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caffeiiine · 5 months

Note

i would like to see either nikolai or sigma's sentences please :3 /nf

THANK YOU!!! YOU ARE FUELING MY TWO FAVORITE THINGS!!!

under the cut bc length. [it got REALLY long]

anyways, nikolai and sigmas prison sentences as they would be in michigan.

note: i’m not using the wiki for this. i doubt it covers everything, so im going back through the manga and analyzing everything from there. aside from finding out manga appearances, everything else is research and pre-memorized info.

note 2: i may have made a few mistakes with the sentencing but it should be accurate enough give or take 10 years.

note 3: there’s no minimum sentence since majority of research i’m doing leads to me picking the minimum years since it usually states “punishable by life imprisonment or any number of years” which is unspecific and sucks so i just dropped the category

nikolai!!! - crimes - sentence - reference state - references/citations

Crimes :

first degree murder [7 accounts]

second degree murder [1 account]

domestic terrorism [16]

mutilation of a corpse [1 account]

shoplifting [implied, counted as 1 general account/misdemeanor]

assault with/using a deadly weapon [1 account]

impersonation [2 accounts]

[1]

disturbing the peace

theft of public property [2][3] [1 account]

verbal assault/threat [4] [1 account]

aiding and abetting

aiding in prison break

drugging [1 account]

attempted poisoning [5] [2 accounts]

fleeing arrest [1 account]

[6]

robbery/general larceny [4 accounts]

unlawful possession of explosives

attempted first degree murder [implied] [7]

kidnapping [4 accounts]

aiding a convict

breaking and entering [1 account]

sentence :

at maximum = 14 life sentences + 61 years + 186 days and/or up to 7,063,000$ in fines; no parole

reference state : michigan

references via michigan legislature : [first degree murder] Section 750.316 Act 328 of 1931 + [second degree murder] Section 750.317 Act 328 of 1931 + [domestic terrorism not counted, i can’t find definitive punishments and it'd probably be with the supreme court] + [mutilation of a corpse] Section 750.160 Act 328 of 1931 + [shoplifting] Section 750.356 Act 328 of 1931 + [impersonation] Section 750.217 Act 328 of 1931 + [felony assault] Section 750.82 Act 328 of 1931 + [disturbing the peace] Section 750.170(?) + [theft of public property] section 750.356 act 328 of 1931 + [terrorizing/verbal assault/harrassment] section 750.411h act 328 of 1931 + [aidinh and abetting] section 750.450 act 328 of 1931 + [aiding in a prisoners escape/aiding a convict] section 750.183 act 328 of 1931 + [attempted poisoning] section 750.91 act 328 of 1931 + [fleeing arrest] section 760.479a act 328 of 1931 + [robbery] section 750.529 act 328 of 1931 + [unlawful possession of explosives] section 750.200 act 328 of 1931 + [attempted first degree murder] section 750.91 act 328 of 1931 + [kidnapping] section 750.349 act 328 of 1931 + [breaking and entering (with explosives)] section 750.112 act 328 of 1931.

Sigma!!! - crimes - sentence - reference state - references/citations

[8]

threatening an officer [2 accounts]

domestic terrorism [16]

unlawful possession of explosives

attempted first degree murder [1 account]

criminal negligence [9]

aiding and abetting

negligent attempted mass murder [10]

attempted first degree murder by proxy [several accounts] [11]

felony assault by proxy [12] [3 accounts]

[13]

attempted manslaughter [14] [2 accounts]

attempted second degree murder [15] [1 account]

aiding in a prison break

aiding a convict [1 account]

breaking and entering [1 account]

felony assault [3 accounts]

sentence :

at maximum: 5 life sentences + 45 years 93 days and/or up to 8,000$ in fines; possibility of parole

reference state : michigan

references via michigan legislature: [aiding and abetting] section 750.450 act 328 of 1931 + [felony assault] section 750.82 act 328 of 1932 + [aiding in prisoner escape/aiding a convict] section 750.183 act 328 of 1932 + [unlawful possession of an explosive] section 750.200 act 328 of 1932 + [attempted (any type of) murder/manslaughter] section 750.91 act 328 of 1932 + [breaking and entering (with explosives)] section 750.112 act 328 of 1932 + [threatening an officer] section 750.478a act 328 of 1932 + [criminal/gross negligence] section 8.9 michigan legislature

#[1] i wouldve included something about his gun but the laws vary so much state by state itd be difficult to find a proper middle ground and-#-gun control laws are really iffy and varied in general with a lot of uncertain elements like concealed carry etc #[2] referring to the poles he used to fight atsushi chapter 58 #[3] not entirely sure since nobody stole support infrastructure before so theres no law for it #[4] verbal assault is an umbrella term so its a little difficult to pin down; when he asks one of the government people if theyre ready to-#-��say bye-bye to their lower halves” going based off the context; it fits the legal definition of verbal assault #[5] taking the syringes at face value and assuming theyre actually poisoned despite inconsistencies with approximate death times #[6] not entirely sure how nikolai got the floor plans to the prison; and as far as i looked; the act of possessing them doesnt seem illegal #[7] its implied that he tries to kill fyodor very often; i cant find examples but 111 fyodor states nikolai has tried to kill him on -#-several occations #[8] at about chapter 72 sigma states the casino is run under international law; i’m not running nikolai’s sentence in japan so i’m ignoring #-that piece and giving him the same reference state as nikolai #[9] the coin explosives being held in a customer room #[10]the coin bombs that were to be distributed via the casino and explode once distributed enough #[11] via the customers in the casino and security; sigma really likes his crimes by proxy doesn’t he.#[13] the gun in the comms room is definitely illegal but to keep things in line with Nikolai i’m not counting gun law violations unless its #-obvious like murder or manslaughter #[14] attempted manslaughter in of itself is a contradictory term; the way it’s defined and the way i’m using it is in reference to sigmas-#-state of mind right then. where he was engaging in a desperate attempt to save his casino via stopping teruko by any means necessary-#-and was not in a proper state of mind to be accurately tried for attempted second degree murder as he normally would’ve been.-#-the legal term for this is “in the heat of passion” i believe.#[15] trying to take teruko with him in death #[16] i can’t find punishments for terrorism so it’s not counted in the final tally #i spent actual hours on this [not regretted one bit]#oh my hod i don’t want to look at the michigan legislature for another month after this #it was so much fun though ty xan #soda incarcerates your faves #bsd #bsd nikolai #bsd sigma

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thoughtportal · 1 year

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Once You See the Truth About Cars, You Can’t Unsee It https://www.nytimes.com/2022/12/15/opinion/car-ownership-inequality.html

By Andrew Ross and Julie Livingston

Mr. Ross and Ms. Livingston are professors at New York University, members of its Prison Education Program Research Lab and authors of the book “Cars and Jails: Freedom Dreams, Debt, and Carcerality.”

In American consumer lore, the automobile has always been a “freedom machine” and liberty lies on the open road. “Americans are a race of independent people” whose “ancestors came to this country for the sake of freedom and adventure,” the National Automobile Chamber of Commerce’s soon-to-be-president, Roy Chapin, declared in 1924. “The automobile satisfies these instincts.” During the Cold War, vehicles with baroque tail fins and oodles of surplus chrome rolled off the assembly line, with Native American names like Pontiac, Apache, Dakota, Cherokee, Thunderbird and Winnebago — the ultimate expressions of capitalist triumph and Manifest Destiny.

But for many low-income and minority Americans, automobiles have been turbo-boosted engines of inequality, immobilizing their owners with debt, increasing their exposure to hostile law enforcement, and in general accelerating the forces that drive apart haves and have-nots.

Though progressive in intent, the Biden administration’s signature legislative achievements on infrastructure and climate change will further entrench the nation’s staunch commitment to car production, ownership and use. The recent Inflation Reduction Act offers subsidies for many kinds of vehicles using alternative fuel, and should result in real reductions in emissions, but it includes essentially no direct incentives for public transit — by far the most effective means of decarbonizing transport. And without comprehensive policy efforts to eliminate discriminatory policing and predatory lending, merely shifting to electric from combustion will do nothing to reduce car owners’ ever-growing risk of falling into legal and financial jeopardy, especially those who are poor or Black.

By the 1940s, African American car owners had more reason than anyone to see their vehicles as freedom machines, as a means to escape, however temporarily, redlined urban ghettos in the North or segregated towns in the South. But their progress on roads outside of the metro core was regularly obstructed by the police, threatened by vigilante assaults, and stymied by owners of whites-only restaurants, lodgings and gas stations. Courts granted the police vast discretionary authority to stop and search for any one of hundreds of code violations — powers that they did not apply evenly. Today, officers make more than 50,000 traffic stops a day. Driving while Black has become a major route to incarceration — or much worse. When Daunte Wright was killed by a police officer in April 2021, he had been pulled over for an expired registration tag on his car’s license plate. He joined the long list of Black drivers whose violent and premature deaths at the hands of police were set in motion by a minor traffic infraction — Sandra Bland (failure to use a turn signal), Maurice Gordon (alleged speeding), Samuel DuBose (missing front license plate) and Philando Castile and Walter Scott (broken taillights) among them. Despite widespread criticism of the flimsy pretexts used to justify traffic stops, and the increasing availability of cellphone or police body cam videos, the most recent data shows that the number of deaths from police-driver interactions is almost as high as it has been over the past five years.

In the consumer arena, cars have become tightly sprung debt traps. The average monthly auto loan payment crossed $700 for the first time this year, which does not include insurance or maintenance costs. Subprime lending and longer loan terms of up to 84 months have resulted in a doubling of auto loan debt over the last decade and a notable surge in the number of drivers who are “upside down”— owing more money than their cars are worth. But, again, the pain is not evenly distributed. Auto financing companies often charge nonwhite consumers higher interest rates than white consumers, as do insurers.

Formerly incarcerated buyers whose credit scores are depressed from inactivity are especially red meat to dealers and predatory lenders. In our research, we spoke to many such buyers who found it easier, upon release from prison, to acquire expensive cars than to secure an affordable apartment. Some, like LeMarcus, a Black Brooklynite (whose name has been changed to protect his privacy under ethical research guidelines), discovered that loans were readily available for a luxury vehicle but not for the more practical car he wanted. Even with friends and family willing to help him with a down payment, after he spent roughly five years in prison, his credit score made it impossible to get a Honda or “a regular car.” Instead, relying on a friend to co-sign a loan, he was offered a high-interest loan on a pre-owned Mercedes E350. LeMarcus knew it was a bad deal, but the dealer told him the bank that would have financed a Honda “wanted a more solid foundation, good credit, income was showing more,” but that to finance the Mercedes, it “was actually willing to work with the people with lower credit and lower down payments.” We interviewed many other formerly incarcerated people who followed a similar path, only to see their cars repossessed.

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LeMarcus was “car rich, cash poor,” a common and precarious condition that can have serious legal consequences for low-income drivers, as can something as simple as a speeding ticket. A $200 ticket is a meaningless deterrent to a hedge fund manager from Greenwich, Conn., who is pulled over on the way to the golf club, but it could be a devastating blow to those who mow the fairways at the same club. If they cannot pay promptly, they will face cascading penalties. If they cannot take a day off work to appear in court, they risk a bench warrant or loss of their license for debt delinquency. Judges in local courts routinely skirt the law of the land (in Supreme Court decisions like Bearden v. Georgia and Timbs v. Indiana) by disregarding the offender’s ability to pay traffic debt. At the request of collection agencies, they also issue arrest or contempt warrants for failure to appear in court on unpaid auto loan debts. With few other options to travel to work, millions of Americans make the choice to continue driving even without a license, which means their next traffic stop may land them in jail.

The pathway that leads from a simple traffic fine to financial insolvency or detention is increasingly crowded because of the spread of revenue policing intended to generate income from traffic tickets, court fees and asset forfeiture. Fiscally squeezed by austerity policies, officials extract the funds from those least able to pay. This is not only an awful way to fund governments; it is also a form of backdoor, regressive taxation that circumvents voters’ input.

Deadly traffic stops, racially biased predatory lending and revenue policing have all come under public scrutiny of late, but typically they are viewed as distinct realms of injustice, rather than as the interlocking systems that they are. Once you see it, you can’t unsee it: A traffic stop can result in fines or arrest; time behind bars can result in repossession or a low credit score; a low score results in more debt and less ability to pay fines, fees and surcharges. Championed as a kind of liberation, car ownership — all but mandatory in most parts of the country — has for many become a vehicle of capture and control.

Industry boosters promise us that technological advances like on-demand transport, self-driving electric vehicles and artificial intelligence-powered traffic cameras will smooth out the human errors that lead to discrimination, and that car-sharing will reduce the runaway costs of ownership. But no combination of apps and cloud-based solutions can ensure that the dealerships, local municipalities, courts and prison industries will be willing to give up the steady income they derive from shaking down motorists.

Aside from the profound need for accessible public transportation, what could help? Withdraw armed police officers from traffic duties, just as they have been from parking and tollbooth enforcement in many jurisdictions. Introduce income-graduated traffic fines. Regulate auto lending with strict interest caps and steep penalties for concealing fees and add-ons and for other well-known dealership scams. Crack down hard on the widespread use of revenue policing. And close the back door to debtors’ prisons by ending the use of arrest warrants in debt collection cases. Without determined public action along these lines, technological advances often end up reproducing deeply rooted prejudices. As Malcolm X wisely said, “Racism is like a Cadillac; they bring out a new model every year.”

Andrew Ross and Julie Livingston are professors at New York University, members of its Prison Education Program Research Lab and authors of the book “Cars and Jails: Freedom Dreams, Debt, and Carcerality.”

#article #new york times #Tiktok #Jamelle Bouie #car culture #car dependency #urban design #urban planning #car trap #infrastructure #bike infrastructure #income inequality #inequality #wealth inequality #law enforcement #debt #drivers license #traffic

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amtrak-official · 11 months

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We have applied for 7 billion to do essential repairs on the NEC, because the Biden administration didn't grant garenteed money to the gateway project in the BIL and yet it is essential to the start of real high speed rail in this country. I love how as a public institution, more money is given to brightline than the company run for the whole country

#bipartisan infrastructure law #gateway project

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tomorrowusa · 1 month

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Trump's most famous promise was to make Mexico pay for his squalid and corrupt border wall.

Amount collected from Mexico: 0 centavos.

Trump did give tax breaks to billionaires while giving COVID-19 to much of the rest of the country.

Trump's promises are as worthless as degrees from Trump University.

#donald trump #trump's broken promises #republicans #trump's broken border wall #mexico isn't paying for trump's wall #tax breaks for the filthy rich #the trump pandemic recession #covid-19 #joe biden #bipartisan infrastructure law #inflation reduction act #biden's pro-worker policies #child tax credit #biden supports reproductive freedom #biden is lgbtq friendly #biden is pro-democracy #biden isn't a stooge of putin #election 2024 #vote blue no matter who

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dontmeantobepoliticalbut · 18 days

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In February US company LanzaJet, which produces sustainable aviation fuel (SAF) from ethanol, announced that it intended to build a second, larger plant on US soil.

The Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) was a "big influence", says Jimmy Samartzis, its chief executive.

The second plant would add to its facility in Soperton, Georgia - the world's first commercial scale ethanol-to-SAF plant.

"We have a global landscape that we are pursuing…[but] we have doubled down on building here in the United States because of the tax credits in the IRA, and because of the overall support system that the US government has put in place."

Signed into law by President Biden in August 2022, the IRA, along with the so-called Bipartisan Infrastructure Law (BIL) enacted in November 2021, are intended, amongst other things, to funnel billions of federal dollars into developing clean energy.

The aim is to lower greenhouse gas emissions, and incentivise private investment, to encourage the growth of green industries and jobs: a new foundation for the US economy.

With a 10-year lifespan, and a cost originally estimated at $391bn (£310bn) but now predicted to reach over $1tn - the final figure is unknown - the IRA offers new and juicer tax credits, as well as loans and loan guarantees for the deployment of emissions reducing technology.

The tax credits are available to companies for either domestically producing clean energy, or domestically manufacturing the equipment needed for the energy transition, including electric vehicles (EVs) and batteries.

Consumers can also receive tax credits, for example for buying an EV or installing a heat pump. The tax credit for SAF producers like LanzaJet is new in the IRA and, offers between $1.25 to $1.75 per gallon of SAF (though it only lasts five years).

Complementary is the BIL, which runs for five years and provides direct investment largely in the form of government grants for research and development and capital projects. Under the BIL, about $77bn (£61bn) will go to clean energy technology projects, according to the Brookings Institution which monitors the law.

One company to benefit so far is EV battery recycling company Ascend Elements.

It has won BIL grants totalling $480m (£380m), which it is matching a similar amount in private investment to build its second commercial facility in Hopkinsville, Kentucky.

"[The IRA and BIL] are massive investments… larger than the infrastructure related provisions in the New Deal," says Adie Tromer from the Brookings. "There is a clear sense that America has become more serious about transitioning to a cleaner economy."

While rules for some tax credits are still being finalized, tens of billions in actual public spending is flowing into the economy, says Trevor Houser at the Rhodium Group, an independent research provider. Rhodium, together with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, runs the Clean Investment Monitor (CIM) to track US clean technology investments.

According to recently updated CIM data, in the 2023 fiscal year, the federal government invested approximately $34bn (£27bn) into clean energy, the vast majority through tax credits.

The extent to which the policy instruments are so far spurring not just announcements - of which there are plenty - but real extra private investment is harder to know: clean energy investment has been on a general upward trend anyway and the IRA hasn't been around long. But experts believe it is rising.

Total clean energy investment in the US in the 2023 calendar year including from both private and government sources reached a record $239bn (£190bn), up 38% from 2022 according to the CIM data.

Clean energy investment in the US, as a share of total private investment, rose from 3.7% in the fourth quarter of 2022 to 5% in the fourth quarter of 2023.

The IRA has had two main positive effects thus far, says Mr. Houser.

It has "supercharged" private investment in more mature technologies which were already growing very rapidly like solar, EVs and batteries.

It has also, combined with the BIL, led to a "dramatic growth" in investment in emerging climate technologies like clean hydrogen, carbon dioxide capture and removal and SAF. While the total magnitude of those investments are still relatively small compared to the more mature technologies, "the IRA fundamentally changed the economics" says Mr. Houser.

But the IRA is failing to reach some parts of the green economy: so far it hasn't lifted investment in more mature technologies which have been falling like wind and heat pumps, though Mr. Houser notes things may have fallen further without the IRA.

On the industry's mind is the fate of the laws, particularly the longer-to-run IRA, should there be a change of government in the US November elections.

Repealing or amending the IRA (or BIL) would require Republican control of the Presidency, Senate and House - though wholesale repeal would likely face meaningful opposition from within. The rub is many of the projects that the IRA is incentivising are being or will be built in Republican states or counties.

Yet a Republican president alone could potentially frustrate things for example by slowing or deferring loans or grants, or amending the rules which serve the laws. "A Trump presidency would definitely chill the atmosphere and possibly more," says Ashur Nissan of Kaya Partners, a climate policy advice firm.

The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank and purveyor of hard-right ideas for the next conservative President, advocates repeal for both the IRA and BIL. For the organization's Diana Furchtgott-Roth, a former Trump administration official, it is fiscally irresponsible for the US, with its vast deficit and debt, to be spending like this.

It is also time, she says, that renewable energy such as solar and wind, into which subsidies have been poured for years, stood on their own feet.

Yet others argue the US can't afford not to do take this path. And the point of the loans program is to take risks to help unlock new solutions that scale. "It would be failing if there weren't any so called 'failures' within it," says Richard Youngman, of Cleantech Group, a research and consulting firm.

Meanwhile, the US's approach is putting competitive pressure on Europe to do more.

Some European clean energy manufacturing companies are now building facilities in the US to take advantage of the tax credits that otherwise would have been built in Europe including solar panel maker Meyer Burger and electrolyser manufacturers Nel and John Cockerill.

"The US wasn't a market for some of these companies in the past because Europe was more active," says Brandon Hurlbut, of Boundary Stone Partners, a clean energy advisory firm.

The EU's Net Zero Industrial Act (NZIA) is expected to enter into force this year. It doesn't involve new money, but seeks to coordinate existing financing and introduces domestic favourability for the first time - putting in place a non-binding target for the bloc to locally manufacture 40% of its clean energy equipment needs by 2030.

In the UK, chancellor Jeremy Hunt has made clear he isn't interested, nor can the UK afford to copy the IRA's approach in some "distortive global subsidy race" and will stick to other ways of helping. The Labour party recently scrapped its $28bn green investment plan seen as a stab at leaning into an IRA style policy.

A global audience will be watching as the US's clean energy juggernaut unfolds. And if it leads others to ask what more they can do to produce clean energy products - even if just for reasons of economic opportunity - it will be good for humanity's sake, says Mr. Hurlbut.

#us politics #news #bbc #uk politics #world politics #green energy #clean energy #LanzaJet #sustainable aviation fuel #Inflation Reduction Act #Bipartisan Infrastructure Law #Brookings Institution #electric vehicles #Clean Investment Monitor #european union #Net Zero Industrial Act #Jeremy Hunt #2024

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vinyls-and-valentines · 2 years

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They say art is forbidden within City walls, and by all accounts it might as well be.

While large murals adorn the facades of the Lobby's busiest streets, reflecting the world around them in solid blocks of color like a static mirror, they do not speak the tongue of frantic prayers to a slumbering god or mad bursts of color plastered against decrepit walls— they are completely silent. They watch but never speak, never reach out to comfort or inspire. One could go as far as to say they are dead in their own right, but that would assume that anything is alive in Battery City beyond its inhabitants.

Better Living Industries does not fear color, nor music, nor pictures on a screen or words written on paper. What they fear is creativity— a language known by few, but understood by many, a code that cannot be decrypted using any machine for it does not have a key or stationary meaning.

To kill the artist you must kill the meaning, and not the other way around.

#hi. i'm back on my bullshit waxing poetics every day about random bullshit. let's see how long this one lasts yeah?#anyways. *adds corporate memphis into your post-apocalyptic sc-fi*#also this is a side-note but the entire premise of my danger days universe hinges of a corporate-backed law project (the ETHER act) and #an government-funded infrastructure project by the same company which very sexy of me but i don't talk about it nearly enough #then again you lot aren't here for sci-fi law school #i'm still proud of the fact i managed to call it the ETHER act tbh. it stands for the 'ecology technology & hazard exposure reduction' act #danger days #killjoys #battery city #headcanons #city headcanons #ttlotfk

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cockmcstuffins · 11 months

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yes i started playing clan generator

and yes i accomplished my sole goal in playing clan generator

cat city bitch cat cat city bitch

#it's a cat municipality!!!#at this point they should be able to develop more complex infrastructure #and put into place voting laws and zoning mandates #when i tried to do this in the browser version it crashed the game

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dreaminginthedeepsouth · 5 months

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Mike Luckovich

* * * *

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

November 29, 2023

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

NOV 29, 2023

In the final exchange of hostages taken by Hamas for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel under the current truce, Hamas released 16 people—10 Israelis and four Thai nationals, along with two Russian-Israeli women in a separate release—while Israel released 30 people from its jails.

Negotiators from Qatar, Egypt, Israel, and the U.S. are rushing to try to get another truce in place, even as far-right Israeli leaders are pressuring Israeli prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu to restart the assault on Hamas. Far-right national security minister Itamar Ben-Gvir warned today that unless he does, Ben-Gvir’s faction will leave the government coalition Netanyahu leads. “Stopping the war = breaking apart the government,” Ben-Gvir said.

Losing that faction would not overturn the government, but it would weaken Netanyahu enough that he could have to call elections. Netanyahu, who remains under indictment for bribery and fraud, is eager to stay in power, but recent polls show his popularity is perilously low: only 27% of Israelis in one recent poll said they would vote for him. Two members of his staff told Sheera Frenkel of the New York Times he wants to avoid an election at all costs.

Shortly after Ben-Gvir’s statement, Netanyahu said: “There is no situation in which we do not go back to fighting until the end.”

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Israel today with a different agenda than Netanyahu’s. “We'd like to see the pause extended because what it has enabled, first and foremost is hostages being released and being united with their families,” Blinken said. “It's also enabled us to surge humanitarian assistance into the people of Gaza who so desperately need it. So, its continuation, by definition means that more hostages would be coming home, more assistance would be getting in.”

The foreign ministers of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization met today in Brussels, Belgium, where they met with Ukrainian foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba as part of the NATO-Ukraine Council. Before the meeting, Kuleba noted that Ukraine is “pretty much becoming a de facto NATO army, in terms of our technical capacity, management approaches and principles of running an army."

A statement by the NATO-Ukraine Council agreed that it was deepening the NATO-Ukraine relationship, vowing that allies would “continue their support for as long as it takes” and declaring, “A strong, independent Ukraine is vital for the stability of the Euro-Atlantic area.” In the statement, Ukraine also committed to reforming the government and security sector as it moves toward a future NATO membership.

David Andelman, a former foreign correspondent for the New York Times and CBS News who now writes Andelman Unleashed, noted today in CNN that President Biden has brought a very clear-eyed set of principles to foreign affairs, making him “one of the rare presidents who has accomplished something quite extraordinary: He has carefully defined and quite successfully defended democracy and democratic values before a host of existential challenges.”

In the Middle East he has defended Israel, which The Economist’s Democracy Index identifies as the only democracy in the Middle East and North Africa, while also trying to restrain the Israeli government and to get humanitarian aid to the Palestinians, all while (so far) keeping Iran and Hezbollah from spreading the conflict. Andelman also called out that Biden avoided the direct conflict with Russia that Russia's president Vladimir Putin so clearly wanted, supporting Ukraine but delaying its admission to NATO and ratcheting up military aid slowly enough that the U.S. did not get directly involved.

Biden is defending democracy where it has a foothold and can survive and then prosper, Andelman says, noting that he had little interest in continuing to send U.S. troops to Afghanistan, where it seemed clear democracy “never really took root.” Andelman writes, “Its ill-conceived and improbable ‘elections’ were little more than window dressing on a deeply flawed and corrupt kleptocracy that America had been backing with the bodies of thousands of its troops.”

Defending democracy “is something that makes [Biden] tick,” Andelman writes, “and remain appealing to others, as I’ve seen in so many parts of the world.”

The administration has also been crystal clear that its approach to governance at home is also designed to protect democracy by demonstrating that a democracy can do more for people than an authoritarian government, but in a speech at a campaign reception in Houston, Texas, Vice President Kamala Harris acknowledged that voters somehow don’t seem to understand that transformation.

Even as former president Trump threatened to use the government to silence press outlets he doesn't like, Harris noted the billions of dollars invested in infrastructure and clean energy, allowing the U.S. to be a global leader in new technologies; the cap of insulin at $35; rural broadband and the clean-up of lead pipes; and pointed out that all of the things the Democrats have accomplished are “incredibly popular with the American people.” The challenge, she noted, is getting people to understand these transformations, and which party is responsible for them.

“[T]here’s a duality to the nature of democracies,” Harris said. “On the one hand, …it is very much about strength—the strength that it gives individuals in terms of the protection of their rights and freedoms and liberties. When a democracy is intact, it is very strong in its capacity to lift the people up.” But, she added, “It is also very fragile. It is only as strong as our willingness to fight for it.”

Today the Democrats’ economic program got another boost with the news that the economy grew faster in the third quarter than previously reported, coming in at a blistering 5.2%, and that a record 200.4 million shoppers visited stores and websites on the five days after Thanksgiving, the traditional start of the holiday shopping period. That number reflects people’s confidence in their own finances, but also that the economy appears to be cooling and there are therefore bargains to be had.

A new analysis by the Treasury Department shows that the Inflation Reduction Act, which puts money into climate change technologies, is delivering investment to communities that have benefited least from the economic growth of the past few decades. Today, President Joe Biden presented his case for his economic policy directly to one such community in the Colorado district of MAGA Republican mouthpiece Representative Lauren Boebert.

Biden visited CS Wind, the largest wind tower manufacturer in the world, which is expanding its operations in Pueblo, Colorado, thanks to the IRA. Boebert voted against the IRA, calling it “dangerous for America” and saying it was her “easiest no vote yet.” But the new $200 million expansion will create 850 new jobs, and CS Wind has already hired 500 new employees. And a solar project in the district will bring both power and as many as 250 jobs.

The White House listed the many projects underway in the district thanks to the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, including nearly $30.2 million to redesign and revitalize streets and $160 million for a 103-mile pipeline that will bring clean water from Pueblo to 50,000 people in southeastern Colorado. Boebert called the law “garbage” and “wasteful” and said it was “punishment for rural America.”

“President Biden made a commitment to be a President for all Americans, regardless of political party, and he’s kept that promise,” the White House said. “The Biden-Harris Administration will continue to deliver for workers and families in Colorado’s third congressional district and across the country—even if self-described MAGA Republicans like Representative Boebert put politics ahead of jobs and opportunities created by Bidenomics.“

Biden was even blunter. After listing the benefits the new laws have brought to Boebert’s district, he said: “She, along with every single Republican colleague, voted against the law that made these investments in jobs possible…. And then she voted to repeal key parts of this law, and she called this law a massive failure. You all know you’re part of a massive failure? Tell that to the 850 Coloradans who got new jobs.… It all sounds like a massive failure in thinking by the congresswoman and her colleagues.”

LETTERS FROM AN AMERICAN

HEATHER COX RICHARDSON

#Mike Luckovich #Heather Cox Richardson #Letters From An American #Biden Administration #Israel-Hamas war #Bipartisan Infrastructure law #defending democracy

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thepictoblr · 7 months

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"We're going to make work pay! Next year we're raising the minimum wage by a whole of 18p! When you work hard, the Conservatives got your back" sir i desperately need you and everyone in your party to kill themselves

#I HATE THE UK I HATE THE UK I HATE THE UK I HATE THE UK #trash island shitty pile of tyrannical laws that cobbled together a nation whose 'unity' is built on ancient bloodshed #and continues to create its infrastructure on the corpses of the poor

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kp777 · 10 months

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By Zack Budryck

The Hill

July 10, 2023

The Interior Department announced Monday more than $650 million in Bipartisan Infrastructure Law funding to plug abandoned oil and gas wells. The $660 million in funding, available to 27 states, will go toward the plugging of so-called orphan wells, or wells abandoned for extraction by the oil and gas industry.