Carrolade @ Carrolade @lemmy.world

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At least 16 Democratic members of Congress donated to Cuellar’s campaign through their campaign committee or leadership PACs during the 2022 election cycle, according to an OpenSecrets analysis of FEC filings. In total, the campaign received some $40,400 in political contributions from other sitting Democrats.

Not sure on 2020 numbers, they're not as quick to find. Not exactly breaking the bank here though. Almost half of his funding that cycle (almost 2 million) actually came from AIPAC, and a lot of the rest from industry and business contributions.

https://www.opensecrets.org/news/2022/08/democratic-leadership-corporate-interests-help-rep-henry-cuellar-fend-off-primary-challenge/

Anyways, details are important. When we look at them, we see a lot more than some sort of "party suppression".

... that's clever.

You'd need some sort of vetting process, I don't think companies would be interested in unvetted randos as part of their security. But if you could figure out a way to vet them inexpensively, that could potentially be marketable.

I suspect this thinking is part of what contributes to Walmart's historic friendliness to car campers.

The national party does not invest all that heavily into individual district primary races. When a few tens of thousands of people at most are voting, there's just only so far money can go. It's very feasible for a candidate with a small staff of volunteers to simply canvas the district themselves.

I'm afraid that conspiracy is not the reason we don't have more progressives in the House.

Bernie is the most popular politician in the country? Regardless though, what popularity he has does not extend to all people who espouse progressive ideas, so other factors are at play.

I also don't see that as a pivot as much as a slow march towards equal rights that dems have been fighting for for decades. And even so, it does not have much to do with the messaging strategy employed by the right. We're not fighting against facts, we're fighting against a messaging framework that paints progressive people as bad while ignoring the content of progressive policy proposals.

or realize that America is just not that moderate.

I think we can look at the House of Representatives for a better representation of how moderate/progressive the electorate is. Where a statewide or national election requires a lot of money, a single district is much more accessible for a candidate with a smaller staff to campaign in.

I think the real crux of our problem is the distance between how people feel about individual progressive policies vs how they feel about progressive people who espouse all those policies. The right has been very successful at linking the culture war issues to progressives and demonizing them as SJWs, to distract from actual policy proposals.

Study of history.

People have been prophesying the end times for millennia now, for this reason or that reason. I think that ultimately they just don't like the basic fact that change of some sort or another is inevitable in the world, it will not remain static and no system or institution will last forever. This does not result in any concrete end, however.

To quote Morpheus, "I remember that I am here not because of the path that lies before me, but because of the path that lies behind me."

There's also a fair bit of profit-driven exaggeration in just how bad things really are in certain arenas. Bad news makes good clickbait, good/neutral news less so. So the ratio of bad to good news we receive is not actually representative of the full picture of what is happening in the world.

Yeah, especially since Rogan is supposedly a sports fan himself.

If Rogan accepts him on his show, I'll actually gain a touch of respect for him.

Biden didn't actually violate the Leahy Law. Here's the relevant section:

No assistance shall be furnished under this Act or the Arms Export Control Act to any unit of the security forces of a foreign country if the Secretary of State has credible information that such unit has committed a gross violation of human rights.

with a later amendment that included DoD-derived funding.

Which units got arms that were engaged in rights violations? I understand that isn't very satisfying when we know Israel has committed war crimes, but the law does not specify country, it specifies military unit. So, which unit should be barred from receiving arms? The others will still be able to legally receive them in full compliance with the Leahy Law.

Then we also have:

(b) Exception.—The prohibition in subsection (a)(1) shall not apply if the Secretary of Defense, after consultation with the Secretary of State, determines that the government of such country has taken all necessary corrective steps, or if the equipment or other assistance is necessary to assist in disaster relief operations or other humanitarian or national security emergencies.

This clause frankly creates a legal loophole the size of a Merkava.

edit for formatting

Mother Jones is run by a nonprofit funded by reader donations. I'm sure some billionaires probably donate to it, but so do others.

The article specifies that the bullet votes claim used incorrect numbers. The man lied, or was misinformed or something.

Witness was just one example of one type of evidence I would accept. Many forms of fraud can happen that can be witnessed. I also listed others.

Don't forget the FDA's aggressive suppression of exercise.

It's not too different from the oxygen masks on an airliner: secure your own mask first before you help others. You always have to make sure you're healthy and well first, and then you can focus on taking care of business.

Given the blow to morale this had, I have nothing against people that need to take a break for their own wellbeing. I don't think most are permanently out of the game though.

What specific irregularities? I haven't heard anything credible yet. This article is about how some of the irregularities being claimed are actually falsehoods people made up, the numbers they use are incorrect.

Evidence could really be anything, a witness, a whistleblower, a report of some sort. A shift in voting patterns doesn't really qualify is all, since that happens all the time, and is very normal.

I'm asking about guilt because you are so laser focused on it. Why? What is the value you see in focusing on it? What does it matter who is at fault for them being uninformed, so long as we understand they are uninformed?

I'm saying we know they are uninformed, and it does not matter who is at fault for that. You keep bringing up how it is their fault, though. Responsibility, fault, guilt, call it whatever you want. Why do you care so much about it specifically? Do you see "uninformed" as some sort of excuse perhaps?

You need evidence to justify a recount when they're normally only expected to shift the results by less than a percentage point. They're not cheap, you don't just do them whenever people feel like it.

No, I'm saying that discussion of innocence and guilt is a pointless distraction from the important parts of the conversation. It's irrelevant, it doesn't matter. There is nothing illegal about listening to gop bullshit, so it's a pointless red herring to focus so heavily on it.

What do you perceive the benefit of focusing on guilt to be? What's the point?

Whether someone is informed or not is something that can be objectively analyzed. It had nothing to do with responsibility or guilt. Either they know or they don't, it is an entirely separate topic whose fault that is.

Actually, I'd argue that due to isolation from mainstream news sources, quite a lot of them are uninformed. Was their specific tiktok account putting the info into their feeds? If not, you can get uninformed.

The protests this month also drew out younger people who were not around for past marches. Kira Miller, a 19-year-old student at the University of Richmond who attended a protest in Washington, said she believed that failures in the education system cause young voters to be uninformed, and therefore apolitical or apathetic; marches can help bridge that gap. “There is power in the visual impact of protests,” she said, “and in the attention that they bring to issues.”

She's got a point.