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Just going to get ahead of the discussion and say for all those wondering; nation-wide protests that cross the lines of what is normally considered safe protest is probably the only way to get the gun crisis fixed. And seeing as gun violence is now the leading cause of death among children in the US, and many of the same people preventing that from being fixed already tried to violently overthrow US democracy, if this doesn't justify revolutionary action then nothing else really does.
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Mar 27, 2023 19:58
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Desalination will be the answer if A ) the west gets drier, which it is doing, and B ) no one budges on this inter-state dilemma, which I'd give about 50 / 50 chance of happening anytime soon. California is at least well poised to build desalination since they have a lot of land and sunlight to build solar to power the operation, and definitely have the capital to make it all happen. But yeah, things will have to get worse before they consider forking up the initial investments.
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Apr 12, 2023 00:15
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Grater posted:I exactly what I’m saying. I’m illustrating something I’m hearing from on the ground folks from an ordinary corporate lunchroom. I’m honestly can’t figure out if this is right wingers finding a way to cope with their loss, normie folks who buy into the left vs. right fighting or actual lefties who are lamenting their loss. I think it's the regulars buying into the left/right narrative. Most people identity as independent because both parties and thus both "sides" are so toxic and corrupt that most people have ceased to care. Learning that both parties are actually right wing parties, just that the GOP are far right and Dems center right, would take way more time and effort than most people are willing to put into following politics. So from the surface it's boiled down to 2 teams fighting for who cares why. If you spent the time explaining in detail the facts of just how many ways the GOP has been trying to overthrow democracy the average non-political person would think it's just hyperbole. Ignorance is the most successful part of the GOP strategy, they sucker in the easily manipulated and discourage millions more from caring at all. Hence the gutting of education across the board.
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Apr 24, 2023 21:46
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Young Freud posted:FOX stock drop after Tucker got fired cost as much as the settlement to Dominion... Wait so they lost $787 mil to the Dominion suit AND $700 mil in stock value just now? If true then truly lol, lmao even.
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Apr 24, 2023 22:03
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InsertPotPun posted:most galling is none of this loving matters to these people. they just want to "win", they don't care what that entails besides "democrats don't get what they want" I mean a chunk of the Republican party, including their former President and likely future Presidential candidate literally tried to overthrow the existing US Government, so them not caring at all for the well-being of the nation seems a feature, not a bug. This is a daily reminder to not allow Trump to return to that office under any circumstances, US democracy will not survive it.
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May 15, 2023 23:44
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Queering Wheel posted:Even if Biden wins next year, a Republican is probably going to be president again sometime this decade just because of how US voters tend to switch parties every few terms for Reasons The entire party is dangerous, but Trump and the reps who drank his kool-aid are an existential threat. Fascism is built around a central figurehead, certainly the causes of fascism are still there bubbling underneath without a central figure, but history has shown that it needs that figure to catalyze action to break the system. Trump personally tried to do that on Jan 6, the US can't afford to flip the coin on that again. Any danger of action to prevent Trump from taking office is hypothetical, we have empirical evidence for the danger of letting him back in office. At this time I don't see anyone who would replace him, his toadies aren't popular enough to hold the entire nation, and the old-guard Republicans were clobbered by Trump in 2016, and prefer the status-quo anyways. Desantis if he somehow got both the nomination and the win would be horrible, but I don't see him trying another Jan 6. It's seriously looking like the US has the choice of making a viable 3rd party, or forcing out the treasonous parts of the Republican party. Whichever of those seemingly impossible tasks is easier is what US democracy needs to survive.
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May 16, 2023 00:26
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Star Man posted:How do you even get a victory over Donald Trump without the story ending, "And then he dropped dead."? It's crucial to remember he still lost his re-election after a few decades of Presidents consistently running 2 terms. There's a lot to be concerned about, he MUST lose again, but no one is invincible.
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May 17, 2023 21:37
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Civilized Fishbot posted:I don't have any criticisms of the Ukrainian state. I just don't think it makes sense to dismiss the criticisms of others as "victim blaming." Even if those criticisms are literally always stupid or ridiculous, the analogy to interpersonal violence just doesn't work. Some of the political decisions of Ukraine since the war started are less than ideal, but in regards to how and why the war started, I literally see no way they could have improved their situation. Right from the beginning of this; in 2014 Ukraine was in the middle of a popular revolution, they were entirely focused on fixing a historic internal political crisis, Russia decides to annex Crimea and invade Donbass with literally zero provocation. It's 2014, Ukraine is not in NATO, not even working with NATO and the prospect of joining was on no-one's mind.... until Russia invaded them. Cut to 2022, Ukraine has been supplied and trained by NATO in direct response to 2014, but up until the bombs start falling on them the official government position is that there would not be a war, they do not move any substantial troops to the borders, they did everything they could to not provoke Russia. Historically most countries would have done a lot more in response to Russia's invasion preparations, it's possible Ukraine could have held more ground had they been more confrontational in the lead up. But they opted to give Russia zero excuses for triggering a war. If Russia's issue was with NATO expansion, they should have pointed their aggression at a NATO country. But they targeted a completely unaligned country in 2014, forcing said country into NATO just as Sweden and Finland have been forced over. Their choice of victim completely deflates even the implication that NATO expansion was what drove Russia to this, Russia imperialism is solely to blame and we should all see in hindsight that all the appeasement of Putin was for naught. The other nail in the coffin for the NATO theory is the genocide Russia is carrying out against Ukrainian culture and language, that also has absolutely nothing to do with NATO expansion and everything to do with Putin's vision of restoring the Empire. To keep it on the level, the US was similarly imperialistic in invading Iraq, just minus the overt genocide of Iraq's language and culture.
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Jun 7, 2023 18:56
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Willa Rogers posted:You think the leading Republican candidate for the presidential election next year shouldn't get airtime? Normally this would be a non-question, buuuut normally a sitting President doesn't incite a coup against his own government to stay in power. Trump should just be in jail, he should not be allowed to run for any office ever again.
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Jun 7, 2023 20:01
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:I don't know how you outlaw specific political parties in an ethical way. Not saying it isn't possible just that I don't know how you'd go about it. This is the issue the left, hell even the center faces, we're rapidly running out of time to use ethical means to solve the political, economic and environmental issues facing us. If Trump regains office I'd honestly put it on 50/50 for removing him from power by any means being necessary because he's already empirically demonstrated he intends to become a dictator for life. That option is well outside what would be considered ethical under "normal" circumstances, but that's what happens when evil is allowed to push the necessary response into the unethical. The US has 2 more chances for solving Trump ethically, 1 is to not vote him in again, the last is if he does get back in to make sure he leaves office again. If he tries to stay in power by force again force in kind will be the only viable response. Or avoid all that by jailing him for any of the thousands of jail-worthy crimes he's committed before the election.
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Jun 7, 2023 21:21
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PostNouveau posted:Yeah, that's true. Honestly, a replacement might be worse because you won't get the random checks on the worst of Republicanism like Trump refusing to listen to war-mongers braying for blood at all times. A replacement MIGHT be worse, but we know Trump did 2 things: 1. was minutes away from war with Iran in the tit-for-tat strikes when he killed their general 2. Tried to personally lead a coup to make himself dictator On top of that, knowing that Trump is a completely loose cannon, his whining about leaving NATO is almost as much of a national security risk as his literal coup attempt. It's always possible some other candidate could somehow be worse, but we know Trump is already an existential threat to the US. The guy needs to be behind bars and disqualified permanently from office, anything less than that is hoping for the best while leaving the gate to the lion enclosure open.
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Jul 21, 2023 18:53
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He just needs to be disqualified from office, preferably by being in prison. This will still seriously piss off the extreme right and likely trigger violent events, but it's better for them to try that when their guy is not sitting in command of the most powerful office on Earth. That they already tried a violent coup on 1/6 means the US legal and political systems already waited too long to take direct action against this threat.
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Jul 24, 2023 23:44
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I AM GRANDO posted:If aliens visit the Earth daily and the Earth is no different than if there had been no aliens, and we can know nothing about them, what does it matter? Why even cover anything up? If you can’t learn anything from recovered craft after 80+ years and you have dozens of examples, who gives a poo poo? That gets at part of my main issues with alien theories. Why cover it up this much. For example; the Nazis were a national security risk. It was important to not tell people we broke the Engima code so the Nazis didn't know we had that advantage. But like, we didn't try to hide that Nazis existed at all. But that's what is happening with what would be the greatest national security threat of all time? Refusing to pin down if they even exist for decades? It doesn't make sense, not practically, nor if they wanted the power to themselves somehow. They certainly aren't in league with the aliens cause this has gone on for far too long and there's been way too many unwanted shifts of power within both parties for that to be plausible. Them working with the aliens would be the only reason to be this cagey with the essential evidence to support this concern, and that's not the case. And Elon "I like X" Musk wouldn't be beating NASA at their own game to get to Mars if they had even an inkling of access to interstellar tech. And Trump would have spilled the beans because he obviously has zero interest in the stability and security of the US. "Oh they don't tell the President?" also makes zero sense. The people who would have ostensibly benefitted from this information have not done so. For all the might the oligarchs have over the masses they still die of cancer, can't get out of low-Earth orbit, and can get personally torn to pieces in a popular uprising like every other human with power across history.
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Jul 26, 2023 21:41
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koolkal posted:I personally like the idea that aliens are just sending UFOs here and they're constantly either crashing or getting shot down. Like there's an Alien Space Program out there being run by Alien Musk with Alien Harriers flown by Alien Harrison Ford just constantly exploding, crashing, etc. because they've never encountered such a bizarre atmosphere with weird elements like oxygen and nitrogen and argon in their (interdimensional) space travels. Or maybe they're mostly getting shot down. None in the galaxy shall stand against the power of the F35! So every UFO is basically each transdimensional alien race's equivalent of the Titan Sub incident... That kinda checks out.
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Jul 26, 2023 22:54
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Nelson Mandingo posted:Incoming "WOKE MILITARY!!! How dare you Joe loving BIDEN!! How can men expect unit cohesion with these rules STRANGLING THEM!! Rape is the historical reward for a soldier!!!!" Will? The rule of this era is if you can imagine some phrase that is horribly unhinged, bigoted and fully mask-off, it has already been uttered in earnest. Let's call it Rule SS; it's like Rule 34, except instead of obscure nerd porn it's fascist discourse.
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Jul 29, 2023 00:41
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Jaxyon posted:because fascists don't get and don't care about art See also conservative "Trekkies" complaining about Trek being "woke" and "political" Missing the forest for the trees with these idiots I believe is a feature, not a bug.
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Aug 29, 2023 05:36
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Fork of Unknown Origins posted:Really the latter because he would still get the nomination from jail. I realize the constitution does nothing to stop his nomination from jail (super cool "get out of jail free card" there America) but is it possible the GOP might not let him be their nominee by some rule they have/make up? They of course realize he is currently their main nominee, but a chunk of the established GOP still hates Trump and only support him cause they have no spines. Might be a chance to be rid of him.
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Sep 5, 2023 18:27
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Thorn Wishes Talon posted:mccarthy cannot cooperate with Dems because if he does then he loses his speakership I feel like that's half the point of this exercise. The extra insane (aka: literally treasonous) part of the Republican congress will either get what they want (they can't) or sacrifice McCarthy under a bus cause they have to break something if they can't get their way. When the last vaguely sane member of the party votes with the Dems to end the shutdown at the last minute, the traitors will drop their support for McCarthy and hilarity will ensue.
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Sep 27, 2023 23:30
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Alex Jones fans found and stalked numerous Sandy Hooks victim's parents, forcing many of them to move several times. Anything that could make that harassment easier should not be taken lightly, it does make a difference and can enable actual violence.
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Sep 30, 2023 03:27
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Kale posted:Have fun being in the minority on every vote until somebody that is not your candidate ends up with the job then I guess. Like man these MAGA's really unironically genuinely think that they have the majority of the populations support and that most people outside of their shitheel "own the libs" voting districts are even remotely into any of their antics. Their strategy is break everything enough until they can wiggle a way into power through everyone else keeping their powder dry forever. Or break things until the next chance to use actual violence to take over. It's a bad and literally treasonous strategy, but they don't care they will try anything to get what they want.
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Oct 3, 2023 23:23
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I AM GRANDO posted:Has this happened in any other countries in the last 25 years? Like not even regional powers or whatever, but like any loving countries with legislatures in this century? This seems like a profound systems failure. Your fellow neighbors to the north just had our Speaker of the House resign after getting the entire government to provide a standing ovation to an oops, actual Nazi during Zelensky's visit to our Parliament. Same title name, different position, but was definitely an embarrassment that will have repercussions when we have our next election and will mar the guy's career forever.
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Oct 4, 2023 00:30
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Jesus III posted:Extremists always think, "if we get more extreme, we'll get more support!" I'd say Trump getting in would be evidence of that working, but it's backfired since then. Usually extremism only gains more power if they're able to leverage violence or break the law and no one stops them.
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Oct 18, 2023 19:44
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Ither posted:Guess the republicans should get some paddles. Don't give Jordan ideas, he's clearly into public S&M. There's got to be betting pools out there for when Jordan calls it quits. Assuming Price is Right rules; I'm betting after the 4rth vote with 180 votes before he quits.
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Oct 20, 2023 18:03
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mannerup posted:think Republicans need to follow Trump's advice and vote for Jesus Christ as speaker, let the courts decide on the legality of it He would tell Israel "those who live by the sword die by the sword", everyone right of center would call him an anti-Semite, he would remind everyone he is a Jew, then he'd be immediately expelled from the chair.
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Oct 24, 2023 22:24
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Well that could not possibly be more on brand, but I think Tolkien would still be pretty pissed that his works were being used unironically to work for the exact evils he was trying to warn us about. We need a word for this paradox of conflict; how tempting it is to use the words and weapons of one's enemy, but doing so quickly turns one into the same, if not worse than said enemy.
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Nov 8, 2023 20:05
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Hieronymous Alloy posted:In theory, sure, but from what I've read, cognitive biases remain even when you're aware of them and trying to compensate for them. That's where humility and forgiveness come in. People, including ourselves WILL mess up on the very positions we care for the most. We all do it, and it will always happen at some point. Give as many people the benefit of the doubt as you can; maybe they made a mistake and try constructive, non-personal critique to correct their position. Then also apply that to yourself when you are being critiqued; maybe you did mess up, maybe they are trying to help constructively but probably don't know the best way to convey that to you specifically. Of course everyone has their patience limits, assess each hill individually if it's worth fighting on or not. The exception is for people in power, the cost of having greater responsibility is being held to a higher behavioral and rhetorical standard. We can't afford letting them screw up as often as the average citizen, if they can't take that heat then they need to get out of the kitchen. Or is the case for seemingly half of politicians these days, legally removed from said kitchen.
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Nov 16, 2023 19:44
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SpaceX launches most of the secret defense space missions, which include satellites and that mini-shuttle that stays in orbit for a while before gliding back down. The guy who mostly owns the rockets needs to know some info about the payload that would normally be rated some level of secret. But yeah Musk has proven that he can and will influence a national strategic resource on a whim, to the detriment of the US or it's allies security goals, they keys should have been taken away when he started messing with Ukraine's access to Starlink.
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Nov 17, 2023 18:41
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Retro42 posted:Any discussion of Biden campaigning on the economy has to be set alongside the counterpoint that Trump will ABSOLUTELY push that Biden is ruining it entirely after Trump made it the strongest ever or some other bullshit. Whatever nuance there may be on the topic is just going to end up as Republican talking points and not helpful discourse unfortunately. Anyone willing to listen to literally anything Trump says is a lost cause. People that voted for Biden in 2020 might care about nuance and they're the ones that need to be convinced to come back. Not saying Biden is doing a good job at convincing them, thus far he's not. But discourse in the US is no longer about convincing the other side to join you. Everyone is just pulling from independents and new voters.
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Nov 24, 2023 23:59
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Took this long to smash 40,000 phylacteries.
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Nov 30, 2023 02:54
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zoux posted:Sure sounds like they knew it was DOA "This is not a traditional negotiation. Give us everything we want or we all die" The GOP are a strategic threat to themselves. It would be nice if a bunch of voters next year stay home for the wrong reason of the GOP not being able to funnel more cash to the IDF. I admit it would be impressive incompetence for the GOP to keep this stupid game going until next October. But lately they have acted with truly historic incompetence, so that doesn't seem too far-fetched now.
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Dec 4, 2023 23:41
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zoux posted:So why don't you believe the majority of people who say they are doing fine? This shouldn't be a surprise; one of 2 governing parties in the US is committed to making voters as stupid as possible. To the point of giving the military difficulties finding new officers because average education standards have fallen so low. The GOP is fine having the economy, military and their own personal safety be compromised if they can convince more people to join red team because they don't know any better. There will unfortunately be strengthening of holocaust misinformation as a side effect of the Israeli government making themselves this year's villain. Some young people will understand the nuance, but others definitely will not.
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Dec 8, 2023 22:08
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Push El Burrito posted:https://twitter.com/Travis_in_Flint/status/1736571140762403170?s=19 is this bad? I mean if he was trying to attack Biden thankfully he went about it in a very dumb and unlikely to succeed method. A country packed to the gills with guns, and he tries to ram to Biden with a car, when Biden is constantly surrounded by a phalanx of cars when he travels. So it seems dumb both ways. Either an extremely dumb way to try to attack Biden, or an extremely dumb way to get to work faster. We'll find out what this was once the guy's socials are dug up. edit: Beaten, it nothing, drive slower folks.
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Dec 18, 2023 05:00
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theCalamity posted:So you have a group of Palestinian and Arab Americans whose optimal preference is for a permanent ceasefire. How would voting for Biden as he continues to support Israel with arms and refuses to call for a ceasefire make their optimal preference come to fruition? As much as the Democratic party is treating the primaries as a foregone conclusion, since they are technically not over, finding and pushing an alternate Dem candidate would be Arab American's best choice right now for getting a better future for Palestine. If Biden is the Dem nom as expected, he's still the better option, but granted a very bad one as opposed to the worst possible one. Cause Trump made things worse for Palestine during his term, and he will make things even worse both for Palestine and the US if he gets a 2nd term. There is unfortunately only 1 answer to "but there's no way to get any one but Biden to be the Dem nom" and that is try harder. Not trying to be coy with that statement, but it is a simple fact. If Americans want better nominees than the current establishment they need to get more involved. Orthanc6 fucked around with this message at 22:09 on Jan 5, 2024 |
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Jan 5, 2024 21:53
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:Literally 40% of all transatlantic shipping comes through there. It has nothing to do with Israel, you silly billy. It's a side effect, this wouldn't be happening if Israel wasn't bombing Gaza, which in turn *might not be happening if the US was not so staunchly supporting Israel. So no the US is not bombing Yemen on behalf of Israel, but the events are causally connected. Granted it's possible Israel would have bombed Gaza the same if US withdrew support on the first day of bombing, and the Houthis might still have taken to attacking shipping in response because it's the tool available to them. Either way this tire fire is getting worse.
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Jan 12, 2024 02:17
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So last time Iran bombed US bases in Iraq it was over their General getting murked on a whim by Trump, and that Ukrainian passenger plane got shot down by Iranian AA, and full-on war was averted enroute cause someone somehow convinced Trump that going all the way would be bad. So this will be as the saying goes, "interesting times".
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Jan 15, 2024 23:35
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volts5000 posted:I feel like point number two is missing the point of Trump's Muslim ban. Trump's ban didn't give a poo poo about what religion you practiced. He cared about where you came from. So it didn't matter if you, as an Arab-American, practiced Christianity or Islam. As far as he was concerned, if you came from an Arab country, you were not welcome here. Why does it seem like people are sugar-coating the horrible poo poo Trump did while he was president? I feel that's caused by a couple factors coming together; Biden being spectacularly bad at dealing with Gaza, people memory-holing what happened during Trump's term, and the effect of billions of dollars fueling the right-wing disinfo sphere and then that leaking out everywhere. I've had to remind multiple left-leaning people that Trump would be objectively worse for dealing with the Gaza crisis. He's the one that decided to recognize Jerusalem as Israel's capital, which shows his hand fully on how he feels about Palestinian statehood. And his itchy trigger finger towards Iran should say everything we need to know about how he "negotiates" with anyone else opposed to US interests in the region. Both parties are to blame for this situation, and the Dems being the one "in power" right now it makes sense people would focus more ire towards them. But yes, Trump-the-dove syndrome is definitely real outside chud-space and it should be shot down wherever it appears.
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Jan 26, 2024 23:17
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Flying-PCP posted:Do democrats think they're doing some kind of 4d chess, where the republicans will be too dysfunctional to push the bill through, and then they can attack them in campaign ads about not really being serious about wanting the border closed? It's a pretty big carrot they're offering the GOP in return for Ukraine/Israel military funding. Which the Dems are only willing to offer cause those are both extremely important politically and practically for them. But I don't think the GOP will bite. Even though they would love for Trump to have this power next year if he wins, letting Biden have it now lets the Dems actually take real action about one of the GOP's biggest gripes. As we've seen from them shooting their own feet off several times last year, the GOP would rather kill the hostage than let their opponents get a single win.
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Jan 27, 2024 02:37
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Timeline where I un-ironically think Taylor Swift would be the better candidate is a hell of a drug. Trump got the office with zero experience and tried to burn everything down, and the country didn't completely explode... yet. Someone who can actually care about a few people besides themselves would literally do better.
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Jan 31, 2024 05:32
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