Came here to say this - I'm new to Lemmy, and I feel like there's this overwhelming tidal wave of Trump posts here, even moreso than Reddit or other social media. I get it, he's a shit human being. But maybe unless he actually does something, we don't have to talk about him?
And nobody was surprised. I'm a little surprised wapo has a dedicated article/headline to it though.
The overwhelming majority of comments I'm seeing indicate they'd like to see it gone. Why are you opposed to listening to the people who create and consume all of the content in this space?
Justice Antonin Scalia spoke for the 7-2 majority and said the federal law requires states to “accept and use” the standard federal form in federal elections.
Scalia looking like a good guy here is blowing my fucking mind. Dissents were Thomas and Alito, so we know where this is going next.
Correct if I'm wrong here, but is this article just "Economist comments on something it has been claimed the Harris campaign team said, but is not explicitly mentioned anywhere in writing or in speeches"?
If she planned on taxing billionaires, she'd be shouting it from the rooftops. That's a popular policy. It's not going to be something she keeps in her back pocket and then when she's president goes SURPRISE MOTHERFUCKERS. Not that she could do it by EO anyway, but honestly, this is so far from a reality it just barely qualifies as news.
tax of 1.7% to 3.5% to the richest 0.5% of the country's households
We could try something more like a 95% wealth tax and really fix some problems.
This isn't just climate deniers though - even those that were expecting significant climate shifts are still seeing higher than expected. This isn't "huh, things are getting hotter, who would've thought?" This is "we knew it would get hotter, but we predicted it would take longer." We thought we were fucked, but we're actually double fucked.
This has actually been shown through studies a number of times!
Plenty of correlative studies that show the left associated with positive and the right associated with negative: https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/abs/10.1098/rstb.2011.0268
But also some causal studies where people are more conservative when they're scared or more progressive when they feel safe: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1002/ejsp.2315
I like politics and news - most of my subscribed is some variant of that. There's just so much more to politics and news than Trump, and as long as you're not in the cult there's not even anything interesting or engaging that he says or does. It's just a circlejerk of "Trump bad" and I don't understand how people aren't tired of it - or maybe they think they're helping?
On first read, it gives an understanding that both sides are willing to approach a deal - but lack trust in the process and the mediators ability to coerce the other side to actually commit and follow through.
I don't think this is a bad reading of the article in vacuum, but I don't think it's a fair reading of the situation because AP intentionally or unintentionally has left quite a bit out. Hamas agreed to a US-backed ceasefire back in May that Israel refused. There was plenty of trust on both sides that they'd get what was in the deal, but Israel didn't want that particular deal at that particular time.
What's happening now is Hamas wants Israel to remove their troops and generally stop killing Palestinians, in addition to the other parts of the deal. Israel refuses to put this in writing, saying they'll stop killing people for now, but they're going to leave troops behind to occupy the area - but eventually they'll remove those troops. You're right that Hamas doesn't trust Israel's going to remove those troops, and I think that's entirely reasonable given how the "bridging proposal" is a variation of May's proposal, but striking out things like withdrawing troops. Seems like if that's those are the major changes they're making to the written proposal, they probably don't plan on following through.
But it's also entirely unreasonable for Israel to strike that in the first place. The Palestinians don't want Israel to be an occupying force. There's nothing they can do about the civilians continuing to settle and take their land, but at the very least they're asking for the additional soldiers that have invaded the land in the last year to get out while they're not actively killing Palestinians.
On top of that, Israel's occupation of the Philadelphi Corridor and Rafah crossing is in violation of the Camp David agreements with Egypt. It's really difficult to trust you can make a deal with somebody who's currently not following the agreement they have with your mediator.
This is a helpful article that explains the original deal in more detail than most people want to know: https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2024/5/6/text-of-the-ceasefire-proposal-approved-by-hamas
those doing the investigative work, away from public interaction (and possible abuse), are not the root of the problem there
They're the root of privacy problems, which is a non-trivial issue for many of us.
Nobody would be happier than me to see that happen, but seeing how nobody's ever done something like that before I have my doubts. Can't remember the last Democrat that actually got more radical than the platform they ran on. Certainly wasn't anybody in the last 50 years.
It's been 318 days since October 7, 2023, and a very rough estimate is around 40,000 fatalities, mostly civilians. On average, that's 126 dead per day since Israel started this attack. So 35 dead is actually a pretty merciful day.
Prevent substantial wealth differentials in the first place.
Strom Thurmond was already 53 when he did his 24-hour filibuster of the Civil Rights Act of 1957. I'm convinced he still could've done it at 100 years old when he left office fueled by nothing but hate.
This is actually really helpful clarification, I did just miss some of that. It's no wealth tax, but it's better than nothing.
The commondreams article says "endorsement of taxes on ultra-wealthy individuals and large corporations" - your linked article says she's raising the corporate tax rate not even up to what it was before Trump. So, sure, I guess that technically counts as the "large corporations" part, but it doesn't meet the "ultra-wealthy individuals" language or the "billionaires tax" claim in the headlines.
I love that she says she wants to raise it somewhat. I love that she wants to give tax breaks to working class people. I don't love that this makes it out to be something it's not.
They really grabbed us by the Purcell.
He will run out of people, at the expense of both Russian human beings and Ukrainian human beings. That's the best case scenario with continued war, assuming it doesn't escalate to directly include other countries.
How Parking Garages Became a Playground for Criminals, Extremists and Terrorists
How Public Parks Became a Playground for Criminals, Extremists and Terrorists
How the Street Became a Playground for Criminals, Extremists and Terrorists
How Literal Playgrounds Became a Playground for Criminals, Extremists and Terrorists
Maybe if these things are happening everywhere, it's not the app that's the issue. This kind of talk opens us up to bans on Signal and similar apps, and that's just unacceptable. Address the core issues in society, don't try (and typically fail) to bandage it by taking away more and more of people's rights and freedoms.
I don't think they've released the text nor a comprehensive list of what it includes. They've only alluded to a few things, like the occupation.
This AP article says as much when it says, "Blinken, who is back in the region this week, said Monday that Israel had agreed to the proposal without saying what it entails." https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2024/why-is-israel-demanding-control-over-2-gaza-corridors-in-the-cease-fire-talks/
Al-Jazeera and similar have all said some variation of that as far as I've seen.
Most things are pretty easy. One problem is having the time to do literally everything yourself. The other is deciding whether that time spent doing optional tasks is worth the time not spent doing more meaningful activities.
Being in a position where the entire country hears his very reasonable, very easy to understand words over and over again would eventually have an effect. Even the die-hards would eventually be asking themselves if it is in fact reasonable that corporations are assfucking each and every one of us every single day. Some of them would vote in a more progressive representative.
Would he get everything passed? Absolutely not. But he would get some good stuff through.
What is your alternative to sanctions?
The short answer:
The same alternative that's been the best and most effective alternative throughout literally all of history: diplomacy with a focus on improving the lives of the general populace. Working with the UN as well as groups like Amnesty international, Doctors Without Borders, and Reporters Without Borders to accomplish that end goal.
The longer answer:
We knew the Taliban was going to get back into power after the U.S. influenced those events. We knew somebody like Maduro was going to get into power after the U.S. influenced those events. And we knew somebody like Putin was going to get into power after the U.S. influenced those events. These were either a result of total incompetence (likely, in at least Afghanistan's case) or intentional (as with something like Allende/Pinochet). It's not easy for anybody to prove which of these was intentional, but it's worth noting they're not always trying their best to help the people of the country they're intervening in or the people of the U.S., they're trying their best to accumulate wealth and power.
Historically, problems like this have always popped up because of power and wealth imbalance. You can prevent these problems by ensuring people are living happy, healthy lives. Sometimes, as with South Korea, Japan, Israel, or West Germany, it means propping up their economies and making sure they develop quickly. They become allies awfully quickly that way, even if they were sworn enemies just a few years prior (as with Japan or Germany). But even if you can't occupy them with military force and control their every move, softening relations tends to lead to better outcomes. North Korea was actually being somewhat cooperative with Clinton until W threw a shitfit. Iran's compliance with safety inspectors has been directly related to how the international community - mainly the U.S. - treats them. Calling these two countries the Axis of Evil along with Iraq and then invading Iraq was a very, very poor way to keep them from developing nuclear weapons.
So no, I don't believe in just letting them "do whatever they want" because that's also shown to be a terrible mistake time after time. Letting Hitler do whatever he want obviously was a mistake, but letting Hitler get into power in the first place by imposing a crushingly bad economy on the Germans was what created the opportunity to make that mistake in the first place. The U.S., as the most powerful economic and militaristic country in the world for decades, and as one that has consistently intervened to cause these issues in a very direct way, can fix these issues if they want to. Hell, they could prevent some of them just by not doing shit like this in the first place.
The real answer:
The U.S. has over 13,000 people in the U.S. Foreign Service. It's their job to figure out the intricacies of diplomacy, not ours. People are dying and they're failing to solve that problem.
And lastly, I'm pretty sure you've decided I'm on the wrong side so you won't read any of this and you certainly won't look at it as a nuanced, good faith approach, but it was a good exercise for me anyway.
Yeah, his alternative energy push was definitely positive, he just didn't have the political capital or savvy to make anything of it. He admittedly walked into a pretty raw deal with stagflation and an energy crisis, but he handled them so poorly it's hard to justify cutting him any slack. Telling the public energy is in short supply so they're going to have to make sacrifices is a losing strategy no matter what you're advocating for.
I actually really hate NPR for this article because they waffled so much.
After confusion over his stance on abortion rights, former President Donald Trump is clearing things up.
His stance was not confusing and was abundantly clear, as they state later in the article:
On Thursday, Trump indicated he would vote in favor of abortion rights in his home state of Florida, where it is on the ballot. Saying he thinks the "six week [ban] is too short," he said he favored "more time."
When asked explicitly, "so you'll vote in favor of the amendment?", Trump seemed to affirm that he would.
"I'm going to be voting that we need more than six weeks," he told NBC News in an interview, before saying he favored exceptions in abortion law for the life of the mother, rape and incest.
They don't even give that part straight. Saying he "indicated" makes it sound like there was some wiggle room, or miscommunication, possibly on the part of the reader/listener. There wasn't. He plainly said in no uncertain terms that he was voting for the amendment. Then his campaign said WAIT NO DON'T SAY THAT because they think it's a dumb move given his base. So he reversed his position.
He didn't "clarify" shit. He said one thing and within a DAY he said the exact opposite.
Agreed, but that's not happening. It's wild that the only possible options anybody sees right now are all-out war or Putin suddenly having a change of heart, and anybody who considers there might be other avenues to pursue is ridiculous.
Fine, the war goes on, and we'll see hundreds of thousands of people continue to die. Nothing else anybody in the entire world can do, it all rests on Putin changing his mind, and we'll just have to wait it out. Sucks to suck for all of those people, their families, and their descendants who are going to grow up in a country that's going to take generations to rebuild.
That's not mutually exclusive with what I said.
It worked out pretty well for Carter's policies, even if he only got one term. Carter ran openly as a centrist, and his fiscal conservatism was very popular. The left-ish wing of the Democratic party started an "Anybody But Carter" campaign during the primaries for exactly that reason. Lots of policies he advocated for got passed during his presidency: he deregulated the airlines, the trucking industry, railroads, banking - and that was a great trial run for Reagan's followups (and Bush, and Clinton, and W).
But Carter was both too conservative and wildly incompetent for the job. With somewhat liberal Dems having the majority in both houses and universal health care being a big issue at the time, and with Ted Kennedy as majority leader trying to push it through, Carter still opposed it on the basis of cost. Of course it died, as did any other progressive or even moderately liberal ideas that cost money.
What I'm saying is fuck Carter. He's done a great job rehabbing his image but he was a bad president his presidency is rightfully maligned by both the right and the left. But he got a lot of policies through that he liked.
Yes, she can, or already has won them back. "Uncommitted" was primarily about sending a message, and it was effective at doing that. I would be surprised if the majority of them planned on not voting for Biden, and now Harris, in the general.
They said the same thing when he was repeatedly lining up troops along Ukraine's border.
It's not a problem until it is. They need to be making more progress on peace talks. It's unacceptable this war has gone on for this long and killed this many people.
It's not about feeling bad for Maduro or the Russians, it's about wanting the U.S. to be more productive instead of whatever this is. Snatching up Russian yachts hasn't done shit to stop hundreds of thousands of people being killed or wounded in Ukraine. Taking Maduro's plane isn't going to give freedom of press and election oversight to the Venezuelans.
It's just grandstanding and trying to make people feel like the "right side is winning" when actually, everybody's going to keep on losing because the power majority isn't actually fixing anything.
Pretty much everybody's the bad guy here, tbh. Sort of a Lybia-during-Gaddafi situation - he was horrible, but it's not like they've been in a great place since.
Okay, am I the only one who just sees this article as "U.S. government steals a plane, pats themselves on the back"?
Today, the U.S. Department of Justice took action to enforce U.S. sanctions -- seizing an aircraft used by Maduro and his representatives.
He wasn't on it. There's no report of them finding anything useful on the plane. Are we supposed to assume he has no other planes? That this will have any significant impact on him whatsoever?
Whatever your moral stance is on Maduro, or stealing, or U.S. intervention, this feels absurd. Even if the dude were literally Hitler, this just doesn't accomplish anything. The time spent inspecting and stealing this plane could've been better spent on so many other things.
As the conservatives would say, my taxes paid for this and I want them back.
It's always amazing to me when Republicans pick bigotry over profits. They pick profits over family, friends, lives, environment, religion, you name it - feels like profits are king. And then they pull shit like this, and I'm just astonished at how much cruelty reigns supreme.