Fuck, I'm a Millennial, and I'll never forget this. And my Gen Z kids are also pissed even though we are fortunate enough to be able to pay for their college. This family is never voting red.
Yeah between this, abortion rights, and the affirmative action thing... it's gonna be a rough next few years, but in the long term the Republicans are toast. I think what we're experiencing now are their last spasms for power because they know they're on the way out.
Just look up the amount of registered democrats vs. registered republicans in this country. IIRC there's like half again as many democrats.
It's almost like the only reason republicans ever win elections right now is due to is voter suppression.
I hope all americans pay attention. This was struck down due to the way it was implemented (under the "heroes act" as an "emergency) which reflects how broken the US political system is.
While the court is conservative this probably better reflects how broken the system is in Washington. It's arguable whether this is the courts fault or the dems for using something they knew might be struck down. The initial picture of this just being the courts fault is probably too simple - it is better seen through the prism of next year's elections and both sides posturing and scoring points.
It's helpful to the dems to have another unpopular court decision, but it's up for debate whether this is straight forward conservative court blocking the dems or the dems knowingly pushing something that would get struck down to help drive outrage, it a bit of both with the dems taking a gamble knowing they win either way. None of the scenarios reflects well on US democracy.
It's helpful to the dems to have another unpopular court decision, but it's up for debate whether this is straight forward conservative court blocking the dems or the dems knowingly pushing something that would get struck down to help drive outrage
It's a great lesson in how important elections are. Trump was able to appoint multiple supreme court justices which have shaped the future of America for years due to their most recent decisions and will continue to shape it for decades after he is gone.
It's a great reminder why first-past-the-post needs to go. Who's going to step up for the Dems this year? Are we really counting on an anemic Biden to carry the party against an energized right? Or will someone step up to the plate only to be reprimanded as a "spoiler"?
We need actual competition in the political space. If incumbent cronyism could be effectively challenged we'd have politicians who care a bit more about representing and a bit less about political capital.
yeah, i'm glad that there wasn't anything that could of been done under Obama...oh wait (yes it was a multi factor fuck up, but all the fuck ups were from people who were supposed to be "on our side" trying to claim power just a little longer and fucking miss me with the hand waving of there was nothing that could be done! there was!) Voting is important yes but can we stop pretending it's a fucking magic bullet? Cause it's not. Its one tiny itty bitty thing that needs to be done. Hell voting doesn't even work if you don't have any of the other stuff surrounding it. People need to get organized both at home and at work and get ready to take the fight to them through unions and strikes at the very least.
i'm so fucking sick of the answer to all of this is "go vote" when there is much more than just that needing to be done. Don't just vote, go get fucking organized with community, and fucking fight.
Don't just vote, go get fucking organized with community, and fucking fight.
And do what exactly? Hold a sign on a sidewalk and yell? It all revolves around voting. If your actions don't end up changing votes, then it's literally pointless.
"Getting organized with your community" could mean things like volunteering to help register voters, giving people rides to polling sites, resisting voter suppression, etc. It could also mean things like setting up group panel discussions to help regular people articulate their needs to elected representatives, or organizing fundraisers for political candidates.
In my opinion these types of activist work have potential to be more helpful than just encouraging to people to vote in an abstract sense.
You can even sometimes organize groups of people to solve problems directly on their own. In a town I used to live in, people got sick of waiting on the government to provide better clinics, so they started a free clinic with donated money and labor. Later, they were easily able to secure government grants once it was operating. No voting, signs, or yelling required (I believe they did have a few benefit concerts). It was a win for the community, who got a free clinic, and a win for the local government, who got a longstanding problem off their plate with essentially no effort on their part, just a little ongoing funding.
Doing the work of calling people up & coordinating getting them to come to events (like, say, polling sites, or city council meetings, or benefit concerts) is basically 90% of what "political organizing" is.
I want to copy this to use in other threads. This perfectly captures out tired of this argument I am. Also when try to blame people rather than the candidate, when they lose an election.
Voting is the BARE MINIMUM required of a citizen living in a democratic society. You use all tools available to ensure a difficult job is done efficiently and effectively.
At scale, thinking that any problem cannot be solved via a single-facet solution is so myopic that I can barely contain my anger when I encounter it.
Couple that with a lack of understanding that nothing is instant, and everything requires participation in a democracy - and it becomes nearly impossible.
It’s a vote saying that nobody was able to excite them enough to get out and do something.
Everybody looks at those voters and assumes that they are votes that they would get, but a lot of them are swing voters. People unexpectedly coming out led Barack Obama to a huge win in 2008, but on the other hand people unexpectedly coming out also led to a Donald Trump win in 2016. For the ladder to be possible, there are a number of areas that went blue in 2008 that decided to go red in 2016, and perhaps decided to go Blue again in 2020.
All this being the case, that makes it the candidate’s job to get people to want to vote, and for them.
I think a big problem right now is that you have two options, and both of them are kind of shit. You hear this from a lot of allegedly right-wing commentators who call it the uniparty – neoliberals and neo conservatives working together to enrich their corporate backers to the detriment of the common Man. Every time that any president, whether it be Barack Obama or Donald Trump or Joe Biden goes up there and tells the American people that they are better off than they were four years ago when they’re objectively not, especially once it happens a few times you get a Halo voter.
Yeah, Democrats lost a Supreme Court seat because one old lady refused to retire and they lost out on months of judicial confirmations this year because a different old lady refused to retire.
(if the Republicans take the Senate in 2024 I hope it's by a narrow enough margin that they have to worry about 90-year-old Chuck Grassley the same way we've had to worry about Feinstein)
Still can, we just have to avoid giving Republicans a window of Senate + WH control in which to replace Alito or Thomas. (and even if we only get one of them we get another crack at it a few years later with Roberts)
Thomas is 75, fat, and I assume he's not doing daily yoga, abstaining from alcohol, and following a strict vegan diet on all of these rich-guy junkets he goes on. Alito is 73 and likewise. Pure evil can get you an awfully long way - c.f. Henry Kissinger - but even so, the odds of either of them lasting much more than another decade are pretty slim.
That whole situation still makes me so mad. That turtle bastard refused to even hold hearings for Merrick Garland for 9 months because it was an election year, and then four years later held hearings voted on and seated Barrett after the election had started.
We should absolutely have a liberal 5-4 majority. Instead we live in a conservative 6-3 dystopia, with Republicans openly planning on denying any results they disagree with and installing whatever fucking president they want.
For all we know that one person could have convinced another to vote in favour of debt relief. Or perhaps when it became clear the vote was standing 5-4 it would make one of those five decide it's not clear enough and switch their vote because there wasn't a strong enough majority to block the executive branch.
Or perhaps if it was blocked at 5-4 it would give more options for result to be challenged or appealed.
Lots of things might be different if politicians who say they are for the people actually act in the best interests of the people, even if that means they retire.
Let's not pretend that he conservative justices didn't already know how they were going to rule on this. They just needed to do a little parallel construction before issuing their opinion.
Re: Feinstein, my understanding of why they've kept he is that, with her, the Dems have a one-seat majority on the Judicial Committee. The moment she resigns, it's an even split. Customarily, the Senate would promptly appoint a replacement and all would be well. However, that vote would be subject to the filibuster, and the Dems don't trust McConnell to not block it. If McConnell does block a replacement, then the Judicial Committee stays split and appointing any judges becomes completely impossible.
They'd rather deal with Feinstein's limited availability rather than take the gamble that they'd be allowed to fill a replacement. I agree that she should absolutely retire, but there are political games that have to be considered when the stakes are this high.
Because Republicans would rather break the system than allow it to work as intended. Because they know that's the only way they can ever have an advantage.
You know how everyone knows you're supposed to brush your teeth twice a day for 2 minutes, AND FLOSS? If we all did that on the regular, dentist appointments would be quick and painless the vast majority of the time.
Instead, we've got people who barely brush, never floss, avoid the dentist and then hate the dentist for giving them pain and grief when they finally get around to it.
Voting is like that. No one would have to harp on everyone to go vote if everyone did it, and frankly if everyone voted according to their own actual interests and benefits, we wouldn't be IN this mess to begin with.
It's not that it's a magic bullet, and I don't think anyone is pretending it is. It's that not enough people ARE voting, and it's the single best way we have to make a large step in the right direction.
If we all voted blue every election, without fail, eventually we start to see the impact of avoiding the GOP regressions. Eventually we gain momentum.
Vote AND organize. But if you can't even be arsed to vote, what makes you think you'll be willing to do the vastly more intensive actions involved in an active fight?
Do the bare minimum ffs. If you (global you) don't vote, miss me with the bullshit angst and wimpy call to actions no one will take. It's just as much a hand waving whether it's a fist, a middle finger, or a dismissal if it's not engaged otherwise. We need to use ALL the tools we have against oppression.
It's especially galling being repeatedly told to vote when the dems refuse to actually fucking fight. They made nowhere near the amount of effort to block Trump appointees that republicans made to stop Obama appointees and no amount of "high road" moral victories will outweigh the effect of having a far right leaning supreme court for a generation
like Target, corporate simple doesn't want to deal with the possible lost business of nutbags boycotting starbucks over a few pride flags in the store.
or maybe the drama of said nutbags coming into store and assaulting employees over it.
Target and Starbucks are (understandably, IMO) bowing to violent threats against their employees and customers. There's not enough nuts out there to make a boycott actually impact their profit margin, and if there was it would be obvious to the other side that would probably more than offset any effort. Rainbow Capitalism wouldn't exist if that wasn't the case.
But there are enough nuts out there to make good on their threats of violence. We've already seen those threats carried out many times, so it's not just some hypothetical possibility.
I think that Walmart employee that was murdered by and anti-mask but really opened people's eyes to how real domestic terrorism is in the US to these companies. Whether they're doing this because they want to protect their employees or want to stop backlash against them is still up for debate, but either way it's clear that terrorism works.
like Target, corporate simple doesn't want to deal with the possible lost business of nutbags boycotting starbucks over a few pride flags in the store.
I 100% consider myself an ally of the lgbtq+ community.
Its just not worth putting a target on your employees back these days. Lunatics coming in, harassing and assaulting minimum age workers because of colors on the wall.
Employees think they want it.. but they aren't prepared for the backlash that would ensue (nor should they, they're baristas for fuck sake).
What I'm worried about is the engagement they're getting, I wouldn't be surprised if they went from "let's put pride stuff to produce engagement off conservatives" to "let's put pride stuff to produce engagement off conservatives and THEN take it away to produce engagement off progressives"
Acquiescing makes the queer community more vulnerable and many of these employees are themselves queer.
Standing up to hate is the correct thing. Rubbing your position in bigot's faces is the correct thing. Pulling a Gary Bettman and pretending anti-queer hate is something which can be ignored away is taking the side of and emboldening oppression.
How can you ask our baristas and target employees to do the right thing when our police, politicians, etc. can not?
Security guards were shot in the head at convenient stores for asking customers to mask up during the pandemic. I don't expect the 16 year old kid making my coffee to stand up to a right wing lunatic. Our children and minimum wage workers should not be on the front lines of human rights issues in my opinion.
So your suggestion is to embolden the fascists who would threaten 16 year olds with guns? Your solution to the location of the front line is to surrender to those who would move that line to the homes and rooms of some of these same cashiers and baristas? You think giving in to threats will make those threats go away?
The moral responsibility of all people is to oppose hate.
The responsibility for the safety of workers from attack rests with their employers.
Clearly the solution is to make the stores even gayer and pay for as much security as it takes to keep the workers safe from those who take offense.
Giving in will make everyone less safe, appeasement never works.
I know it's getting into conspiracy realms, but there seems to be a large right-wing buyout of social media. Reddit and Twitter two of the best Independent News sources in North America I've already been hit and even though people will argue they are not true new sources, they allow smaller groups to be heard globally. Young people don't realize how limited news broadcast were before the 2000s. Almost all media was owned by about 50 people worldwide and good luck getting something published that wasn't in their agenda. You could see it throughout the 50s and 60s as people being labeled radical when their views didn't coincide with the media magnets. I try not to be an alarmist but I think we're heading for another dark ages.
There is definitely coordinated shit going on, but Elon is a tool and not a mastermind. The people coordinating this shit think Elon is an idiot. So Elon isn’t part of some vast conspiracy but he is a tool of the vast conspiracy. He just thinks he’s special.
I don’t think it’s planned at that level, it’s just people like Elon think they deserve and earned everything they have; and the alt-right preachers tell them that they have it because god deems you worthy. It becomes a big circlejerk and then hen you have the Elon’s drinking that flavor-aid.
But, and I mean this, before 2000 you could still get the information; you just had to put more effort into obtaining it. That was obviously a barrier too high for many, but it was not unfindable or inaccessible.
I think you're exaggerating. There have never been so much media in human history. Anyone can make their own blog and publish anything they want. Yeah, the big social media platforms have the issues you mentioned but there are tons of options out there for people to be heard and voices to get representation.
Yes, but with the volume of information, including self publishing and blogs, the power is in dissemination, which was always the real power. Reddit and Twitter still control that in a large way.
As does, Facebook, google and legacy media. There are more players, but the biggest players still wield more power with little accountability for it.
I think you’re bing a bit alarmist. We’re posting here aren’t we? Getting started here wasn’t much more complicated than getting started on reddit and it will hopefully get easier going forward.
It seems to me that what is being attempted is enclosure of social media; like many enclosures before it. I don’t think this is a coordinated plot but rather wealthy right-wingers making the rational decisions to secure their own interests. Driven in part by rising interests rates. But ultimately the difference today is we have the ability to create alternatives to assert our own interests.
A long time ago, I created a website; invited friends and family to check it out, leave comments, and whatever. I had to send them the Web address. That's it.
During those days, we were all on the deep web. No one could find you unless you gave them your address.
That was in the old HTML days, before concerning ourselves with how to code so the web crawlers could find us and let the world know about our site. It's been all downhill since then.
I see three users in this thread not getting it. And the OP is replying to one of 'em. Not sure if you're blind or just want to be a prick mate, but if its the latter leave that attitude on Reddit yeh?
There are cases where sarcasm doesn’t come through, because it’s only clear that it’s either sarcastic or crazy. And there’s a lot of crazy in the internet.
Tipping is messed up on both ends for both the delivery person and the customer when you think about it.
Tipping is basically a way for a corporation that could actually pay a livable wage to instead not do that, and then criminally underpay their employees - after all, the customers will just pay extra to make up for the literal below minimum wage pay the corporation is paying the delivery person.
Taxpayers spent over $1 Trillion on the PPP program, of which, $200 billion is thought to be fraudulent. Another case of only corporations get socialism in the US.
"They steal so I want to steal too!" You worthless leftists never argue for principles. It always some lame, logically fallacious argument for why something should benefit you directly. Instead of arguing for reigning in corporate power and addressing the root cause of high college tuition you advocate for stealing from other tax payers.
You people deserve to be poor and destitute. Fucking lazy, stupid, unprincipled pieces of shit. I cross my fingers that the vax will eventually cull your herd. Useless eaters.
So you want to steal from other Americans that did not attend college or did attend college but not during the eligible period, because the corporations do it? You people are trash.
If you live in the US you are rich compared to the rest of the world. You are already in the top 90% of global earners. Stfu. Move to a 3rd world country with what you have and live like a king.
And why the hell would we just lay down and accept the fact that our grandparents didn't have student debt because tuition could be paid with a part time job?
Why should we accept that sometimes three incomes isn't enough to support a family when one "unskilled" laborer used to be able to comfortably support a family of five.
Why should we accept the fact that full time at minimum wage can't afford to rent an apartment anywhere in the United States?
Why should we accept that people would rather kill themselves than saddling their family with medical debt.
Why should we accept that people are forced to dangerously ration a drug that costs $10 to produce but costs hundreds of dollars at the pharmacy, with insurance?
Why the fuck would another country having things worse mean we should stop fighting for better?
our grandparents didn't have student debt because tuition could be paid with a part time job
If a thing costs $10, and the government offers to pay $5 of it without any further action, the price of the thing rises to $15. Government money without restrictions is a big part of why tuition costs so much.
sometimes three incomes isn't enough to support a family when one "unskilled" laborer used to be able to comfortably support a family of five.
Why should we accept the fact that full time at minimum wage can't afford to rent an apartment anywhere in the United States?
Tax money that goes to loan forgiveness for upple middle income people is tax money that can't be spent on decreasing the wealth gap, and in fact will help solidify the wealth gap for anyone not fortunate enough to have a college degree (ie the vast majority of poor people).
Why should we accept that people would rather kill themselves than saddling their family with medical debt.
Why should we accept that people are forced to dangerously ration a drug that costs $10 to produce but costs hundreds of dollars at the pharmacy, with insurance?
Debt forgiveness increases the cost of things. What we need is to attack the roots of the problem - the cost. Don't give people government money to repay private businesses for their ridiculous costs. Use government money to bring the cost down.
California is developing its own generic insulin that it will sell at cost. This will force companies to lower their prices. THAT is how to attack the problem.
That's not even all of the fraud, that's just the really obvious stuff - overseas scam artists inventing fake companies. Rich members of Congress getting PPP loans for their "businesses" and using the money to buy yachts doesn't seem to be counted.
Well if the court didn't engage in clearly partisan politics, maybe the liberal justices wouldn't have anything to criticize.
Does he realize how bad it looks when he voices that his problem is criticism and not like, I don't know, taking money from political interests? Or refusing to recuse in cases where there's a relative directly involved?
It is really incredible how far down the drain the SCOTUS has gone in such a short period of time. Not saying it was great before Justice Kennedy retired either, but at least back then it was generally respected.
On the other hand, it's our job to pick the best president and we majorly blew it. I can easily imagine RBG thinking "if they are dumb enough to elect this chode, they deserve what they get".
Why do you think they would've filled her spot when they didn't fill the other one with Merrick Garland? She protected her spot or they would've held it up until Trump.
She could have retired at any time, including right after Obama was elected. The Republicans couldn't have held the spot open for years. It would have become a major election issue.
I'd bet good money McConnell would have tried to find a way/reason to keep it open, look at all the rules making/breaking they did to fill/keep a seat empty close to elections, I'm sure they'd just come up with some other bullshit
I'm sure he would have tried, but we're dealing with massive hypotheticals at this point. Under your argument, we should not have a justice at any point ever step down because McConnell would try to block a nomination. Yes, he would try. Doesn't change the fact that the best move was for her to step down at the beginning of the term.
We should honestly be pushing for justices getting on in years and having health issues to step down at the beginning of presidential terms regardless.
The fact that we have these low frequency listening arrays has been known publicly for a long time. More closely guarded are the analytical techniques.
It's likely that the watch team flagged the implosion as artificial in real time, but could not identify the cause until other pieces of info were aggregated. The found wreckage today likely confirmed their suspicion.
source: worked at the navy's listening post watch floor years ago.
There are a lot of people who would like you to think that disinformation is harmless; that if you buy into bullshit that it's your own fault; and that the 'people that matter' know the truth.
This man bought into the fire hose of shit that is continuously, endlessly spewing a mixture of exaggerations, half truths and outright lies. He took it all very seriously, and he paid with his life.
Ask yourself, do you think this man was one of the 'people who matter' to his family? It sounds like some of them agree with, and listened to him and the fire hose.
This is a fucking tragedy. This man is a casualty of the fight for democracy, and it is a damn fight when people are getting shot for it. Not because he bought into some bullshit; but because he was fed a line of shit by people he trusted. His political party.
This has got to stop, and I think that it surely will.
Let's hope it doesn't have to be at the expense of another man's life.
Another husband, father, grandfather, uncle or brother. Or worse, whole families.
@sparseMatrix
I was @ Wendy’s abt 12y ago. Mostly empty. Dude 10’ away blustering to his daughter about those “Slow… Children At Play” signs/markers people put at the end of their driveway. “They’re illegal! They can’t put up signs the city didn’t put up. I’m gonna run ‘em over!”
His back was to me, so his daughter could see me flip him off. She briefly smirked, but he didn’t see it. I did her a great service that day.
One thing I think is going on is that a lot of people in the western world have been raised to expect Armageddon sometime during their lifetime, and because they feel like they are on the right side they are attempting to accelerate that Armageddon because they think that happiness and Paradise are just on the other side of it.
It's like being told as soon as you finish this chore you're going to get a tasty treat. If you really want the treat you're going to work harder and faster to get the chore done sooner, right?
There's only one line in the Bible and I don't remember where it is that cautions people against attempting to accelerate the end of times because they don't really know what it's actually going to be like and they're only leading themselves to their own destruction but just like everything else in the Bible, because every single word is supposed to be important, that warning has just slipped through the cultural cracks.
You are saying something I've been saying for years. In fact, it was my parent's generation who I saw anticipating armaggeddon, and they expected it in the year 2000. It's what the lyrics of 'Party Like It's 1999' are all about.
I get the idea that when it didn't happen that way, it surprised a lot of them, and eventually pissed off a bunch of them. They felt like they'd been cheated out of the second coming, or something.
While my parents are passed now, and didn't really share the perspective anyway, I think there are still a bunch of these grizzled old assholes around, ready to see it all burn before they croak, just so they can be around when it happened.
In fact, it was my parent's generation who I saw anticipating armaggeddon, and they expected it in the year 2000. It's what the lyrics of 'Party Like It's 1999' are all about.
It's in the realm of "Self-Fulfilling Prophecy" at this point. If God won't do it, we'll just make our own Armageddon with internet greed and hypocrisy.
I do not question any of that. My point is, the republican party has been stirring this pot a long time, and as long as the money keeps pouring, they cant be arsed, as the brits say.
It's got to be stopped at the source. We're already at the point that guys are like this everywhere. One stands in the foyer of the Kroger just about every afternoon 3 blocks from my house.
Wearing a ball cap with a thin blue line flag, armed to the teeth, in a flag-wrapped t-shirt, glaring at anyone who walks by with a smile their face.
His body language, the sidearm he's wearing, his clothes - it all screams that if you're aren't mad as hell and not going to take it anymore, you must be a fuckin' democrat.
That is a feature of the republican party. If it isn't addressed soon, some sort of war will be the only way it gets addressed.
@sparseMatrix
Bingo. That guy is a perfect example of the one big favor that #McTurtle & #IQ45 have done this nation. They made many of these amoral shits bold enough to stand up & be recognized.
Now we know who many of them are. Never trust them. Oppose them @ every opportunity. Tax their churches & their billionaire leaders.
There’s a great Jon Stewart quote that won’t fit here, because 500bytes, so it will be in my next reply…
Now we know who many of them are. Never trust them.
This is how I feel about people wearing swastikas and such. It’s a handy “warning label”. It’s like a blinking sign over their head that says DO NOT ENGAGE, BUT KEEP AN EYE ON ME.
@sparseMatrix
“You’ve heard it said ‘The arc of the moral universe is long and bends toward justice.’ But it doesn’t bend towards justice by gravity, you have to bend it. And there’s a bunch of people trying to bend it back.”
@sparseMatrix
This dude in the news who was righteously, justifiably dropped by FBI agents spent a lifetime trying to convince his family, friends, et al, that his hatred & racism was correct. The GOP is made from the ground up by people who are this vile, or are totally OK with their associates being this vile.
I shed not one goddamned tear. I have zero fucks to give.
#GOPisNAZI #WWJD? Well he wouldn’t be a Nazi, I’d bet my life on that.
Lets be clear - I am not making any kind of defense of this guy; I am eviscerating the GOP for creating and sustaining an environment that keeps that guy squarely where they want him, and operate that firehose of falsehood that suck new people into the rotten fold on an ongoing basis.
I just don’t consider his death a tragedy in quite the same way I’m inferring you do. I feel bad for the FBI agents if they suffer any emotional discomfort for doing the right, necessary thing.
I don’t suggest we euthanize all GOPers. But if they volunteer like this ass did, then fine. Natural Selection do your thing.
I support the action taken by the FBI here, and I certainly support their use of deadly force on someone who pointed a gun at them. But having lived through the past several years, I'd really like to see a bodycam video which shows this.
Not interested in seeing the man get shot, just want to see a video of him pointing a gun at them. I also acknowledge that I think the FBI seems to have a better record of not lying about their use of force than random police do.
But, I'm still going with (believably) alleged to have pointed a gun at them for now.
Indeed, it's quite possible that both the guy and the police that shot him were in the wrong. We should never assume that because one group is bad the other group opposing them is good.
I skimmed thru the linked article, and viewed the 2 photos of the decedent.
Given no further evidence, do I think it is most likely true that he pointed a gun at FBI agents who loudly and repeatedly identified themselves? Yes, I do.
Good enough to hold up in criminal court? No.
Good enough for me, an internet rando-crank to say “Tough shit.”? Yup.
I’ve been proven incorrect before. I’m OK with that.
Given no further evidence, do I think it is most likely true that he pointed a gun at FBI agents who loudly and repeatedly identified themselves? Yes, I do.
Good enough to hold up in criminal court? No.
Good enough for me, an internet rando-crank to say “Tough shit.”? Yup.
I’ve been proven incorrect before. I’m OK with that.
Yep also fair enough. Only being pedantic so as to give the same benefit of doubt I would for someone else, but I generally agree with your assessment.
Vlad must be pissed that he’s being stressed the fuck out during the 3 day no poop challenge. It’s hard to keep the backdoor sealed when you're stressed out.
Russian on Russian violence is good for pretty much everyone except Russia. The only thing keeping Russia relevant is the threat of their military power. The weaker their military gets, the weaker Russia gets.
while I agree in principle.... my issue is that the russia hasn't been a conventional military threat in ages. they wanted us to think they were- and we maybe believed them.
The real issue isn't the conventional weapons-those are dangerous to Ukraine, and any other they choose to invade (Which is unlikely... they have their hands full with Ukraine...) The real issue is the nukes that may or may not be in decent repair. I would expect at least a few are capable of being detonated- maybe not loaded onto a ballistic missile, but you can always truck in a nuke and set it off that way.
The closer they get to ceasing to exist... the more likely those nukes come out to play. because Putin et al are fucking cowards.
I still don't believe theres much chance the current Russian administration would use Nukes. Even if Putin got desperate enough to give the order, few others would commit to a suicide pack for their entire nation short of actually being invaded. Much easier to just replace the top man in such a dire situation.
My worry for a weakening Russia is if it splinters and local warlords get their hands on Nuclear weapons. Nobody benefits if they end up on black markets.
They'll never admit it, but you know China has to be eyeing Outer Manchuria. The Chinese have been developing and populating their side of the border and the Russians have done little outside of Vladivostok.
If the Russian state collapses, they have to make a play for it, right?
The funny thing is, you can't recycle pizza boxes. If paper is impregnated with oil it cannot be recycled, otherwise it will contaminate the whole batch.
Recycling is supposed to be the last resort. Reduce, Re-use, Recycle. We should be re-using glass for most things and avoiding plastic except where necessary.
Hell, the whole paper straw bullshit only came about because the plastic industry has become so ridiculously excessive. Not because of plastic pollution, not because paper is a better product, but because plastic has become so expensive that shitty paper straws are more profitable.
From what I understand of the case he wouldn't have come under scrutiny if an American woman wasn't trafficked. The pizza boxes were just the trigger to the trap set as a result.
Guys like this tend to have big pedophile energy, honestly. Same with people like Trump. I'm never shocked when they say stuff like that. If anything, I'm shocked if they say the opposite.
I'd love this to be true because it would be funny af, but no, the police probably knew where he was for months before hand. The arrest just came at the perfect time.
On the other hand, his constant boasting about being a romeo pimp for his previous porn site definitely led to some part of the investigation.
He was arrested because he posted a bullshit reply to one of Greta's posts, in that reply he had pizza boxes of a local Romanian pizza place. Someone publicly retweeted to the local Romanian police that he was in their area.
Sure, Romanian authorities knew he was in the country, but it was only the local tip off (and the general international publicity) that led to his arrest and prosecution. The Romanian authorities couldn't not act upon that publicly displayed information.
I saw a theory that someone said to Tate that "GRETA is after you, gotta be careful" and Tate didn't know what that was so he typed "greta" into Google and got back the top result of Greta Thunberg, which was why he ran his mouth at her on Twitter.
With how stupid Tate appears to be I consider that to be a real possibility for how it went down. If so it's even more hilarious.
I’m okay with this. I look forward to the day when I can look back on this as a distant memory of a tumultuous time. Right now, I just don’t want to hear about the orange idiot anymore, even though it will be worse before it gets better.
Remember when the Republicans claimed that having Trump interviewed by Mueller was a "perjury trap"? And last week, his lawyers were claiming that orders for him to not try to intimidate witnesses against him was a "contempt trap". Man is incapable of keeping his mouth shut, and just as incapable of telling the truth.
Normal tasks that non-insane people can complete are always traps for trump. Probably because his mind is like a steel trap - a steel trap that's been left in the forest for a century, is rusted to hell and no longer closes.
Don't get it mistaken, if anyone can find some for Biden we'll be happy to charge them, too... This isn't liberals against conservatives, it's Americans against fascism.
Yeah, everyone underestimates how many left leaning to far left people there are that are not only armed, but quite willing to defend each other as well as themselves.
@southsamurai the liberalgunowners magazine on Kbin has unfortunately not been very active but there are indeed a shit ton of us out there and not fucking happy about being threatened
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