Republican senators say they are alarmed at how many Republicans, including those with higher levels of education and income, buy the unsubstantiated claims that the last presidential election was stolen.
A second Republican senator who spoke with The Hill said the growing strength of radical populism “makes it a lot more difficult to govern, it makes it difficult to talk to constituents.”
“There are people who surprise me — I’m surprised they have those views. It’s amazing to me the number of people, the kind of people who think the election was stolen,” the lawmaker said. “I don’t want to use this word but it’s not just a ‘red-neck’ thing. It’s people in business, the president of a bank, a doctor.”
How far up your ass does your head have to be to not see that your party is practically driven by conspiracy theories and falsehoods after the last decade??
XMark my word, if and when these preachers get control of the [Republican] party, and they're sure trying to do so, it's going to be a terrible damn problem. Frankly, these people frighten me. Politics and governing demand compromise. But these Christians believe they are acting in the name of God, so they can't and won't compromise. I know, I've tried to deal with them."
Goldwater himself was considered a dangerous right-wing extremist nut by the standards of the 1960s. He was a rabid anti-Communist in the style of the John Birch Society, he was anti-Civil-rights, beloved by the Klan. He lost to LBJ partly cause the Democrats painted him as someone ready to start a nuclear war and the voters bought it. Basically on every issue but religion, today's right-wing nuts would probably love him.
I have been trying to wrap my head around why some Republicans seem genuinely surprised at what is happening. I have come to the conclusion that some thought it was a game. They honestly thought that when you had people calling Obama a secret Muslim, that it was "just politics", a bit of fun name-calling and that's all. They thought they were playing games, throwing fake red meat at the base to get them to have a fake angry response. Even after some of their constituents were goaded into attacking the government, they were still in denial about the reality of the situation they helped create. The monster is real, and they have spent multiple decades feeding it, and it was all fun and games when the monster was chained up, but Trump broke the chains, and now they are worried about what the monster will do to the village.
Perhaps. I mean, I was naïve enough to thing there was no possible way the Orange One could win in 2016, so I suppose I could see having a blind spot for this monster they've crated. Still, you'd almost have to be going out of your way as an actual politician to not see the results of all their "games".
Yes it is. "Wet" means being covered in water. Water is covered in water unless you have a singular free-floating H2O molecule, which you don't. This was a bullshit argument from the very beginning and your pedantry is not doing anyone any favors in a political discussion, least of all yourself.
That is just it Roe vs Wade was about privacy, that the government has no right to know what you do. By elemiminating roe vs Wade the Supreme Court has said that it is ok for the government to know what it’s citizens are doing with out probable cause.
It was telegraphed super hard when they attacked Roe and not Casey but claimed it was about abortion, and in the ruling they managed to take aim directly at the 14th amendment, which they have slowly been doing in other cases.
It's not about abortion, abortion is an easy way to tug on heart strings, it's about absolutely destroying due process and privacy. Without due process and privacy there is no protection... really from the government at all.
Privacy is a factor and part of the basis of the argument in Roe but that idea doesn't really hold up if you consider abortion to be a crime. An example in the medical setting is how some injuries have to be reported. It would be reasonable to point out how substance abuse isn't necessary reported but I doubt prolife people like that policy either.
To be clear I am pro-choice and there should be federal protections if not a full blown amendment for abortion, birth control, and other medical procedures but currently those protections are limited. That is how some states think they can do shit like demand medical records from other states. In general the idea of protections for privacy seems to be more limited than it should be.
For this particular issue the obvious thing outside of what should be legal would be that the states have no reason or jurisdiction to know anything. If there was a crime going on in that other state the demanding state has no grounds to charge anyone with anything. No crime was committed in their state even if a crime did happen. Said crime would be the business of the state in which the crime took place.
Shit this gets tricky because I wouldn't want states to not talk to each other about domestic violence if a person is trying to buy a firearm in a new state...
The background check is a federal thing with federal laws regulating it. The states are supposed to report things to the feds for things to show up on the NICS. There have been failures related to the NICS due to states or military not reporting things to the feds but they don't really report stuff to other states for the background check. And if states are asked about things it's the feds doing the asking. The FBI manages the background checks and NICS.
There is also a big difference between states sharing info about convictions and a random out of state police department, ag, or governor asking a hospital to violate HIPPA for something that isn't a crime in that state.
Really need more information to make any kind of call. On the one hand, I'm reluctant to believe that a mayor just broke into someone's home for some petty theft. On the other hand, I'm also pretty suspect of any politician that claims that God is using them and their "persecution." What is this beef between the mayor and the council? Did the council have something to do with the trespassing/burglary charges? Like wtf is this story.
From the New York post so make of it what you will:
The mayor told officers that he was on his way to a dog park when he stopped by the house, claiming it was his dream home and that he had hopes of purchasing it one day, according to the police report.
Kamau admitted to police that he was aware he was trespassing on the homeowner’s property, despite telling FOX 5 Atlanta he believed the home was “abandoned.”
The homeowner, who has not been publicly identified, said he saw the mayor walk up his driveway and approach his lake house when he rushed to get dressed and called police from inside his truck.
The owner of the home then approached Kamau and held him at gunpoint until police arrived, warning the mayor to stay put, the report states.
Georgia sounds like a wild fuckin' place to live. Was the mayor actually inside the home, I wonder? It doesn't really say. And why do they think he had intent to steal anything?
I use question marks, but really we can't know until more info comes out.
I read it as he was outside. He walked up the driveway and the homeowner decided to grab his gun, call the police and detain him until they arrived. As a Brit the thought of someone holding me at gunpoint because I walked up their driveway is absolutely terrifying.
Just seeing a gun irl - usually only at the airport - makes me physically recoil. They’re just so rare here. I hate that you’re right about him not being shot being news worthy, a black man trespassing… Does Georgia have stand your ground laws where you can just shoot people if you’re scared of them?
Georgia has a no duty to retreat law where you can use deadly force against someone who invades your home and threatens you/your property, without trying to escape first. You can't shoot someone if you were just scared of them though, at least on paper. There has to be an imminent threat. But yes with the incident involving 1. a black man, 2. trespassing, 3. Georgia... might get away with murder if you hire a 'good' lawyer.
Five of the seven members of South Fulton’s city council sued to throw Mayor Khalid Kamau out of office — in part, for allegedly recording closed-door executive sessions for his “personal benefit.” The 98-page lawsuit says Kamau’s conduct prevents the council from effectively governing. During executive session at a November 2022 meeting, council members discovered Kamau was recording it on a cell phone, the suit says. During a Facebook Live broadcast in December, Kamau said he would continue to do so and release those discussions to the public. He has since refused to stop recording executive sessions and further threatened to use the recordings to sue the City Council and or its members, according to the filing.
In addition to seeking Kamau’s removal from office, council members want an injunction or restraining order to keep him from recording executive sessions and making those discussions public. “To be clear, the City Council has only ever used its executive sessions as authorized by the Georgia Open Meetings Act, which makes it unclear how, or why, the Mayor would seek to use these recordings in a lawsuit against the City Council,” the request says.
Georgia law allows public officials to discuss property transactions, potential litigation and employee matters in private. Council members say they can’t effectively do so under the threat of being recorded. “In short, the Council Members are being held hostage by the Mayor; forced to choose between either betraying the City’s confidence and allowing its confidential information to be recorded and disclosed, or simply not addressing these important matters at all,” the suit says.
Did the council have something to do with the trespassing/burglary charges?
No, but the majority of the council members want him removed from office, and the person taking over for now is one of those members. So I assume they're happy. Good ol' political drama
if theyre talking about private matters unrelated to city governance and hes threatening to release that, they might have a case. but if they are up in arms about hi m recording and potentially releasing discussions relating to the job itself, it makes them have an appearance of guilt.
One type of story (that I can't find any good examples of here, so that's good!) that I don't like is the hearsay or expert-says types of stories. e.g., former-ex-prosecutor-political-insider says Trump definitely did something bad and will be charged next week.
It's not real news masquerading as news for clicks and there's nothing new or real to discuss in the comments.
"so-and-so slams so-and-so"-type articles are usually like this, too. It's just political bickering and doesn't contain any new points of discussion. Any comments on these articles is often just more attacking, since that's where the discussion started from.
I realize these are probably quite difficult to identify and moderate objectively, but I think the community would be better off without them!
This one will be challenging, but we will consider it. Thanks for weighing in though. Even if this doesn't become a direct rule, it at least points to the kind of community we want to co-create.
Could it be geared to allow content around editorialized content from news sources (e.g. NYT, WaPo, Newsweek, etc.)? Maybe a comment that says sensationalized content/clickbait will not be allowed.
Simply requiring that an actual article is linked (and not a screenshot of a retweet of a Twitter post of an opinion of a screenshot of an article headline) would be a great first step and easier to moderate.
I can admit I'm getting outnumbered on this. I appreciate you adding your voice to this perspective so that I can re-evaluate my stance on it in an effort to provide this community what it wants.
I can definitely get behind that. Most of the political anger is setup with this pot stirring he said she said shit. Granted, there still is a place for some of the puffery "I'm going to pass a law to do X" even though it may or may not happen. A lot of them can be total bullshit, like hopelessly unpopular laws being put into consideration that have no hope of even getting to vote, let alone passing. But at least that is real politics rather than the simple shit slinging of editorial content today.
There is likely nothing in this reality capable of swaying these 20+% of folks from not voting for their fascist leader. This “more likely” garbage is just click-bait for the for-profit media.
If you want inflation to stop just put extra tax on companies that have increased consumer prices in last 12 months. In 12 months you see that inflation under control again.
Of course this is never going to happen but we all know the reason for inflation.
Just need to make corporate taxes similar to personal ones, but as a percentage basis. Did you have a 40% profit? Okay, you pay 37% in taxes on money earned above that. 35% profit? 33% tax.
Stock buybacks should be considered profit for tax purposes.
If an employee gets paid more than 50% in stock/stock options and the company has more than 10 million in revenue per year, the company should pay taxes on that as well.
If we did that and closed a few other loopholes, we’d probably see companies investing more into the business and prices would also not rise quickly.
That sounds like it would be really difficult to track and implement in practice though. Companies would just bring in very slightly different models with new names, or do a bit of shrinkflation. Tracking like-for-like equivalents would be a nightmare and everything would get tied up in the courts.
It makes sense when you consider how liberty has been constantly redefined over history by different cultural contexts. "Liberty" to these people has been taken to mean "Our freedom to raise our children as we see fit, free from unwanted external 'worldly' influences", akin to the Christian theological interpretation of liberty. The choice of word also taps into nationalist pride, so people can easily tell they're aligning with people who would describe themselves as being "patriots".
It's an effective and insidious form of marketing that has ironically backfired on the US government, who have been perfectly happy to use the concept as a tool to get their citizens to sign up for the military and fuel the economy.
And then once they've secured that 'liberty' for themselves they'll feel free to force their particular brand of liberty on others whether they want it or not, because fascism.
It baffles me how a fake case can even have any legitimacy with the court. Yet here we are...SCOTUS is even more a joke now. It's just so tragic their bad faith & buffoonery affects so many people .
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