The mayor of Baltimore drastically slashed crime despite close proximity to Virginia with its lax gun laws and it was a blip in the news cycle and then a return to the only way to stop crime is law and order. We are a cruel, punitive country with a national press that loves facism.
turns out this is a thing a political system can do in defense of itself
Our times are dark not only because of the right's actions but because this evidently needs to be said to those who oppose it.
Yes, 88.9% could. The numbers are all listed in the article. Of course the LLM advocate didn’t read the article…
Wait, do you think “cancelled” just means insulted? Is that what people have been whining about this whole time, being insulted?
How many one letter words are there? That’s got to be a limiting factor on what words qualify. A, I, and maybe O? Are any consonants a word on their own?
People sometimes complain that I criticize Democrats. I live in NYC. All of my reps are Democrats. When they fail to fight fascists, it's my job as a US citizen and a Democrat and a human being to criticize them publicly and call their offices.
Isn’t that AOC’s position?
You don’t think a change candidate would have had a much better shot than someone who refused to criticize the deeply unpopular President at the time?
Federal prosecutors on Tuesday were unable to secure a felony assault indictment against a man who threw a sandwich at a federal agent on the streets of Washington this month, according to two people familiar with the matter.
This is part four of “The Century of the Self”. The Democratic Party is still trapped in the 90s.
You may not like that it takes 100 years to pass some watered down social welfare program because of the constitution but that's also what protects us from dictatorship [some dumb slob does dictatorship in 6 months]
Algorithms guiding our choices has been an unmitigated disaster for culture, “AI” will only make it worse.
Well for one thing he wouldn't be doing this if not for the upcoming primary. But beyond that I promise you nothing he's doing is predicated on what people on here think. He has focus groups of conservative suburban voters and big money donors, that's the extent of his understanding of the world.
So what are you complaining about? Seriously, no one is saying he has to stop, people are saying that he still sucks because he does.
I haven’t seen anyone argue against that, only that he’s still awful and shouldn’t be the Dem nominee. Even if he were to personally bring Trump down he still shouldn’t be President, why is that so hard to understand?
Seeing people in the US of States glazing Newsom's dank memes and being all "Gavin slayyyy" is giving Starmer Fever 2024 and, American pals, it's equally embarrassing to witness.
I don’t really understand what the end game is supposed to be for the billionaires who are backing him. Even if he pulls off the coup he’s almost 80. Putin was 47 when he took power. Does anyone actually expect MAGA to survive under Vance or Don Jr? It seems like a bad strategic move on their part.
These are the grievances that were elevated above things like police violence and access to healthcare.
The marketplace of ideas, like the economic free market, looks great on paper but neither can cope with the power of concentrated wealth that capitalism creates. Liberals will somewhat acknowledge this for economics (though they provide no solutions) but somehow think it doesn’t apply to speech.
It’s because the alternative is to admit the Democratic Party and centrism failed people by only offering them technocratic incrementalism when what they wanted was someone to fight for them against this obviously rigged economic system.
i think people need a refresher on what constitutes a Distraction. the cracker barrel logo thing (zero stakes, obviously invented controversy) is a Distraction. the ongoing military occupation of washington dc (ample footage of random delivery drivers being violently detained by feds) is not
And now both Yglesias and Breunig will be working for the Koch brothers while calling themselves representatives of “the left”. www.semafor.com/article/08/1...
So it’s backed by the Koch brothers? That tracks.
This moment should horrify us, but it shouldn't surprise us. Because what we're seeing--from AI to authoritarianism--is the dystopian end result of decades of neoliberal policy.
Are there ways you (and your colleagues) would rebuild the system differently? Or is it mainly a question of funding? I’m thinking of the issues with reproducibility, publish or perish, and grants clustering around specific fads.
The bloodbath was entirely self inflicted. If Obama had gone after Wall Street instead of shoveling money towards them when people were justifiably angry it would have turned out much differently. And no, the bailouts didn’t all occur under Bush and they weren’t all paid back in full. QE happened.
They aren’t lying, they have no concept of reality. Nothing they “say” has meaning. When they reproduce a correct string of words they’re not operating any different than when they reproduce an incorrect string of words.
It happened to Epstein the first time he was convicted. He also got work release to go to his “office” every day.
Dude… slate.com/news-and-pol...
CostPlus can raise prices tomorrow if they want. They are building their brand right now and offering deals. Of course you should be happy you can afford those meds in the short term, but a better system is possible and people like Cuban prevent the real solutions to these problems.
The difference was the New Deal existed and even the Republican Party was all in on large public works programs (like Eisenhower building the interstate highway system). Social democracy is still a capitalist ideology, it’s just the least bad capitalist ideology in many ways.
And property rights meant only the next generation of slaves could be freed by the 13th and 14th amendments? C’mon, this is a terrible argument.
Stop calling it artificial intelligence. I think if people understood what LLMs actually are they’d be far less likely to give it so much weight. It’s an updated Eliza, a fancy magic 8 ball. When you pretend it’s something more you fool people into imposing deep connection that doesn’t exist.
This is just deeply depressing: women who spoke up during #MeToo often found their lives upended, as powerful men used defamation suits to target them, e.g. Roy Moore is still suing many of his accusers. What Happened to the Women of #MeToo? www.newyorker.com/magazine/202...
I’m not sure using LLMs is the best approach for this type of research. LLMs are inherently backward looking, as are most of the algorithms that social media was originally built on. You can’t build a cage and then pretend that people are naturally inclined to stay in it.
The real scandal here is how deeply embedded Mothership is with the Democratic establishment. It was founded by DCCC alumni and continues to work closely with party leaders. It’s way worse than I thought. And it’s infuriating they continue to allow preying on people to enrich consultants.
The annoying spam texts destroying the Democratic brand: $678M raised through those spam tactics $282M to one consulting firm: Mothership Strategies. $11M to actual campaigns (1.6%) The party isn’t just treating donors like marks—it’s being fleeced itself yet continues to back Mothership.
From Adam Tooze’s “Wages of Destruction”. It’s important to understand the role of business under fascism. This passage should be taught in schools.
![THE WAGES OF DESTRUCTION outcome there will be no retreat ... if the election does not decide ... the decision must be brought about even by other means'. Hitler did not take questions from his audience, nor did he spell out exactly what was expected of the business leaders. Hitler had not come to negotiate. He had come to inform them of his intentions. And his audience can have been left in no doubt. Germany's new Chancellor planned to put an end to parliamentary democracy. He planned to crush the German left and in the process he was more than willing to use physical force. At least according to the surviving record, the conflict between left and right was the central theme of the speeches by both Hitler and Goering on 20 February. There was no mention either of anti-Jewish policy or a campaign of foreign conquest? Hitler left it to Goering to reveal the immediate purpose of the meeting. Since German business had a major stake in the struggle against the left, it should make an appropriate financial contribution. 'The sacrifice[s]', Goering pointed out, 'would be so much easier... to bear if it [industry] realized that the election of 5 March will surely be the last one for the next ten years, probably even for the next hundred years.' Krupp von Bohlen, the designated spokesman for the business side, had prepared extensive notes for a detailed discussion of economic policy, but confronted with this bald appeal, he thought better of introducing tedious details. Instead, he confined himself to stating that all present would surely agree on the need for the speediest possible resolution of the political situation. Business fully supported the goal of establishing a government in the interests of the German people. Only under a strong and independent state could the economy and business 'develop and flourish'. After this exchange of nationalist platitudes, Hitler and Goering departed and Hjalmar Schacht got down to business. He proposed an election fund of 3 million R…](https://cdn.bsky.app/img/feed_thumbnail/plain/did:plc:kv2chjzrvjro2xdpe4lh2npb/bafkreiggwvavcg5pgqqysj5pofmgsae77c537k6u74fv7ekgbxb4t53x6e@jpeg "Click to view full size")
I really need my man Neil Tyson to drag RFK jr. on TV. Someone please arrange it!
So when the consensus in the 90s was for a two state solution we were already on the road to fascism? You are delusional.
You think a vote to stop funding the military of a nation committing genocide is like fascism? What? Where are you getting these bizarre talking points from? I refuse to believe a person could think up this inane line of attack on their own. It makes no sense.
It was in response to 9/11 the way ICE’s gestapo tactics are in response to immigrant crime. It’s a pretext. Dick Cheney was one of the loudest proponents of the unitary executive theory that the Roberts court uses to justify Trumps actions. Liz Cheney worked both in the Bush admin and his campaign.
It was both.
The Cheneys laid the foundations for fascism with the Patriot Act, international torture sites, domestic surveillance, establishing ICE, suspending habeas, etc. All justified as legal and necessary to counter the threat of evil brown foreigners. What atrocities are you defending here?
There’s a reason, it’s to have the lower classes pay a backdoor sales tax to pay for his tax cuts for the rich. That’s all this was ever about. If he had enacted a nationwide VAT people would have freaked out even more, this way he pretends he’s doing it for American manufacturing.
I think the plan is to use the humanitarian crisis to justify forced migration. "We can't feed them because of Hamas so we need to relocate them (and never let them return)."
Most of the internet used to be like this. This is actually the default, it took companies enclosing the internet and adding weird, soul-killing incentives to make people behave the way they do now. In a way, there is truly nothing special about Wikipedia except that it survived longer.
“Instead of dozens of struggling nonprofits all receiving arbitrary grants and subsidies, we could adequately fund a public workforce to provide the needed services directly.” SING IT FROM THE ROOFTOPS & key point abt how lack of progress on core aspects of quality of life has bred toxic cynicism
Fair enough, I appreciate what you're saying.
I’m not trying to tell you what to think about your own life. I’m just offering a perspective on why people who maybe had a more sheltered adolescence view grooming teen girls for a sex trafficking ring to be roughly equivalent to targeting children. I don’t think it’s just about purity culture.
My perspective is different. I remember feeling adult as a teen, but the older I get the more I look back on HS as a part of my childhood. I think of teens, especially in modern times, as closer to childhood than adulthood. I think the student loan industry relies on this fact, as another example.
It does if congressional Republicans are spooked about the midterms. They're already in open revolt over Epstein, if they think reining in the administration on tariffs or budget cuts is the only thing that will save their position they will always put self preservation before Trump.
Why don't you read some of the quotes from Epstein's victims. I'm not sure they all saw themselves as "mature adults pursuing partners at their level". In fact, many explicitly say they felt coerced and or forced into sexual acts. And more than one refers to their innocence being taken from them.
Isn’t there a difference between the type of purity culture that says teen girls shouldn’t be having sex with other teens and the type that says teen girls shouldn’t be groomed to be passed around among middle age men? Because the second one is where I think equating them with children makes sense.
I think it’s even worse than that. They are trying to blame Hamas for the mass starvation so they can justify forcibly removing Palestinians from Gaza for “humanitarian reasons”. A government minister said this week that “All Gaza will be Jewish.” www.timesofisrael.com/far-right-mi...
There's never enough money for healthcare or housing, but somehow there's ALWAYS enough money for prisons.
The oil industry buys off Congress. No action on climate. The NRA buys off Congress. No action on guns. Insurance companies buy off Congress. No action on health care. The list goes on and on. Money in politics is the root of our dysfunction.
The article blames Hamas for the lack of food. They are starting to build a narrative that forcibly relocating Palestinians out of Gaza is the only "humane solution" to the crisis they themselves are causing. Please read the articles, especially before giving credit to a right wing source.
Today marks 16 years since the federal minimum wage was last raised. Guess how much the wage would be today if it kept up with worker productivity over the years?
Again: for all the moaning about "the groups" and "online leftists," nobody does as much to undermine Dems as elected Dems. Dem voters are rightly suspicious they'll elect someone like @shaheen.senate.gov who leaps in to save the Trumper who disclosed combat operations via a dubious Signal rip-off.
There are people who think the world is flat. They aren’t being censored, they’re just wrong. If vaccines are bad or global warming is fake you can try to prove it, so far no one has. But you can keep trying! Just don’t expect anyone to care about your pet theory until you can back it up.
“I welcome the administration’s commitment to distribute $75 million of life saving assistance” That doesn’t sound up front to me. It sounds like Rubio can sit on the money if he wants. What makes you think it’s already been disbursed?
I wouldn’t get too excited about this. The article blames “Hamas’ war on humanitarian aid” and says peace is further out of reach because Hamas is using hunger as a strategy. I wouldn’t be surprised if they used starvation to justify forced displacement of Palestinians.
Ask Murkowski how much deals with this administration are worth.
I've already seen MAGA trying out a new conspiracy that Thiel is behind the Epstein story so he can get Vance in power. They're gonna love this.
Grand jury nullification? I doubt most LA residents are inclined to go along with prosecutions in these cases.
"We"? The problem is, *we* aren't building these systems. A very small number of very wealthy companies, controlled by a nearly-as-small group of even more wealthy men, are building these systems. And none of the incentives align with "helping people draw their own, more accurate conclusions".
A very cool technology that allows students to interact with John Maynard Keynes’ ideas as he develops them is called a book
How?
I get what you’re going for, but when people refuse to stop their elderly parents from driving when they are no longer capable they are being bad children. It’s not “admirable” or an “expression of love” to be delusional about your parents’ decline. It’s a sign of adult immaturity.
Awareness =/= power In my opinion the fix requires challenging existing power structures. People are much more likely to minimize or excuse awful things they otherwise disagree with when they feel they can’t do anything to change them. It’s more comforting to justify evil than to fail to stop it.
No, a LOT of them think that. Science may be one of the most social forms of knowledge production we have. Arguably it’s at least as social as creative writing. Actual scientists will tell you this. Yet, millions of people think they can do science alone with an LLM.
Yeah, why would the left be skeptical of a party leadership that supported an independent against a socialist Dem nominee in Buffalo and pushed hard to re-elect a pro-life congressman in Texas while simultaneously not helping left wing incumbents against a coordinated AIPAC campaign? Truly shocking.
If he was an excellent president he would have prosecuted his predecessor for trying to overthrow democracy. Enough with pretending the Democratic Party in its current form is worthy of praise. Yes they are better than the alternative, but that's a ridiculously low bar. Demand better.
He definitely doesn’t know any immigrants.
I’ve often thought about if there were some way to do that with election funding. Yes publicly funded elections, but in the form of “political capital” (sorry) distributed among voters that they can allocate to parties or candidates.
The way to do the Mamdani thing is not to copy the surface attributes of his communication pieces, it's to 1) know yourself 2) stand for something 3) understand and respect your audience
I think that’s true of supporters but it’s kinda reversed for leadership. I have no doubt many Republicans who bent the knee to Trump to maintain their place would be happy to see him go but you still have Pelosi going around calling it a distraction. They all want to protect their donors, though.
The article is about Hurricane Helene, which was 10 months ago. We are absolutely, as a species, not prepared for the impacts of climate change. That's not to say it won't be worse under the right wing "privatize it all, you're on your own" approach, of course it will.
In 2020, we moved heaven and earth to win an election that returned to power Democratic leaders whose core belief was that we were stupid for wanting them to take effective steps to counter authoritarianism.
Really weird to say you’d rather move to the state building concentration camps and banning books than have to deal with free buses! Almost like those who say the Dem establishment prefers fascism to socialism (or even milquetoast center-left social democracy) have a point!
America has the most corrupt political system in the Western world.
And then he said it’s even worse now, so the [has] is fine in context.
Was never a fan but he clearly sees which way the wind is blowing.
Jon Ossoff: “America has the most corrupt political system in the Western world.”
See also: fossil fuel subsidies, bank bailouts, corporate lobbying, etc
"The director of Israel's Mossad spy agency visited Washington this week seeking U.S. help in convincing countries to take hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from Gaza, two sources with knowledge of issue tell Axios." This criminal plan must be stopped.
Three competing “autopsies” - none of which want to talk about the actual problem - is peak Democratic Party. The leaders that got us into this mess are literally incapable of getting us out of it. We need a new generation in power in every sense of the word. www.nytimes.com/2025/07/19/u...
That's not the way I see it. I see right leadership in both countries embracing their extremes, bringing them into the fold, and giving them policy wins. I see "left" leadership in both countries pushing their extremes away, ostensibly to court moderates, but in actuality to placate their donors.
You can make their power weaker by prosecuting their networks for obvious crimes. In addition, it's also politically beneficial. Do you really think the 2010 midterms would have gone as bad for Dems if Obama had prosecuted bankers and they were campaigning on holding the powerful accountable?
Axios: House Dems have procedural tools to try to save PBS and NPR but refuse to use them. “House Democrats are largely shooing away the idea of trying to make Republicans miss their deadline to codify around $9 billion in DOGE cuts to public broadcasting and foreign aid, Axios has learned...” 1/
This is backwards. Take Wall Street fraud. Bush I prosecuted 1000 bankers after the S&L scandal. In 2008 Wall Street was even more powerful than the 80s, and an even larger fraud went unpunished. Impunity follows power, and it’s the perfect target to rally popular opposition to chip away at it.
If you can’t hold “powerful guys” accountable for pedophilia what makes you think you’ll ever get meaningful economic reforms passed against the will of the capitalist class? This case is about how power functions in the world, and it’s an opening to connect elite impunity to our economic system.
The House voted 294 to 134 to pass the crypto industry's CLARITY Act, which creates a regulatory framework for cryptocurrencies without any meaningful consumer or investor protections. Basically, it's a pro-fraud, pro-corruption bill. 78 Democrats voted yes.
Way too many people believe that both politics and democracy is simply when you do an election.
It depends on how scared they are of the Mamdanis of the world. The capitalist embrace of MAGA was always predicated on it being a preferable alternative to any movement towards the populist left. They will choose fascism over socialism (or even center left New Deal social democracy) every time.
Short answer: yes Longer answer that you probably disagree with: we need a more cohesive quasi-religious secular world view that is flexible enough to promote individualism while centering humanity within nature to enable collective approaches to deal with the crises of the modern world
Yes, but they are a bigger tax as a percentage of income on middle class and poor Americans, which allows them to fund tax cuts for the rich. Navarro is telling his version of the truth, they are a tax cut for the only Americans the administration cares about. It's a backdoor sales tax for the rest.
The real “conspiracy theory” is that qanon was an op to deflect MAGA attention away from the Trump-Epstein connection with the added bonus of associating the whole subject with loons so the average lib would reflexively think it wasn’t a real story.