if businesses are left to their own devices, they will “develop the technologies that will power us into the future, not using carbon-based fuels,”
glances at Communist Chinese EVs
So… Um…
One additional note, wrt his wiki page. I gotta say, quitting the Dem Party because Barack Obama didn’t get us out of Iraq as promised is a more respectable position than I’d expect out of an LP candidate. After growing up with the likes of Ron Paul and Gary Johnson dominating the party, this feels like a ray of sunshine peaking out behind a very dark cloud.
Setting aside his naive take on climate change and education, I don’t see much in immigration or criminal justice reform or foreign policy to explicitly hate. But I also know he’s showing up as the more liberal wing of a party that’s got a rather nasty John Bircher streak. Feels like he’s showing up in the negative relative to a Trump campaign that’s sucking up all the libertarian racists and cop lovers.
Dems had the opportunity to stop up the ACB nomination in 2020 the same way Repubs blocked Garland in 2016. In fact, it would have been easier. Feinstein only had to hold up the vote for three months compared to McConnell’s twelve. Dems waved her through, the same way Joe Biden’s Judiciary Committee waved through Clarence Thomas back in 1991, months before Bill Clinton took office.
Its not enough to say which Presidents are picking the nominees. The senatorial strategies are totally different. Republicans hold Dem nominees hostage while Dems rubber stamp whatever assholes the GOP cough up.
Had Dem Senators punted on Thomas and ACB when they had the opportunity, the SCOTUS of today would look totally different.
What does any of that have to do with Judge Jackson?
We would have more Judge Jacksons on the court if the Dem Senate had played hardball with Republican Presidents. And taking Thomas out of circulation in 1991 would have changed the Bush v Gore decision in 2000, which would have meant President Al Gore seating even more Judge Jacksons in his subsequent terms.
No Thomas means no Bush Jr. No Bush Jr means no gerrymandering greenlit by Ashcroft’s DOJ. Which would have promised more state level liberal courts in places like Texas and Wisconsin (ie, more state court Judge Jacksons). Which would have curbed the rise of white nationalism following Obama’s election in 2008. No GOP capture of Florida through mass disenfranchisement of black voters. No extended legacy of GOP rule in Georgia, for the same reasons. No War on Immigration in Arizona and Colorado and Texas, forcing those states farther and farther to the right. All of which would have precluded a Trump presidency in 2016.
No Trump means we don’t have to worry about who he’d pick for SCOTUS.
Are you telling me that the current President - Joe Biden - is responsible for a rising tide of migrants dying from heat exposure in ICE detainment centers?
Because you don’t want Joe Biden carrying any culpability for the current 6-3 Conservative Majority.
We’ve got multiple Republican SCOTUS nominees who took office on his watch. We know what that leads to, because we know the outcome of Bush v Gore. We know what eight years of Bush did to the country and how it led directly to the election of Trump.
So why would four more years of Biden - a man who gave us the courts that gave us Bush and Trump - produce a majority of Judge Jacksons? He appears far better at seating judges like Thomas, Scalia, Roberts, and Alito.
A Democrat who concedes to Republican threats will be as likely to put a guy like Thomas up as Trump would. We got lucky with Jackson, but Biden’s clearly in a state of deterioration. Very likely we end up with him compromising us down to another Thomas or ACB in his second term, as he and his friends on the Judiciary committee are known to do.
A woman will lead the country for the first time in history. President López Obrador’s successor has won a second term for the National Regeneration Movement and stifled the conservative coalition’s aspirations...
I have faith in the American voter to put up an all woman P/VP ticket in the form of MTG / Lauren Boebert.
In a highly contested election, they’ll squeak by with a margin of 246 votes in a country run by a sheriff known for smoothering inmates in their sleep, after a federal court rules anyone with a Latino surname is ineligible to cast a ballot. While they technically came out ahead by ten million popular votes, Democrats will conclude that running against the electoral college is a losing issue and will spend the next two years campaigning as the Party That Wants To Protect The Rights of Police to Opt Out of AI Surveillance.
The Dems will run a candidate four years later consisting of a cybernetic hivemind of tech CEOs living in a big vat in a walled compound in New Zealand, on the banner “We’re Not As Out of Touch as We Look”, and will win by a margin of 42.8 votes, after successfully convincing a federal court that the 3/5ths compromise applies to LLCs, LLMs, and LARPs. This hivemind will begin the Mass Liquidation Project, intended to eliminate surplus flesh in the national economy. Any political opposition will be categorized as “anti-democratic” and require the speaker to register as “row 1 liquidation candidates” for the crime of invoking restless spirits of the Unspeakable Cheeto.
Trump will have died of sixteen different medical complications while serving out his second term. But after Elon Musk successfully incorporates his consciousness into the Truth Social app, simulated approximations of Trump posts will continue to appear in all American social media sites until the Great National Blackout of 2053. No records exist following this period, as Americans will have forgotten how to write and read.
Shit was so bigoted back then they said that unironically and everyone immediately understood it only applied to rich white men who owned land.
Its not quite that simple. You had a lot of discourse on and around the concept of liberty, particularly in the major urban centers and universities. But like a great deal of revolutionary sentiment, the theory of liberty was precluded by the reality of economic incentives.
The Continental Army was funded by the Virginia plantation class largely thanks to their response to the Dunmore Proclamation. Northern territories more predisposed to emancipation were crippled by the merchantalist system of England and could not assert themselves financially or militarily until some 80 years after the American Revolution. Southern territories, which had rapidly depleted their agricultural soils thanks to aggressive tobacco harvesting and poor crop rotation strategies, were cash rich but labor poor.
So you had a marriage of convenience between plantation states and industry states for the purpose of kicking out British colonial military. But it wasn’t as simple as saying “Everyone quietly agreed on slavery”. The abolitionist movement existed during the colonial era, it simply didn’t exist in the states with the economic and military supremacy… yet.
If there were no government regulations, they would have nothing to complain about
I promise you that if you put a libertarian into a place without government regulation, they will still insist that there is a secret government regulation responsible for their lives being shit.
It’s not the crime, but the coverup. So much of this would be a non-issue if she’d simply owned it, rather than talking out of both sides of her mouth.
Very normal to have more expenses in a month than you have in income. And if you don’t have savings (because you’re already living on the razor’s edge) then you need to assume debt.
You can definitely argue all sorts of mistakes people make in financializing that debt rather than eating it in other ways (lower quality of life, deferred maintenance, gig work as secondary income). But you’ll need to ignore the core reality of personal income being divorced from cost of living. Rents, utilities, car/education debt, and health care costs are consistently the highest budget items on any given person’s balance sheet. And so long as those costs continue to outgrow wages, you’re going to see more and more people falling into the debt trap over time.
There is no individual solution to a systemic problem, save escaping the system entirely. “I know a guy who fucked up…” anecdotes are - in my experience - far more often stories about kids from rich families who can absorb the debt or skate it using bankruptcy. The “I know a guy who played a perfect hand and is still totally fucked…” anecdotes are far less common to hear about but far more common in practice.
Lenders like clients who are slightly in debt, because they are viewed as more lucrative over the long term. Making timely payments is good. Making timely payments with a big interest component is even better, since that’s how creditors make their money.
Whomever is downvoting you has never worked the back end of the financial sector. Those double-digit APYs aren’t just for show. The primary goal of the business is to get you to pay them. That’s why people who do pay off their loans are constantly getting notes in the mail about how their max credit is increasing and personal loans are available and please, please, please borrow more money on a longer time scale.
crypto can’t really be a true currency replacement
Its been increasingly popular among the unbanked, as it grants a lot of the functions of the modern financial system at a marginally lower cost than check cashing companies and payday lenders without requiring the participant to be considered “credit worthy” by the transacting institution.
You can have a digital wallet and make digital transactions and you don’t need to carry a giant wade of cash on you all the time, even if a traditional financial institution wouldn’t touch you. That’s a boon for crooks, sure. Its also a boon for people working in the gray market - migrant laborers sending money home to family, state-legal pot/mushroom dealers who don’t have federal sanction and can’t use normal banks, gig workers and other contractors, international workers and businesses needing a universal currency to trade against. And its a boon for the working poor, particularly folks who don’t have a physical bank nearby.
Because the currency has material benefits for the unbanked (and therefore legally vulnerable) population, it becomes a popular place to ply scams and grifts and other dirty financial tricks precisely because you know the people you’re fleecing will have no legal recourse after the fact. But that’s the parasitic nature of second class citizenship.
You’re not vulnerable because you’re using crypto nearly so much as you’re vulnerable because you’re denied access to traditional banks and courts.
Russia co-opts far-right politicians in Europe with cash, officials say (wapo.st)
A Kremlin-backed media outlet — the Prague-based Voice of Europe — funneled hundreds of thousands of euros to far-right politicians, officials say.
Metal Slug Tactics - New trailer | Coming Fall 2024 (www.youtube.com)
Libertarian Party nominates gay candidate for 2024 presidential election (www.washingtonblade.com)
The number of deaths in ICE custody is already more than double all of last year (www.nbcnews.com)
Archived at web.archive.org/…/number-deaths-ice-custody-alrea…
Claudia Sheinbaum, the first female president of Mexico (english.elpais.com)
A woman will lead the country for the first time in history. President López Obrador’s successor has won a second term for the National Regeneration Movement and stifled the conservative coalition’s aspirations...
Trump says he's "okay" with jail or house arrest (www.motherjones.com)
Land of the free (some terms and conditions may apply) (sopuli.xyz)
Madlad posted this on the r/libertarian subreddit and they banned him (lemmy.world)
reddit.com/…/how_it_started_vs_how_its_going/
Lauren Boebert loses it on debate moderator as he grills her on Beetlejuice lies (www.rawstory.com)
54% of Gen Z Shoppers Use Pay Later Plans to Buy Groceries (www.pymnts.com)
Get your vote in now!! (lemmy.world)