I think technically he could order someone with the legal authority to use lethal force to do that. So probably the NSA or CIA.
I think technically he could order someone with the legal authority to use lethal force to do that. So probably the NSA or CIA.
Dat cough he had in North Carolina today jeeeeesus I’ve had a cough like that before and the cold that goes with it is an ass kicker.
There were enough Republicans who voted for Biden in '20 to flip Georgia, which is solidly “mainstream” Republican (e.g. Reagan Republicans).
The article’s analysis of why Hillary lost is correct, and the diagnosis of the failures of Clintonism is also correct. They fail to point out that Clinton “won” '92 because Perot pulled away enough Bush votes in enough states to swing the Electoral College to Clinton, who only got 40% of the popular vote. That “victory” somehow convinced a bunch of Democrats that conservatism without bigotry (or at least less) was the key to electoral success. Clinton got reelected with the power of incumbency and BobDole being a fairly weak candidate. That cemented the conservatism lite in the Democratic Party for a generation, many of whom are still in the party.
It’s changing though. Biden is not a classic conservative Democrat anymore, or at least his team and policies aren’t.
One big thing they need to do is acknowledge that the system is rigged against the non wealthy, and that small-d democracy as it exists today in America is not up to the task of helping the non wealthy. Then they need to propose ways to fix our broken democracy, ask young people for suggestions for how to fix it, and write some binding policy proposals to implement those fixes.
Because right now Trump and the Republicans are acknowledging that our democracy is failing non wealthy (straight white Christian) people, and the solution they’re offering is to do away with it entirely in favor of Hungarian or Russian style authoritarianism.
The first part of that message will resonate, and the “help us fix democracy” part needs to be the 2nd half. Or Trump probably will get reelected.
This seems like a perfect opportunity for a counter intelligence operation, though. Yeah China wants our former military but since they’re military it seems like an easy lift to convert them into US assets either misinforming or sabotaging China.
Most of the military people I know took their oath to the Constitution seriously. I’m sure if the spooks at the CIA or NSA or whatever the new secret spy org is called asked, they could find some soon to retire guys who want to help out.
If Trump had allowed his lawyers to mount the best defense they could, he’d probably have a decent chance at complete acquittal or a hung jury.
Instead he forced them to perform a “defense” aimed at his base and maybe some people with “soft” dislike of him and most importantly aimed at hurting his “enemies” and puffing up his ego.
I did hear a persuasive argument that he might be acquitted on the charges related to checks he didn’t personally sign (his sons signed instead) but get convicted on the checks he did sign. From what was reported that means it’s possible the first 10 verdicts will be “not guilty” and the last 20+ will be “guilty.”
I actually sort of hope that’s what happens because 1) it will prove the jury wasn’t out to get him and 2) he’ll be feeling really good for those first verdicts then get gut punched for the last ones.
You forget your place, comrade.
But for a few years there they made a LOT of money!
What Republicans realized decades ago is this is fundamentally true. Every election is the most important election. They just leave off the “…so far” that should be at the end of the statement.
I think before Reagan (or maybe Gingrich) people could reasonably see some elections as less consequential than others. But the Republicans realized that it’s all about building. Build a bench of charismatic, intelligent, possibly sociopathic individuals. Get them in local government and then state government and then federal government. Tell your base voters that you’re building something that will one day pay off.
Just keep building, just keep building, and one day you have a juggernaut. Especially if your opponents didn’t build to match.
Democrats spent the 80s and 90s assuming the status was quo. They spent the last half of the 90s and the 00s living in the fantasy that what people liked about Clinton was the fiscal conservatism without the religion, so they should be more conservative.
Only very recently have progressives started breaking through.
Now we have to build.
Luckily the Republicans have hitched their wagon to a human wrecking ball. That might let Democrats catch up sooner than they otherwise would.
He’s doing what all the “everybody could be rich if they just did X” jackasses do: see some people who don’t have money make bad decisions and generalize it to all people who don’t have money.
Middle aged parents with 2-3 kids and jobs in the $40k to $60k range aren’t going out all the time, buying the latest gadget, buying new cars, etc. They’re scraping by.
They could do some “personal development” if they had the time and energy after working full time and caring for children. But they don’t.
Actually I’d like to see a comparison of the number of people in different income groups who “splurge” on the stuff Buffet is accusing them of versus those who have to “splurge” on an unexpected expense like a medical condition or fixing a broken car or an unexpected home repair. I’m betting people actually end up spending money on the latter way more than the former.
And it’s just disgusting hearing him complain about people using credit cards when he and all the other economic vampires in his cohort have been purposefully restricting wage growth since the 1970s when they introduced credit cards as a trap for young people who expected their quality of life to increase with increasing productivity the way it had for decades before.
Obviously this is a real and difficult neuro/psych issue to deal with, and I know some people who probably suffer (but aren’t formally diagnosed). Heck, I’ve been prone to letting certain negative comments send me on a spiral briefly myself.
Unfortunately like a lot of genuine neuro issues, this one seems like a really difficult one for typicals to interact with. Because there are people who react badly to genuine critiques, especially in regard to politics, religion, and tradition. Some of them probably are suffering from RSD but a lot aren’t.
Every time I install Windows the first thing I download is total commander. I can’t function without it.
It looks like midnight commander with some upgrades
I guess on balance it’s more important to me that the Democrats reject Greene than reject Johnson. It’s clear to everyone that Johnson is “weak” (in MAGA support) and dependent completely on Democrats to get anything done.
Now that that’s out in the open and he’s slightly a MAGA pariah, he’ll probably get back to more old fashioned Republican projects like destroying the environment, fucking over workers, giving billions to billionaires, and a blank check to the military.
I mean … Freedom.
Keep in mind too these guys are writing and reading in like assembly or some precursor to it.
I can only imagine the number of checks and rechecks they probably go through before they press the “send” button. Especially now.
This is nothing like my loosey goosey programming where I just hit compile or download and just wait to see if my change works the way I expect…
Someone should tell this guy that hot dogs exist.
I’ll let others address the “enshittification” angle but I thought I’d point out that “shareholder value uber allies” is a relatively recent … “innovation” … in economic theory, brought about by failed Supreme Court nominee Robert Bork and Milton Friedman in the last half of last century:
https://www.chicagobooth.edu/review/what-made-chicago-school-so-influential-antitrust-policy
The rethinking of what the boards of companies are supposed to do (from maximize stakeholder value to maximize shareholder value) and how they can operate (from requiring justification to approve mergers to requiring justification to block mergers) really took off with them, and exploded when former union boss Ronald Reagan found “religion” (because Nancy’s pussy was just that good) and ruined the economy for workers.
Lots of other people contributed, including Clinton after he “won” the 1992 election with 40% of the vote due to Perot splitting the Republican vote. His campaign of fiscal conservatism but without less bigotry became the model for the Democratic Party for the next two decades.
Anyway, Biden’s FTC is finally working to help workers again, which might even release the death grip of the Chicago School from our economy. We’ll see after November I guess.
Yep! But they’re a dickens to actually eradicate. I’m going to be hatcheting some gashes in a big one or two on my property in August or September so I can poison its roots with glyphosate when it starts getting ready for fall. I’ve learned the hard way that if you leave the roots healthy you’re making tons of future work for yourself.
Privet is also a runner based plant and it’s also not from North America, but I’ve had more success looking it the old fashioned way.
It’s really gratifying to watch native species rebound and move back into the places after the introduced/invasive plants have been removed.
What’s really gonna suck is when people are like “holy shit why did they let us kill all the bugs if they were so important?!!”
Personally my property (2 acres) is free of all pesticides and herbicides. I’m killing introduced species of plants (trees of heaven and privet) by hand mostly pulling them out of the ground.
This year I might add Japanese honeysuckle to the target list.
I mean we’re probably doomed to some sort of major collapse either way, but I’ll do what I can on the micro scale and vote for people who will fight for the right path on the macro (e.g. never Republican).
PS - I do use poison bait inside for ants and cockroaches so not 100%. Only when they get noticable. Sorry.
I’m sure this will come if the wrong way but if you’re genuinely concerned about discovering diversity of thought, you’re going to have to tell us what your positions are for example.
I’m all for finding diversity, but so often what people who post these are looking for is an echo chamber. Like if you’re really wanting to be challenged, and you’re a conservative, go to https://socialistworker.org/ and read up.
But if what you’re concerned about is the nerds in Lemmy seem to be left leaning, that’s just the nature of smart creative people. We value skills and creativity over hierarchy and structure.
Probably just get a military contractor to do it anyway