Republican leaders, including Donald Trump, Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.A), Senator Ted Cruz (R-Tex.), and various Fox News personalities were juxtaposed with those made by Ku Klux Klan leaders like former grand wizard David Duke and former imperial wizard Bill Wilkerson. Fired Fox News commentator Tucker Carson, for instance, screeches manically that, because of immigration, “eventually there will be no more native-born Americans.” Immediately following that comment comes former grand wizard Duke saying, “We’ve got to start protecting our race.”
Donald Trump is then shown at a rally (with several Black people behind him wearing “Blacks for Trump” T-shirts) saying about Covid treatments, “If you’re white, you have to go to the back of the line. Discriminating against white people!” Again, there’s a cut to Duke stating, “There is racial discrimination going on right now in this country against massive numbers of white Americans.”
All too sadly, it didn’t take much effort then, nor would it now, to demonstrate that the racist “great replacement theory” that contends white Americans are being radically displaced by immigrants underlies an ever-fiercer defense of so-called Christian nationalist identity.
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