#the gop can't govern

[tomorrowusa]

« Since Republicans took control of the House following the 2022 midterms, the U.S. has faced a crisis of governance. Unable to quit their own petty infighting, caught up in ugly leadership squabbles, and unwilling to move without the blessing of Donald Trump, Speaker of the House Mike Johnson now commands a Congress well past the brink of disaster. After being unable to pass necessary legislation and wasting endless hours on a faux impeachment inquiry of Biden that is going nowhere, Republicans have generated such a maelstrom of incompetence that it’s putting millions of lives and the stability of the planet at risk. »

— Mark Sumner at Daily Kos.

George W. Bush is undoubtedly relieved that because of Donald Trump, Dubya will not be remembered as the worst president of the 21st century. Similarly, Kevin McCarthy must be delighted that "MAGA Mike" Johnson makes him seem almost competent.

Republicans simply can't be trusted to govern. They view government only as a device with which to conduct culture wars.

Speaker Johnson's only qualifications for office are that he has Trump's approval and the (conditional) backing of the so called Freedom Caucus.

Help limit the tenure of "MAGA Mike". Support the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee to put Republicans back in the minority in the House of Representatives.

Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee

#republicans #us house of representatives #118th congress #speaker of the house #“maga mike” johnson #tool of trump #worst speaker of the past century #gross incompetence #the gop can't govern #dccc #vote blue no matter who #election 2024

[reallystellacadente]

I was ready to declare this the best Dark Brandon meme, and it certainly is top shelf but ...

then this came along and I am torn. AYBABTU references still win my heart!

#politics #trump #dark brandon #fuck up the gop #i'm no biden stan #this shit's just funny af #and at least biden can do some governmenting #the bar is pretty low after Dolt 45 #can't wait for the perp walk #don't come at me #i said i'm not a stan

[alizarddidit]

oh I need to not make myself angry reading shit about why the kids are voting third party this year

#smidge smudging #can't even say it's the boomers fault this year I know FULL WELL its the 18-35 bloc #because none of y'all know how our government works #and don't realize that all of his failures are because the gop set him up to fail

[odinsblog]

🗣️THIS IS WHAT INCLUSIVE, COMPASSIONATE DEMOCRACY LOOKS LIKE

Minnesota Dems enacted a raft of laws to make the state a trans refuge, and ensure people receiving trans care here can't be reached by far-right governments in places like Florida and Texas. (link)

Minnesota Dems ensured that everyone, including undocumented immigrants, can get drivers' licenses. (link)

They made public college free for the majority of Minnesota families. (link)

Minnesota Dems dropped a billion dollars into a bevy of affordable housing programs, including by creating a new state housing voucher program. (link)

Minnesota Dems massively increased funding for the state's perpetually-underfunded public defenders, which lets more public defenders be hired and existing public defenders get a salary increase. (link)

Dems raised Minnesota education spending by 10%, or about 2.3 billion. (link)

Minnesota Dems created an energy standard for 100% carbon-free electricity by 2040. (link)

Minnesota already has some of the strongest election infrastructure (and highest voter participation) in the country, but the legislature just made it stronger, with automatic registration, preregistration for minors, and easier access to absentee ballots. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded the publicly subsidized health insurance program to undocumented immigrants. This one's interesting because it's the sort of things Dems often balk at. The governor opposed it! The legislature rolled over him and passed it anyway. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded background checks and enacted red-flag laws, passing gun safety measures that the GOP has thwarted for years. (link)

Minnesota Dems gave the state AG the power to block the huge healthcare mergers that have slowly gobbled up the state's medical system. (link)

Minnesota Dems restored voting rights to convicted felons as soon as they leave prison. (link)

Minnesota Dems made prison phone calls free. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed new wage protection rules for the construction industry, against industry resistance. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a new sales tax to fund bus and train lines, an enormous victory for the sustainability and quality of public transit. Transit be more pleasant to ride, more frequent, and have better shelters, along more lines. (link)

They passed strict new regulations on PFAS ("forever chemicals"). (link)

Minnesota Dems passed the largest bonding bill in state history! Funding improvements to parks, colleges, water infrastructure, bridges, etc. etc. etc. (link)

They're going to build a passenger train from the Twin Cities to Duluth. (link)

I can't even find a news story about it but there's tens of millions in funding for new BRT lines, too. (link)

A wonky-but-important change: Minnesota Dems indexed the state gas tax to inflation, effectively increasing the gas tax. (link)

They actually indexed a bunch of stuff to inflation, including the state's education funding formula, which helps ensure that school spending doesn't decline over time. (link)

Minnesota Dems made hourly school workers (e.g., bus drivers and paraprofessionals) eligible for unemployment during summer break, when they're not working or getting paid. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed a bunch of labor protections for teachers, including requiring school districts to negotiate class sizes as part of union contracts. (Yet another @SydneyJordanMN special here. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a state board to govern labor standards at nursing homes. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a Prescription Drug Affordability Board, which would set price caps for high-cost pharmaceuticals. (link)

Minnesota Dems created new worker protections for Amazon warehouse workers and refinery workers. (link)

Minnesota Dems passed a digital fair repair law, which requires electronics manufacturers to make tools and parts available so that consumers can repair their electronics rather than purchase new items. (link)

Minnesota Dems made Juneteenth a state holiday. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned conversion therapy. (link)

They spent nearly a billion dollars on a variety of environmental programs, from heat pumps to reforestation. (link)

Minnesota Dems expanded protections for pregnant and nursing workers - already in place for larger employers - to almost everyone in the state. (link)

Minnesota Dems created a new child tax credit that will cut child poverty by about a quarter. (link)

Minnesota Democrats dropped a quick $50 million into homelessness prevention programs. (link)

And because the small stuff didn't get lost in the big stuff, they passed a law to prevent catalytic converter thefts. (link)

Minnesota Dems increased child care assistance. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned "captive audience meetings," where employers force employees to watch anti-union presentations. (link)

No news story yet, but Minnesota Dems forced signal priority changes to Twin Cities transit. Right now the trains have to wait at intersections for cars, which, I can say from experience, is terrible. Soon that will change.

Minnesota Dems provided the largest increase to nursing home funding in state history. (link)

They also bumped up salaries for home health workers, to help address the shortage of in-home nurses. (link)

Minnesota Dems legalized drug paraphernalia, which allows social service providers to conduct needle exchanges and address substance abuse with reduced fear of incurring legal action. (link)

Minnesota Dems banned white supremacists and extremists from police forces, capped probation at 5 years for most crimes, improved clemency, and mostly banned no-knock warrants. (link)

Minnesota Dems also laid the groundwork for a public health insurance option. (link)

I’m happy for the people of Minnesota, but as a Floridian living under Ron DeSantis & hateful Republicans, I’m also very envious tbh. We know that democracy can work, and this is a shining example of what government could be like in the hands of legislators who actually care about helping people in need, and not pursuing the GOP’s “culture wars” and suppressing the votes of BIPOC, and inflicting maximum harm on those who aren’t cis/het, white, wealthy, Christian males. BRAVO MINNESOTA. This is how you do it! And the Minnesota Dems did it with a one seat majority, so no excuses. Forget about the next election and focus on doing as much good as you can, while you still can. 👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿👏🏿

👉🏿 https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1660846689450688514.html

#politics #minnesota #social justice #culture wars #this is what democracy looks like #republicans are evil

[pluckyredhead]

I just realized the fundamental disconnect for people who think they can "boycott" voting:

People who threaten to withhold their vote are thinking of the government like a business. If you don't like what a business is doing, you can refuse to shop there, and that hurts them.

But your government is not a business, no matter how much the GOP tries to pretend it is, and refusing to participate doesn't hurt it. If you refuse to vote, you still have to live under that government. I know we're all fundamentally broken by late-stage capitalism, but you get that you can't "Well, you just lost a customer" this one, right? YOU AREN'T A CUSTOMER.

Refusing to vote isn't like refusing to buy McDonald's. It's like walking into a McDonald's, handing the cashier $20 (because you still gotta pay taxes whether you vote or not), and saying "Surprise me."

(Oh and during this particular trip, one of the two McDonald's options is maybe not your favorite food, and the other is deadly poison.)

[qqueenofhades]

What are tankies?

They are the truly insufferable Online Leftists whose one and only political theory is "America is responsible for all the bad things in the world ever and no other country, government, or group of people has any agency at all, this is very progressive of me." If that sounds like a vast oversimplification, it's actually not. They have, at best, a middle school grasp of history, social studies, civics, politics, etc; it's like they learned about American imperialism in ninth grade and can't shut up about it or adapt any more nuanced or complicated view of the world. They are often also big fans of not voting and/or encouraging other left-leaning young people not to vote because in their view, the Democrats are as bad as or actually worse than the Republicans. Needless to say, the Kremlin is extremely vested in continuing to support and promote all of this.

I have likewise written posts about how the American left has a problem with denouncing Russia, since they still have an old-school, unreconstructed view of the USSR as the "triumph of socialism" and which is wrong on about 800 different levels. Tankies likewise tend to subscribe to old-school Marxism or Communism (you know, as if the entire twentieth century didn't happen) and have some jumbled Baby's First Commune idea of how society would work, thus revealing that they actually know nothing about globalism and capitalism while pretending to oppose both. They are often virulently misogynistic and think that race, gender, religion, etc are irrelevant; the only valid struggle is The Class Struggle. Some of them, particularly Glenn Greenwald and that horrible Briahna Joy Gray chick who used to work for Bernie and was a big proponent of "don't vote for Hillary Clinton because SCOTUS isn't important," have gone full-fledged Russian fascist cheerleaders, because Putin hates America, they hate America, and therefore they must be friends! Which, you'll note, is functionally identical to the GOP extreme-right Lunatic Caucus buddying up to Putin for the same reasons.

Anyway: tankies suck, they are wrong about literally everything, they're an insult to every actually progressive or historical-minded person with a basic grasp of reality, and the fact that their rhetoric has pervaded so far into young left-identifying political and social spaces, and is often taken as gospel by the members of those spaces, constantly drives me crazy. So yes.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts

[darantha]

biden is facilitating a genocide. that’s enough of a reason to not vote for him

100% is. But since you seem to be caring about the events in Gaza, you are aware that Trump's spiritual advisor who was literally holding bible study groups in the White House is one of the evangelical preachers who is very much pushing a zionist agenda, right? That plenty of GOP legislators subscribe to the same faith, that Jesus' second coming is right around the corner and that they'll be at his side when he wages war on the heathens.

It won't get better under a Trump administration.

I'm in Sweden. My family is from Finland. There's literally cups in our kitchen that have a 'Made in the USSR' stamp on the bottom.

Trump is openly threatening NATO. Ukraine will get sold out in a heartbeat if Trump gets re-elected. The GOP are openly trying to strip away everyone's rights, and disrupting governmental procedures because they're not interested in actually solving issues like the border and immigration, since that takes away their scare tactics to turn out voters.

So yeah, Biden sucks, and it's so shady that nobody's been allowed to challenge him, but you can't refuse to help plug a hole in a boat, then complain you're drowning when it sinks.

Staying home and not voting don't make you more righteous. But if you do vote, you'll keep the actual madman and his cronies out of the white house. Because only one political party in the US, unfortunately, is still interested in governing.

And you all deserve so much fucking better. Unfortunately you won't get that by refusing to participate in democracy.

#not art

[comeonamericawakeup]

"Have you heard about the president who received money from China and other foreign countries?" asked David Graham.

No, not Joe Biden- his predecessor, Donald Trump. Republicans have launched an impeachment inquiry based on their suspicion that Biden shared in the payments his son, Hunter, got from Ukrainian and Chinese companies, even though they can't find any evidence. But the GOP couldn't care less about the proof Democrats released last week that while president, Trump received at least $7.8 million from China, Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, and 17 other countries. While in office, Trump created blatant conflicts of interest by taking millions from foreign governments seeking to influence him by spending lavishly at his hotels, golf courses, and condos. The Constitution's emoluments clause prohibits public officials from taking such foreign payments- but Trump simply ignored it. This would be a huge scandal for any other officeholder, but GOP "patsies" like House Oversight Committee Chairman James Comer rationalize the corruption away by saying Trump "has legitimate businesses," unlike Hunter Biden. If Trump is re-elected, the GOP has given him carte blanche to fill his pockets with more foreign money.

THE WEEK January 19, 2024

#vote blue #us politics #lock him up!

[anexperimentallife]

"anyone asking you not to vote is part of a far right psy-op" you can have any opinion you want about voting but please do not spread misinformation especially when most of the people who aren't voting anymore are marginalized communities who are tired of nothing changing. dumbass

As a member of a marginalized community who is tired of nothing changing (and who left the US but is being forced back by medical issues), I stand by my statement. The far right is excellent at weaponizing people's anger to their own ends, and you're a perfect example. "Part of a far-right psyop" includes people who have been unknowingly duped into supporting it.

Far right (openly): "We have to keep people away from the polls, because that's the only way we can win and force our vision on the US!"

You: "Doing exactly what the GOP openly says they want, letting them win so they can further victimize the already-marginalized, enact a nationwide abortion ban, finish filling the supreme court, other judiciary positions, and top military appointees so they can dictate for decades to come will really show those Dems! Sorry immigrants and asylum seekers, sorry people who need abortions, sorry, people who rely on social security, Medicare, and Medicaid, sorry people who want to be able to protest without being shot by US troops, sorry for people who want access to birth control, sorry people who need better wages to survive, but owning the Dems by refusing to vote is more important than your lives. And letting the far right win will also somehow convince the Dems that running far right candidates is a losing strategy."

I repeat: The far-right has stated over and over again that the only way they win is by convincing everyone except their base to not vote.

People refusing to vote in order to "punish" the Dems is EXACTLY what the GOP wants. They OPENLY SAY IT.

Another obvious fact I can't believe I have to state: Because of the GOP winning elections, we now have a majority far-right Supreme Court that overturned Roe v Wade.

What do you think they'll do if they regain control of the other two branches of government?

Even now, the GOP is openly talking about enacting a nationwide abortion ban. They're also blocking top-level military appointees so that those positions can be filled under a GOP presidency by GOP/Trump loyalists. You've seen what they're doing with loyalists in the judicial system. What do you think they'll do when they have total control over the military?

Biden is a piece of shit, yeah, as is Dem leadership in general. But we're choosing between one corrupt piece of shit and another corrupt piece of shit, but one who openly talks about eliminating the "vermin" (immigrants, dissenters, etc.) in the US, and a party who wants to eliminate what little social safety net exists. GOP policy has already resulted in the US having more poverty and income inequality than any other developed country.

It's in all of our best interests to keep the GOP from controlling all three branches of government.

You really think allowing a full-on neo-Nazi takeover, allowing a nationwide abortion ban, elimination of the already fragile social safety net, and letting the GOP fully take over all military leadership positions the way they've already taken over the Supreme Court is gonna "own the Dems?"

The people who run both major parties are going to be fine no matter what. This is a game to them. For some of us, it's life or death. If my daughter needs an abortion, or birth control, or wants to protest without having the US Army called in to shoot her I want her to have all of that and more.

Sorry you got pulled into the far right psyop. Blocking ya now.

[antidrumpfs]

Fox News star Sean Hannity is both among former President Donald Trump’s biggest supporters and the primary cheerleader for dubious GOP probes purporting to show corrupt behavior by Democrats. Since Trump himself is a manifestly corrupt con man, sometimes these roles combine in hilarious ways that demonstrate his abject contempt for his viewers. This is one of those times.

Hannity offered a telling hypothetical last month while complaining that the press wasn’t playing along with bogus Republican investigations that attempt to tie President Joe Biden to his son’s foreign business dealings.

“Imagine what the media and how the country and the left in this country would be reacting if Donald Trump and the Trump Organization or the Trump family were making tens of millions of dollars from our top geopolitical foes like China and Russia,” he told his radio listeners. “I can't imagine the left in this country not going insane, but lo and behold, here we are.”

Hannity and company don’t care at all about public corruption, any more than they are truly concerned about proper email management by government officials. They just want to con their audience into voting for Donald Trump and his allies so Republicans can carry out priorities like cutting taxes for rich people and banning abortions

#faux news #fuxnews #fuck fox news

[tomorrowusa]

Clowns have every right to be angry – being compared to Republicans. 😡🤬

Though there's a case to be made that Donald Trump, Gym Jordan, and Matt Gates (among others) would make very good creepy clowns.

Joy Reid spoke with Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD-08) about the dysfunctional GOP House.

If Republicans can't govern then they should resign.

And yes, there's supposed to be yet another vote for House Speaker on Friday. I think it will be the 18th ballot for that leadership position this year. There hasn't been a House Speaker since October 3rd.

EDIT: Gym Jordan has been using Mafia-style tactics to get elected Speaker. Probably advice he got from Trump.

Republicans who voted against Jordan’s speakership bid report menacing calls and threats to their offices

#clowns #creepy clowns #republicans #the gop #us house of representatives #gym jordan #118th congress #republicans can't govern #joy reid #jamie raskin #vote for gym and nobody gets hurt. #nick anderson #election 2024

[old-school-butch]

hey im really glad you're speaking out on this israel/palestine issue. the public opinion is way, way too skewed in gazas favor.

ive been trying to talk to people irl about it, and my circle at least is mostly pro israel, and we all agree that what's going on on social media is insane.

absolutely no one is saying that all the information from gaza is coming from hamas, not to mention the defense of them. and i've never seen so much antisemitism just out in the open. the literal left is out here like "maybe hitler was right" and then call you "pro-genocide" when you call them out.

also, people are falling for propaganda and manipulation at degrees that, honestly, concern me.

Al Jazeera is the propaganda arm of the Qatari regime which, of course, is where the Hamas leadership lives. It's spent years developing a good reputation among lefties because it does - in truth - contain some analysis and information the Western media doesn't focus on. But it's part of a much larger information campaign that's happening that includes Russia and Iran and their social media outfits that aim to destabilize 'the West'. I've read AJ, just like I've read RT news - the Russian counterpart. They are designed to take a leftist argument and then put a spin on it - test the waters for more radical interpretations, push the limits and subtly distort perception. They have different outlets to massage the opinions on the right wing too. The goal is to make a middle ground impossible, and they are succeeding beyond anyone's wildest dreams.

Odds are good that we all follow at least one state actor - there was one here on tumblr that I had followed called, I believe, 'votingwhileblack' - which posted interesting critiques of the U.S. elections. But it was unmasked as a Russian agent, and I looked at the account contents more objectively. Much of it was very worthwhile analysis of U.S. attempts to disenfranchise people from their elections, but it was interspersed with subtle and not-so-subtle nudges - lots of 'don't bother voting, it's all rigged' material, Dems are just as bad as GOP, you can't trust the government at all, unless we do 'something radical' then nothing will ever change, all white people are racist and hatred is a natural response and so on. There are enough people who agree with these sentiments to spread that view, but by leading the conversation, it changes the tone. It makes anyone who disagrees with you the enemy, who is beyond negotiation, and so moderate solutions are discarded. The same is happening on the right and is why online discussion can be especially toxic and uninformative.

These campaigns have been running for years and these state agents have collected a huge amount of data points, floated a lot of arguments and learning which ones will stick. I can see this being applied to the current conflict.

The most striking to me is the word 'genocide' is used in a conflict with - even by Hamas' own claims - has 10,000 casualties. No one seems to question how many of those casualties are civilian and what portion are Hamas soldiers. Hamas claims to have 40,000 Hamas fighters in their 3-500km of tunnels. Hamas has fired thousands of rockets into Israel (and more of them land in Gaza than Israel to be honest, they're not good rockets) and Israel has dropped about 10,000 tonnes of bombs, including bunker busters that penetrate deep into the ground to destroy the tunnels. These are powerful explosions, so just compare that activity with the self-reported casualty count. It's actually quite low. Civilian deaths are always horrible to see, but there's absolutely no evidence that Israel is targeting civilians, much less killing them in large numbers.

But that's no problem if you follow the script - the genocide argument seamlessly shifts to the future, like Israel wants to occupy Gaza and/or expel all Gazans and that's really the genocide in play. I think the most likely long-term outcome is that Israel will occupy Gaza while they try to find a government that is willing to keep working to a 2 state solution, and they will stop employing Gazans - just as Egypt and Lebanon currently does - because it's quite likely that the setup for this operation was done by Gazan workers employed in Israel (the intelligence gathering on security weaknesses, the stolen IDF uniforms etc).

None of these outcomes are good for Palestinians, but they're also not genocide. Or all they all genocide? It's an easy pivot set up to be applied no matter what Israel does, the blame is always placed on Israel. And so by taking a real word with specific meaning, it's now going to be used as a vague accusation that can mean anything to advance whatever argument you want to make against whatever reality is taking place.

Honestly, even the word 'Palestinian' is somewhat complicated. Part of the difficulty of this conflict is this identity that refers to a nation without a state. The Arab desire for statehood in the region grew in the 20s and 30s but they didn't accept the UN proposal in 1948 and instead started (and lost) a war to control the entire territory. But they didn't also accept that loss, or claim Gaza and the West Bank as their own state. Instead, this idea is now the abstract 'Palestinian cause' that exists in almost a parallel world where Israel isn't real, the 1948 war is still happening and justice won't be done until Israel is gone and Palestine is created in its place.

Even 75 years later, there are millions of 'Palestinian refugees' who are the descendants of this movement living in Gaza and the West Bank. Yes, they are 'refugees' even while living in the land allocated for their self-governed state. They live in 'refugee camps' even though they are towns like anything else you'd build after living there for 75 years. But they don't want that land, they want Israel. Half of Jordanians are Palestinian but they don't want that, they want Israel. Southern Lebanon is controlled by Hezbollah but they don't want that, they want Israel. Nowhere else in the world are the grandchildren of refugees still legally considered refugees except here, where they officially ask for the 'right of return' which is to 'return' to the land of Israel (and put an end to the Israeli state) and regain the property or land their ancestors held in 1948. Which should make it really clear why they will always be refugees until they take over the land of Israel - there's always the threat that they will give up on Israel and find some land elsewhere to set up a state. Having sustained this movement for so long, the surrounding Arab states now realize its a potential threat to their own stability, so it's important that threat needs to keep focused on Israel.

If I were Palestinian I would be so angry at the world, because while everyone wants to use you and says they support 'the cause', Palestinian nationalists don't have any real friends. Hamas is an Islamist group that wants to start a global jihad to establish an Islamic caliphate, ideally on a global basis. They started in Egypt as the Muslim Brotherhood and got kicked out to try again in Palestine. The blockades on Gaza make them rich, because they run smuggling operations through their tunnels and extort money from the Gazan population, and the poverty that creates also gives them footsoldiers for their war, because desperate people in a broken country will sign up for their militia just to get a paycheque. It's in their interests to keep Gazans impoverished and at war.

The Western leftists are drawn out to support 'the cause' to atone for the sins of Western colonialism, but that's really just to avoid addressing issues in their own countries. You can chant 'from the river to the sea' all you want, but you'd have to overthrow and occupy Israel to do that, which means killing or expelling every Jew living there and that's not going to happen without an army of about 10 million soldiers and/or a nuke. No one in the West is really signing up for that. they're just following the urge to feel morally superior without actually doing anything and that's just fine for Al Jazeera and all the social media bots working the information campaign of this war.

The liberals of the West are being rallied for 2 goals - to continue the goal of splintering the political climate in the U.S. and affecting U.S. elections. (I don't think young people are even aware of how often the Palestinian cause has been used to influence U.S. elections, going back to the assassination of Robert F. Kennedy in the 60s.)

The other goal is to pressure Israel to stop their campaign before Hamas is fully destroyed and return to the status quo - another ceasefire in a war that began in 1948 and still continues, punctuated by one failed ceasefire after another. It's simplified and autotuned so it sounds like a call for peace, but it's actually a call for the horrible state of limbo to continue, where the cycle can be endlessly repeated and 'the cause' is kept alive to be mobilized again when it's needed.

Palestinian radicals have acted as a state-within-a-state in Jordan, Lebanon and Egypt attempting numerous coups, civil war and assassinations, this is why they no longer accept any refugees from the area. But in the end, where do Palestinian people go? The world eggs them on, but isn't actually going to help resolve 'the cause'. After Israel was created, about 700,000 Jews were expelled from most Arab countries and Israel took them in, ergo they are no longer refugees. Why are Palestinians still stateless after 75 years? The fact that Palestinians don't have a homeland or statehood says a lot about how committed its neighbors are to actually helping them achieve that goal.

In order to resolve 'the cause', you either need to have a 2 state solution so Palestinians can stop being other people's pawns and just get on with their lives, or Hamas achieves its goals and run the world under Sharia law. Both Israel and Palestinian nationalists need to come to terms with the shitty hands they've been given and accept a solution that might not be their ideals, but is better than war that continues for another 3 generations and it's better than living in a global caliphate

Anyway, I've now made 3-4 posts about this conflict and received an insane number of messages about this, ranging from death threats and hostile responses to overly earnest counter-arguments to things I've never said, mostly from people I've never heard from before and aren't in my orbit. And I'm a middle-aged gender critical woman on backwater tumblr getting this level of interference - can you imagine what popular social media accounts are getting? 'All those' people you hear aren't people, they are state interests working in a coordinated campaign to influence the West. And this is how a pro-Palestinian march keeps getting steered to the occasional 'gas the Jews' chant, how Taliban and Al-Quaeda flags keep showing up at the marches, or calls for Biden to be removed from office for his support for Israel (bc Trump is the most useful idiot ever and these accounts want him for president). Hamas et. al. are my enemy, not Palestinians and not Israel. Focus on their actions and you can really cut through the deception to see the strategy. They have really clear goals about what they want, they're making excellent gains by confusing everyone else about what's in our best interests.

[theconstitutionisgayculture]

Same anon that's something the supreme Court question. Why do you say it like they are defending it when I have seen multiple people say they don't care about the Constitution either? Like aren't they the ones that overturning roe v wade and there's a possibility they will make same-sex marriages illegal again with all this project 2025 stuff that's going up?

speaking about that, is Biden actually accomplishing those goals? And please make this very clear with facts. This may require you to write up a longer post about this but I think I really want to understand if that is a fear monitoring thing or if this is another "Dems are bad, gop good" shit

First of all, Roe v Wade was always bad law. The idea that the right to privacy means a right to legal abortions never made sense, morally or constitutionally, and it never should have been in place at all, let alone for as long as it was. The Supreme Court overturning unconstitutional laws and reversing unconstitutional decisions is literally why it exists. The Constitution empowers the court for that very reason. If you want other examples of the court protecting the constitution, just look at the Heller decision, or any of the other decisions rolling back unconstitutional gun laws in the past few years. Look also at Matal v Tam, in which the court unanimously ruled that the government can't ban speech just because it's offensive. Which means that there can be no laws against so-called hate speech in the US, and the Orwellian tyranny you see all over Europe under the guise of combating "hate speech" can never legally happen here. Which is a massive win for free speech and the entire reason the 1st Amendment was written.

As for gay marriage getting overturned, it's incredibly unlikely, since there are zero court cases about gay marriage going on right now and the Supreme Court can't just make rulings out of nothing (much to the frustration of more than a few people, I'm sure) it's basically a non-issue. If you're referring to what Clarence Thomas said about gay marriage in his majority opinion overturning Roe, he specifically said that this ruling shouldn't be used as justification to overturn the Obergefell v. Hodges decision on its own, though he did say that those decisions deserve another look. And he's right. Obergefell is another case of an activist court inventing rights out of thin air. There is no such thing as the right to marriage, for gay or straight people. It should be overturned, and the issue of defining legal marriage should be left up to individual states, as the Constitution intended (see the 10th Amendment).

I've been asked about Project 2025 before, and I'll tell you what I told the last anon, as far as I can tell, it's a pile of nothing. It's a group of policy proposals made by a bunch of conservative political commenters I've never heard of, who, as far as I know, have no connection to any Republican political campaign or the RNC. No one on the right is talking about the project. No politicians have come out in support of it. No campaigns have said they're going to implement those policies. Project 2025 is a left-wing boogeyman, and not even one that's getting a lot of traction in left wing circles since the only time I've ever seen anyone talking about it has been in my ask box and a few fringe far left conspiracy sites that came up when I originally tried to figure out what it was. It's the left attempt to have their own Agenda 2030 to be scared and angry about, except there aren't any international organizations trying to get the governments of the world to adopt their policies.

speaking about that, is Biden actually accomplishing those goals?

So, I really don't know what you mean by this. What goals?

[rickmctumbleface]

We are roughly 60 hours away from a government shutdown, which will cost a lot of people a lot of money, because the MAGA House GOP can't get their act together. BUT, they have time to talk about an impeachment of Biden, even though THEIR OWN WITNESS has said they don't have any evidence to impeach. What an embarrassing 💩 show. This is entirely 100% on the MAGA GOP in the House. Even the GOP in the Senate knows this is insanity.

#house gop #maga #government shutdown

[qqueenofhades]

Don't act like this isn't the Democrats fault. They didn't codify Roe when they had the chance, and now they're paying the price.

Hooweeeee. Normally, I just block these kinds of asks out of hand and go on with my day, but you've caught me at the end of two solid days of Rage, and unfortunately for you, I'm not gonna do that. Instead, just to start, I would like to politely ask the following question:

Hello! Have you ever considered the possibility that you may be A Total Fucking Idiot?

Since there are many of us, present company regretfully included, who struggle with history, let's start out with a quick lesson. Roe was handed down in 1973. It took a while to really get evangelicals hot under the collar, but by 1987, in Ronald Reagan's second term, it had definitely happened. To further the Republicans' cherished goal of overturning it, Reagan nominated far-right whackjob Robert Bork to the Supreme Court. The Democrats, led by then-Senator Joe Biden, fought back on a massive scale and defeated the nomination, leading to Anthony Kennedy joining the SC instead of Bork.

In 1992, another abortion-related case reached the Supreme Court: Planned Parenthood v. Casey, wherein Roe was pretty much reaffirmed in its entirety. By 1992, George H.W. Bush had finished one term, generally underwhelmed the public, and was voted out, thus to be replaced by Bill Clinton. In 1994, in Clinton's first midterm election, the Newt Gingrich Republicans took the House and the Strom Thurmond and Bob Dole Republicans took the Senate. This GOP control of at least one branch of Congress remained the case until 2001, when George W. Bush became president. (Also, the GOP Clinton-era Republicans had other things to do, such as the Lewinsky scandal in 1998, back when they still pretended to have moral values and impeached Clinton accordingly). Considering the fact that any attempt to pass a national law to codify Roe was obviously doomed with Dubya in the White House, since he would have vetoed it, and that the Democrats didn't fully control the House, Senate, and Presidency again until 2009, one might feel that formalizing a twice-affirmed decision by the Supreme Court maybe wasn't the top priority. Abortion rights were and are popular (in fact, that's why the three Trumpists on the SC had to lie to the Judiciary Committee about their plans to repeal it), and Obama had other things on his plate. Like, you know, saving the national and global economy from total meltdown after the crisis of 2008, and trying to jam through the Affordable Care Act in the short time he had before 2010, and once more losing the House to the Tea Party. The loss of the Senate followed in 2014. Once again, we didn't get it back until 2021, when the three wingnut justices were already seated on the Court and Trump had run his reign of terror.

Considering those empirical circumstances, the fact that the Democrats have only had control of all three branches of the federal government for two-year periods at MOST and were busy fixing all the other most pressing messes, and that the Republicans have said for decades that this is exactly what they want to do, I am truly gobsmacked (if not surprised) at the sheer number of morons who want to make this, yet again, the Democrats' fault. Apparently the Republicans are just a force of nature who can't really be blamed or actually considered to have agency; it's only ever on the Democrats for Not Doing Enough To Stop Them. Instead, we now have hordes of told-you-so-ers swarming out of the woodwork and acting like this was a five-alarm fire that the Democrats willfully ignored and/or fanned on. That is incredibly moronic on multiple levels, but hey, that kind of seems to be your Brand. That is, when you're not labeling smug inactivity and self-professed moral superiority as the most pure and correct course of action, but again, we all have our talents.

There was no way for the Republicans to overturn Roe without the exact kind of judicial skulduggery, right-wing extremism, and scads of dark money that finally came together in the perfect storm. (Ever hear of Citizens United in 2010, and the way in which hard-right interest groups have been funding this planned takeover of the judiciary for years? Or does that conflict with your predetermined hypothesis?) Apparently Democrats should have Done More to stop Trump from choosing Supreme Court justices (a Very Smart White Man on twitter made the argument that it was actually Senate Democrats' fault for not stopping McConnell on procedural grounds, or.... something). This was after actual Democrats begged the Holier Than Thous to vote for Hillary Clinton in 2016, explicitly because we pointed out that the Supreme Court was in a precarious position with elderly justices and open seats, and the next president would be poised to reshape it for the next generation. You all laughed at us, more or less openly called us a bunch of bootlicking neoliberal traitors, and told us that the Supreme Court didn't matter and we were all delusional. Then you didn't vote. Then Trump won the election by squeaking out wins in a handful of key states. Then.... well, we all know what happened next.

So tell me, Oh Wise Internet Sage. Where, in what Congress, and according to what actual rules of reality, procedure, and priority, should the Democrats have passed a law to codify a popular twice-affirmed Supreme Court decision that was not under serious threat precisely until this confluence of circumstances took place under the Trump presidency? Be specific, and point out exactly how it would have happened. Otherwise, your argument is bad and you should feel bad.

Biden, Harris, Pelosi, Schumer, Warren, Obama, and all the other prominent Democratic leadership and/or congresspeople have already made strong statements within hours of the draft opinion being leaked. Republicans are screaming in unison that whoever leaked it is the actual story, not the content or impact of the decision (literally what McConnell said today on CNN). The DEMOCRATS DO SOMETHING!!! crowd need to, uh, actually say what they're fucking supposed to do now. Instead you blame RBG, you blame HRC, you blame the Democrats, and absolutely everyone and anyone except the actual people responsible for doing this. You may think it's an enlightened and complex stance that reflects the Realities of the World, or whatever. You may think that Joe Manchin doesn't exist (believe me, I wish he fucking didn't) and that Biden can wave a magic wand and overturn SCOTUS. Do they need to do more? YES! MANY OF THEM HAVE EXPLICITLY SAID THEY WILL BE EXPLORING ALL OPTIONS! BUT WE STILL LIVE (FOR THE NEXT FEW MONTHS) IN A DEMOCRACY AND THAT REQUIRES US DOING OUR JOB AND VOTING IN NEW AND BETTER PEOPLE TO HELP THEM!

I'm sick and fucking tired of this pissbaby whining from the exact same people who make us beg and plead for their vote every single election, feel morally justified in withholding it, and have done literally nothing to advance any of the causes they claim to care about. "Hindsight is 20/20" some of you like to point out, but with the expected irony, you miss it completely when it comes to reviewing any of your own (non) actions and any hint of genuine acknowledgment that your apathy and nihilism helped this happen. So. Suck on that, then go step on a rake. If this should knock some sense into you, we can then talk again.

#anonymous #ask #politics for ts #rant #i'm not gonna take it right now #fair warning

[striving-artist]

so. in your opinion. what are the knockon effects of mccarthy's speakership being so weak? in what ways will that strengthen altrightism or weaken the base gop?

At the highest level, looking at this as how it will effect the citizenry: This will change very little. Unfortunately, that's because almost nothing was going to be passed into law in the 118th Congress. So there wasn't much to reduce. And the critical stuff will get passed with the same amount of pain as it has in previous years. It will be painful, but the government will get funded, and the debt ceiling will raise as needed. The price to do it will make us all sick, but, that's not really new is it?

Drop down from 30,000 feet though...

McCarthy gave away the store. I can't say that enough. The one vote threshold to call for a vote of no confidence is insane. However, I don't think many no confidence votes will occur. What I DO think will happen is that it will be a constant threat. Kevin didn't like your tweet? time for a vote. < that's a joke, but... the minute he caves to a first stupid demand, it's over, and based on the last four days, he has the moral temerity of jello.

The already glacial pace of Congressional action will slow further. If a Democrat makes a statement that Boebert hates, and she demands that McCarthy punish the dem, and he doesn't? She can threaten to call for a No Confidence Vote. Now, obvs, Kevin doesn't want that to actually go down and embarrass him further, so he will placate her. Maybe that means caving to the direct demand, or maybe it means she gets an extra 50k in funding from his PAC. (he did this to get the 14 votes that moved. He gave them money. literally. cash in exchange for the vote. i am not joking. it is that broken in here)

This is going to give the AltRight side of the GoP a lot of potential power. Like. A crap ton of power. But there is a plus side to that. It's power, but in the same sense that receiving a big bucket of gunpowder is a lot of potential power. Sometimes, they'll use it and do things that delight their base and get them interviewed on all the shows, and terrify everyone left of them. And sometimes, they're going to blow their own hands off. Kevin will be forced to let them do what they want, and they have made clear that they want chaos. They do not want a functioning federal government, and when they manage to break something, everyone will know who to blame.

Now this part is me speculating. I know it sounds weird, but: I think that this is going to empower the AltRight in congress, and that will weaken the GoP base.

Not the zealots, they aren't going anywhere. But this is not going to be two years of bragging. It's going to be two years of republican in-fighting, which has gotten very personal, very fast. It is going to be two years of airing grievances on the news and the internet. It is going to be two years of coverage of them fighting and fighting to pass a bill by a margin of one, only for it to be DoA when it hits the Senate. It's going to be two years of the AltRight fucking around, and then rapidly finding out.

There will be people who are on the edge of Strong Support who will drift away from the party out of shame to be associated with it. There will also be folk who double down and love the GoP harder for blowing shit up. The thing is though, Most of America prefers a veneer of centrist civility, and the shenanigans that Kevin's Speakership will encourage are not going to be civil. Most Independents absolutely want that civility. The GoP does not have room to lose support. Texas was a 6pt race in 2020. Texas. The GoP is alive now because of REDMAP. which was hella effective and evil

2022's midterms should have been a bloodbath. The party in power always gets destroyed. That's how it goes. Instead, Kevin has a four seat majority. There was no red wave. There was barely a ripple. All of the things that dems ran on in 22 are going to happen again, but louder in the 118th congress. This congress is going to alienate part of their base in order to keep the others. It is going to be embarrassing for moderates and centrists, and it is going to be a joke every time Kevin has to kneel and beg for permission to do his job.

None of this is a guarantee that the GoP won't gain power or do terrible things, but within Congress, the last four days shot every republican reelection campaign in the foot. Thousands of campaign ads will be made against them using this. They looked like fools, and their opponents will make sure everyone remembers that in 2024

My biggest concern is this: Congressional Republicans have a figurehead now, not a leader, and when there is no one leading a mob, it becomes a riot.

#us politics #kevin mccarthy #wish I could say that this will be a significant drop in action #compared to if this hadn't happened #but lets not lie #the 118th was never gonna get anything done #which means we get to watch them throw tantrums