conditional_soup @ conditional_soup @lemm.ee

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2 yr. ago

He's gearing up for a presidential run, and I'm mostly sure that the DNC wants him for 2028; he's running hard to the right (not that he was ever really far left to start with, FOX made him sound way cooler than he ever was) so that they can try the "run a moderate Republican and see if we can win by peeling off a whole 6 republicans nationally and then shaming the tuned out base when we lose" strategy against Trump for a third time. There for a bit, I would have been pretty okay with voting for Gavin, but it's clear enough to me now as a CA resident that he's the clown prince of shitlibs and he's just desperately scrambling to try and pick up support from DOZENS of moderate republicans all over the country.

About the only thing he's done lately that I agree with is dedicating $1B/yr of California's carbon cap and trade program to CAHSR for the next fifty (I think it was fifty) years, which solves a HUGE problem that's been a big source of delays for CAHSR, which is the lack of predictable funding.

I like to remind the republicans I know that the people they vote for would shoot themselves rather than live like we do. For them, even a middle class lifestyle would seem like crippling, destitute poverty.

E: tbf, it's also true of many Democrats, but I can't think of a single working class Republican legislator and cabinet member. I can think of at least a few working class democrats.

I voted for Harris and I blame the democrats. They knew the stakes, they know the populist moment we're in, and they decided that their best strategy was to take all the excitement and buzz of the new Kamala candidacy and say "we're not going to really change anything; if things suck for you, no they don't, actually, you're just stupid lol; anyway, look, here's Katy Perry and Barack Obama lecturing down to a bunch of black men." The DNC twisted Kamala's arm to make sure she didn't insult Biden by saying she'd do anything different, because protecting the feefees of long standing and well regarded party members is more important than winning or getting shot done. The DNC decided to stack Kamala's campaign with the same staff that lost the HRC campaign. Nobody made them decide that celebrity guest appearances were more important than proposing actually good changes to get out the vote, but here we are.

Israel was still negotiating with Hamas for a ceasefire and release of hostages. A ceasefire deal was even reached.

As I recall, Israel almost always said they would go to these, and then didn't, without even telling the Biden administration they were going to miss it. They'd just dead ass no show and leave the Biden team twisting in the wind. Then team Biden would say "well, okay, I guess we have no choice but to give them more bombs."

Israel reduced but still allowed some foreign aid.

My dude, the way I remember it, we had to build a float dock because Israel wouldn't allow any aid to come in by ground, and for the little bit they did, they murdered the people who tried to get it. Then, the float dock broke up, and we all just kind of shrugged.

Ehh. Is there a meaningful difference between "we'll help you do genocide and pretend to feel bad about it" and "we'll help you do genocide and build a casino on top of the bodies"? One feels worse, for sure, but the functional distinction is marginal.

Oh my God, yeah, that's a latin American thing. When I lived in Honduras, I knew the game was up when I was trying to stumblefuck my way through a conversation and somebody gave me the big grin and enthusiastic nod.

This is genocide. What's more is that even if Israel annexes all of Gaza and the West Bank, people are kidding themselves if they think they're going to stop there.

Let's be real, the Biden administration didn't achieve one single thing to slow things down. While they wagged a finger with one hand, they handed over billions of dollars of bombs with the other. They arranged peace talks that Israel super super promised they'd finally show up to this time and then didn't for the seventh consecutive time in a row, and the Biden administration went "okay" and handed them more bombs. Maybe Trump is objectively worse, but it's hard to imagine that a Harris presidency would be meaningfully better in this particular regard based on the actions, not the words, of the Biden administration.

Edit: to be clear, I voted for Harris, because I still wanted to reduce harm, but I really was expecting the older, more powerful, more pro-genocide voices in the party to be steering the wheel here, not Harris.

I'm away from my computer, can someone please put anime speed lines around Ben Affleck smoking for me? Thanks.

This is ridiculous, awful, and ridiculously awful.

Hey, have you heard of Strong Towns? They're an activist group that's largely focused on helping people influence local policy to build better, human-focused cities with more housing, more opportunities, and fewer cars. I'm working with them to try and make my city better, and while I can't say it's easy, I can say it feels like a worthwhile use of my time and efforts.

I've about had it. If one more shitty, awful thing happens, I'm going to really start hoping that somebody leads the revolution for me.

Just look at them, sitting there, not getting punched by cops. Is that the world you want to live in, son?

Pro-tip: take the bus next time. Who am I addressing? Yes.

Well, we'll provide the service once we buy it from them because they ran it into the ground as a vulture capital operation, and then once we've invested a trillion taxpayer dollars into fixing it up, we'll sell it back to them for pennies.

This kind of shit is part of how I square government-supplied mass transit with libertarian/anarchist views. Cars are the gateway to so much intrusive, authoritarian bullshit, it's actually nuts how people see them as tools of freedom.

It depends a lot on where you are. In the west? 50% of Amtrak stations are out in a suburb or a field or some bullshit like that. In the east, you're absolutely correct. We've basically spent 100 years dismantling, underfunding, and obstructing passenger rail to prioritize cars, and it, uh, shows.

It's probably going to take several fully loaded passenger jets or just two private jets colliding.

Whacko conspiracy time: they're also working on cutting down Amtrak's staffing and cutting funding for rail transit. Gas is expensive af and driving is uncomfortable and slow (not that Amtrak is any faster). What if the plan here is to just make interstate travel so painful that people stop travelling? I doubt it, though, I think this is just extra strong vanilla incompetence. I can't imagine what the point of that would be, for starters.

Did we make America great yet?

Yeah, that doesn't surprise me. I was honestly shocked that Booker did that filibuster at all, but I guess they just really needed to get out there and do a kickflip for the camera.

That's because they ARE trying to destroy the US. We can get into the political-social-economic theory driving it, but the tl;Dr is that thanks to Reaganism and the post-USSR embrace of Friedmanist economics, the US has functionally ceded its governing capacity to the wealthiest few citizens. It's done so slowly and steadily enough that nobody really noticed, but we're now at an inflection point where the wealthy are ready to try Feudalism 2: we swear it'll be better this time because we're the ones doing it.

This is literally, unironically, and without exaggeration what is happening.