The only people he’s going to exempt from taxes are billionaires.

edit: OK, maybe also some multi-millionaires

And she did still win the popular vote.

You hit it on the head. The unmarked vans, unbadged troops, people “disappearing”–those were their practice drills and how they’ll do it. Uniformed troops will also be used in some situations (like the mass deportations), but the ones doing the daily dirty work against any demonstrators, specific political targets, etc. (“the enemy within”) will be those incognito forces. 😧

Who said electoral victories translate into pressure for a given policy? Voting them into office gets them to where they have power and can then be pressured to wield it for our benefit, which is a different type of political action than an election. Voting in elections is how you try to get people who are closest to the values you’re looking for into office–and the primaries are as important as the general for that.

Organizing around an issue, speaking out with meetings, in the media, with protests, etc., calling attention and building up support for a cause–all those things exert pressure on elected officials. Read about movements in American history – the civil rights movement, women’s liberation, etc. and BTW you want to know a movement that was very effective? The fucking Tea Party movement, which led to the maga takeover of the republican party.

For some reason (lack of proper civics education in schools is part of the problem), people have this simplistic idea that all they have to do is go vote for a president every four years, get pissed that they don’t like the choices, and assume that the POTUS is supposed to somehow magically fix everything, not understanding the other branches of government involved, and when it doesn’t happen fast enough or at all, they get pissed and either vote for someone else or give up and don’t vote or fall for a populist conman or get violent or whatever. That’s not how it works!

No wonder we’re where we are today. I’m sick of even talking about it any more. If people refuse to educate themselves about how our system of government is supposed to work and act accordingly then it’s over, and we as a country deserve to fall into the fascism brought to us by the people who did make the effort to figure out how to achieve their agenda and went out and did it.

Maybe this columnist thinks he’s “shaken”, but I doubt it. The reason he acted in a more moderate way before was that the Christian Nationalist justices didn’t have a strong majority and the ability to impose their agenda with impunity. The minute they had a 6-3 majority, he knew they could do whatever they wanted, and they have.

The only thing we can do about it now is elect as many Dems as possible to the House and Senate and pressure them to impose term limits and expand the Court, things that should have been done a long time ago.

And please, regardless of whether you think your vote for POTUS will count, vote anyway and fill out your full ballot because you have much more influence on your State legislature and local offices, which is where so many things that affect your life are decided.

I see several comments wondering why Stone hasn’t been put in prison. He was, but Trump pardoned him (and a bunch of others)

From his Wikipedia page:

On January 25, 2019, Stone was arrested at his Fort Lauderdale, Florida, home in connection with Robert Mueller’s Special Counsel investigation and charged in an indictment with witness tampering, obstructing an official proceeding, and five counts of making false statements. In November 2019, a jury convicted him on all seven felony counts. He was sentenced to 40 months in prison. On July 10, 2020, days before Stone was scheduled to report to prison, Trump commuted his sentence. On August 17, 2020, he dropped the appeal of his convictions. Trump pardoned Stone on December 23, 2020.

The devices were for Putin’s personal use, not for the people.

Really good article, thanks for posting.

the A/C comment is in reference to the USA in general.

But what we are all saying is that it doesn’t apply to the USA in general, it’s different in different parts.

It’s 93 here today and I’m not using the AC, haven’t turned it on for several weeks. That’s because it’s autumn and the hot days are fewer and further between now, and the lows are getting down into the 50’s so in the house it’s only 78 right now (which is comfortable for me, that’s what I keep my AC set on during the summer). If it was 93 but August instead of October, you can bet I’d be using the AC. The overnight lows at that time of year don’t go below the 70’s and the house would never cool off to 78 without it.

Point is, the US is a very large country with lots of different climates, which the people who live in them are acclimated to. Northerners are acclimated to the cold so the 70’s feel very warm to them, while they feel perfect to me where I live. In even hotter areas 70 may feel cool. Of course that all depends on the humidity as well.

I lived in western Montana (cold and dry climate) back in the 80’s. I don’t know how it is there now with climate change, but most people didn’t even have air conditioners at all back then. There was no need. Even in the hottest part of the summer it got chilly or even cold at night. The house would hardly have time to heat up, you could regulate your inside temp with strategic opening and closing of windows at different times.

In many of the responses I can tell which part of the US they visited by the things they list as weird. It’s funny that they think the entire country is like some particular city or area.

The climate is different in different parts of the world, you see. But if you want to live through a Texas summer without A/C, go for it and enjoy.

The ACA was mostly designed by a republican (Mitt Romney). So it’s designed to let companies keep making big profits on health care which should be never be for profit. Then some of the important stuff that would have made it more affordable got kicked out by the courts, such as letting states (including mine) choose not to expand medicaid which left many people unable to get either medicaid or ACA. Still even with all the problems, it’s a hell of a lot better than things were before the ACA when millions of people with pre-existing conditions couldn’t even get insurance at all. But like you say there is still a lot of corrupt shit going on in health care that needs fixed, such as “pharmacy benefit managers” jacking up drug prices and lining their own pockets 😠

Unfortunately, many people do think that, at least about the president. I often see posts on Lemmy complaining that Biden hasn’t done various things that he doesn’t have the power to do. They don’t teach civics/government in schools any more.

I wonder how they would go about all this. Medical records will have to be divulged to the State so it can track who is pregnant. They’ll have to outlaw home pregnancy tests, including buying them through the mail. Otherwise women could privately find out they’re pregnant and go out of state for an abortion without the State knowing. They’ll also have to monitor phone and email communications for everyone, not just the pregnant person, to make sure any attempt to contact out of state health providers is intercepted. Or maybe they’ll just slap an ankle bracelet on pregnant women.

They’ll probably also enact laws like the abortion travel ban that Amarillo, TX has on the ballot this November:

The ordinance, first proposed by anti-abortion activists, aims to forbid the use of the city’s roads and highways to seek an abortion out of the state. It would punish anyone aiding a woman seeking the procedure, including by providing funds or transportation, and be enforced through private lawsuits, similar to a 2021 state law that prohibited abortions after about six weeks of pregnancy.

Ending the electoral college and changing to popular vote for the presidency is a very important goal and young people should commit to make it your life’s work, because that’s how long it will take to get a constitutional amendment done, and only if a sustained effort is made.

In the meantime we can also work toward other goals than can help:

1. Expand the size of the House of Representatives. The population is now way too big for the number of representatives we have, each representing 1/2 to 3/4 of a million people or more, when the founders envisioned a ratio of 1 per 30,000. Obviously we can’t achieve that ratio, but there are several good proposals out there to make it more fair.

2. Statehood for Washington, DC and Puerto Rico (they deserve representation! and it would add 4 more senate seats).

Then there’s our representation in the Senate. Our population is distributed very unevenly among the states which get two senators each. Each Wyoming senator represents less than 300 thousand people; Each California senator represents about 20 Million people (2017 figures). By 2040, 2/3 of Americans will be represented by 30 percent of the Senate, and only 9 states will be home to half the country’s population [1]

What can be done about this? What about splitting the most densely populated states into 2 or 3 states? Highly unlikely to ever happen, but it’s an idea. Then there’s the idea of population redistribution. This is happening all the time anyway, but people could consciously choose to move into lower population states where their vote would count more (and cost of living is lower). With remote work much more acceptable these days, it should be easier for people with certain kinds of jobs to do, but it would also need investors choosing to start businesses in those states instead of always flocking to the high density states. There is a little bit of that happening but not much. Otherwise I don’t know how this problem can be solved.

[1] https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/politics/wp/2017/11/28/by-2040-two-thirds-of-americans-will-be-represented-by-30-percent-of-the-senate/

People are asking.

Nyet, no one is asking, don’t be silly. 🙃

Foghorn Leghorn sure loves to get attention by acting like an ass.

I keep a list of states I won’t set foot in.

Let me just fix that headline: “Head of insanely wealthy organization that has sexually abused children for hundreds of years feels justified in calling someone evil.”