Musk: violates a federal law by giving away a cool million every day until election day

Feds: “let’s fine that guy $10,000, that seems like a pretty serious amount for a fine”

“The Democrats are using their power to push an alarmist and false narrative that there is a problem accessing contraception,” said Louisiana Sen. Bill Cassidy, the top Republican on the Senate Health, Labor, Education and Pensions Committee.

If he really meant this, there’d be no problem passing a bill to protect contraception access. If there’s already no problem getting it, and you’re not intending to prevent people from getting it, a bill protecting access is at worst window dressing and harms no one.

I can only conclude they are intending to find further ways to prevent people from getting contraception, and don’t want this bill to get in their way.

A lot of his base admires precisely those qualities you mentioned. They dig the idea of someone who appeals to their shared prejudices and wields power capriciously and cruelly. Either because they think he will wield that power on their behalf, or because they wish they could wield that kind of power themselves and are enjoying it vicariously by watching him do it.

Hey, as someone who only ever drinks decaf, I’m all for something that tastes like coffee but has zero caffeine!

Gas I do not use so I do not care.

I don’t own a car and don’t use gas either. But my food, clothes, toiletries, mail, and lots of other things I need all probably required gas in order to get to me. If you live in a city, especially a US city, chances are high that you rely on gasoline a great deal just to get food, even if it’s only indirectly.

Every time I see news like this, I remember that Leona Helmsley quote:

We don’t pay taxes; only the little people pay taxes.

Just as a possible counterpoint to this: Lebanon has been highly divided by sectarian conflicts, mainly between Christians and Muslims, but has managed to stay a cohesive state since its founding in the 40s.

Don’t get me wrong, I wouldn’t point to Lebanon as some beacon of stability or good governance. But despite decades of problems, including a long civil war, Lebanon’s government and civilian population still exist without a major external power forcing them to stay as a single cohesive state.

If they can do that, maybe a one-state solution for Palestine and Israel isn’t completely unworkable. If nothing else it sure seems like an improvement over the current situation.

What exactly is your plan for the future, if you really believe it’s too late now? Just let the fascists take over and hope they don’t come for you?

I feel like, if the USSR is to blame for modern Russia, then Tsarist Russia shares some of the blame as well

There are way more evangelicals supporting Israel than there are Israeli-Americans, so I’d say mainly evangelicals. And that difference only gets bigger if you start including other conservative Christian groups.

I can’t believe they would expel the only Navy SEAL to ever walk on the moon and win the World Cup twice! This is an outrage!

You’re not kidding!

https://theintercept.com/2018/02/19/hamas-israel-palestine-conflict/

The problem is “for the moment to preserve American democracy and freedom” winds up being every election, unless a genuine leftward push is made at some point down the line.

If that leftward push never happens, every election is a choice between temporarily halting fascism, and allowing fascism to metastasize.

We can expect the anti-choice crowd to ramp this rhetoric up in the coming months and years. Lots of them already like to crow about how we’re a “republic not a democracy” (while having no understanding of what those terms actually involve, or the history behind them).

Once they realize how outnumbered they are they will absolutely abandon consent of the governed as a principle of legitimate government.

Fun fact if you’re not aware: many American police recieved training from Israeli police and military.

https://www.jewishvoiceforpeace.org/2022/03/17/revealed-adl-us-israel-police-exchanges/

https://www.amnestyusa.org/updates/with-whom-are-many-u-s-police-departments-training-with-a-chronic-human-rights-violator-israel/

This is what they mean by all the “real American” rhetoric. It’s a rhetorical shortcut to ignore the increasing popularity of economic and social policies they don’t like and declare the ones they do like are the only ones that count.

“Woke is when I hate something, and the more I hate it, the more woke it is”