The States : red states in a race to the bottom

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

That's why the only Confederate flag that really mattered is the all-white one.

 

[Handyman]

Christopher Webb (@cwebbonline.com)

Miami just canceled its November election & pushed it to 2026. No public vote, just canceled. Mayor Suarez & Joe Carollo get to stick around an extra year. This feels like a power grab. If one city can delay elections for “participation,” what’s to stop others from doing it to silence opposition?

bsky.app

 

[aparch]

Jesus Fucking Christ. Even the Booster Club I was a part of a decade ago held a full member vote to change the bylaws just so they could make the board two year terms and split the elections up so half the board would be year one, other half year two, so the entire board wasn't rolling over every election.

Does Roberts Rules of Order mean nothing to anyone anymore?

 

[Handyman]

Mamdani shows the pathway to victory for Dems...and they respond by distancing themselves from him. The Dems are becoming a major problem and dare I say, the enemy.

The guy is not antisemitic but you know who is...the Dems who pretend he is because he is Muslim. That is the crap Glen Beck is saying and Faux.

The Dems are using faux antisemitism to try and hide their fear of a Dem Socialist. Guess what phuckwits you are just a different shade of racist. Stop using us...

 

[Handyman]

Peter Sterne (@petersterne.com)

A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 60% of Democrats sympathize more than Palestinians, while only 12% sympathize more with Israelis. But the same poll also found that 83% of Democrats believe prejudice against Jews is a serious problem in the U.S...

bsky.app

Angus Johnston (@angus.bsky.social)

Literally nobody wants to hear this, but on Israel/Palestine Mamdani is a mainstream Democrat. [contains quote post or other embedded content]

bsky.app

 

[Slap Shot]

View attachment 658

Mamdani shows the pathway to victory for Dems...and they respond by distancing themselves from him. The Dems are becoming a major problem and dare I say, the enemy.

The guy is not antisemitic but you know who is...the Dems who pretend he is because he is Muslim. That is the crap Glen Beck is saying and Faux.

The Dems are using faux antisemitism to try and hide their fear of a Dem Socialist. Guess what phuckwits you are just a different shade of racist. Stop using us...

Speaking of which:

Cheri Jacobus (@cherijacobus1) on Threads

https://youtu.be/5uGQjz31jnE?si=BBNma_KM5ts-I8k4

www.threads.com

Why aren't Dems doing DAILY BRIEFINGS? Especially now with the Trump Big Ugly Budget Bill!​

 

[Kepler]

A recent Quinnipiac poll found that 60% of Democrats sympathize more than Palestinians, while only 12% sympathize more with Israelis. But the same poll also found that 83% of Democrats believe prejudice against Jews is a serious problem in the U.S.!

Both can be (are) true.

There is anti-Semitism in the US. The Israelis are deliberately committing genocide in Gaza. Both things are true.

I expect Bibi to use Jews as a human shield to protect him from ouster and eventual trial at the Hague. That's his best gambit. I expect Republicans to play along to demonize Muslims and Democratic politicians for their own cynical ends. That's what they do.

But why would any liberal help them?

Dem Members and pundits: when they come for the Muzzies and you say nothing, they're coming right back for the Jews with the second train.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

I may be wrong, but something tells me the atheists and dissident academics will be black-bagged before they outright target American Jews.

 

[Handyman]

This should end well...

 

[SJHovey]

This should end well...

I'll admit that I've never really understood the attraction to this. Isn't Texas basically setting up some sort of system like those private systems already in place where you buy gold and it's (supposedly) held somewhere for you, and then you just use a credit/debit card to pay for stuff, and they "deduct" it from your gold holdings?

The thing is, no one is every paying you in gold. So, basically, after you spend whatever you invested in your initial purchase (plus or minus the price fluctuations, I assume?), you just end up buying more gold to have someone hold for you.

What I don't understand is that if you think gold is that great, and that important of a hedge against inflation or future events, why are you "spending" it.

I suppose it's great if the price of gold is rising. You put $3000 in a savings account, you can only spend $3000 on your card. If you put it into some sort of "gold" account, and the price rises, I suppose you get a little additional purchasing power. But don't you pay taxes on that increased value, if you bought the gold for $3000 and got $3500 in value out of it? I guess I'm not sure. And what happens if the price drops?

 

[ScoobyDoo]

It's the same idiots who believe in Crypto. And just like everything else about 5 people are going to get rich off of it while the rest lose everything.

 

[Handyman]

I have zero idea what the point of it is...even if it made sense fiscally gold is so unwieldly it is beyond stupid.

 

[FadeToBlack&Gold]

So, there was one thing in Mallory McMorrow's book that I did sort of agree with. When people consider their political positions, most of them need a story they can emotionally relate to if you're trying to change their mind. When you come at someone who barely graduated high school with facts and figures, to them it sounds like another lecture from a smug, overeducated liberal, and they immediately shut you out. You have to try to appeal to and connect with these people on a more emotional level.

Now, I'm not saying Scooby should go talk to his violence-minded MAGA neighbor again - that guy is clearly a lost cause. I'm just saying that I can understand how the way to get people to reconsider their positions is to try and relate to them using personal experience, because we already know that facts generally don't work with MAGA voters. They get "alternative facts" from RWNJ media or just make up their own truths in their heads. Personally, I am skeptical that even the storytelling approach works on men in particular, but when discussing it with my wife, her response was that men are more inclined to listen and believe it if the experience/story is coming from another man.

 

[Handyman]

I mean, that isn't exactly new information...its just something the Dems have always sucked at. Dems treat everything like speaking to the media which is above the average voters comprehension level.

Dems who speak on the level of the voters not only win but are very very popular and not just amongst their constituents.

 

[WeAreNDHockey]

What's that phrase about the simplist explanation being the correct one most likely? In our politics it fits

The democrats blow most at the skill that gets you elected in 21st century in a lot of parts of America. For the most part they don't even try. But there is anecdotal evidence that even this might not be sufficient to get democrats elected; For an example I give you congressman Tim Ryan of Ohio.

He made attempts to speak to people "where they were" when he ran for Rob Portman's seat in the senate when Portman was tucking his tail between his legs and running from a trump primary challenge. Ryan didn't talk down to voters and he sounded like a lot of Ohians. He went far enough in fact that those on the far left then accused his campaign of driving an anti-Asian narrative, because in promises to bring factory jobs back to Ohio he also told of working with trump to keep the Chinese from stealing jobs from hard-working Americans.

It didn't matter. Someone else was on his knees blowing donald trump, and Ryan had a "D" next to his name, so his loss was a foregone conlclusion.

With everything I have seen in this country this century, and especially over the last decade, its obvious to me there are no political solutions to our problems.

 

[RaceBoarder]

So, there was one thing in Mallory McMorrow's book that I did sort of agree with. When people consider their political positions, most of them need a story they can emotionally relate to if you're trying to change their mind. When you come at someone who barely graduated high school with facts and figures, to them it sounds like another lecture from a smug, overeducated liberal, and they immediately shut you out. You have to try to appeal to and connect with these people on a more emotional level.

Now, I'm not saying Scooby should go talk to his violence-minded MAGA neighbor again - that guy is clearly a lost cause. I'm just saying that I can understand how the way to get people to reconsider their positions is to try and relate to them using personal experience, because we already know that facts generally don't work with MAGA voters. They get "alternative facts" from RWNJ media or just make up their own truths in their heads. Personally, I am skeptical that even the storytelling approach works on men in particular, but when discussing it with my wife, her response was that men are more inclined to listen and believe it if the experience/story is coming from another man.

This is the whole point I tried to bring across after the election. The current aura surrounding the D's was unrelateable to the "common man" on the MAGA side. MAGA's can't relate to it in any manner.

 

[Kepler]

I may be wrong, but something tells me the atheists and dissident academics will be black-bagged before they outright target American Jews.

The SCOTUS-approved batting order:

1. Muslims
2. Browns
3. LGBT
4. Civil Libertarians
5. The Homeless
6. Educators
7. The Educated
8. Communists
9. Atheists

Individual Jews will be dragged with whichever group they fall into, but by the end of the list 98% will have been satisfactorily solutioned.

 

[Kepler]

So, there was one thing in Mallory McMorrow's book that I did sort of agree with. When people consider their political positions, most of them need a story they can emotionally relate to if you're trying to change their mind. When you come at someone who barely graduated high school with facts and figures, to them it sounds like another lecture from a smug, overeducated liberal, and they immediately shut you out. You have to try to appeal to and connect with these people on a more emotional level.

Now, I'm not saying Scooby should go talk to his violence-minded MAGA neighbor again - that guy is clearly a lost cause. I'm just saying that I can understand how the way to get people to reconsider their positions is to try and relate to them using personal experience, because we already know that facts generally don't work with MAGA voters. They get "alternative facts" from RWNJ media or just make up their own truths in their heads. Personally, I am skeptical that even the storytelling approach works on men in particular, but when discussing it with my wife, her response was that men are more inclined to listen and believe it if the experience/story is coming from another man.

The best way to get a bigot to change is to be queer or black or Muslim around them. They see you picking kids up from school and struggling to pay bills and suddenly you aren't a scary abstraction being screamed about by a pundit, you're a person.

There are sociopaths in this world. There are Stephen Millers. But they are rare. All hate springs from weakness, and nearly all bigotry springs from ignorance. The trick is to be gay around a Republican without also being murdered by him.

 

[Kepler]

This is the whole point I tried to bring across after the election. The current aura surrounding the D's was unrelateable to the "common man" on the MAGA side. MAGA's can't relate to it in any manner.

"Real Amurca" isn't real anything. It's a fucked-up mirror universe.

 

[Slap Shot]

The best way to get a bigot to change is to be queer or black or Muslim around them. They see you picking kids up from school and struggling to pay bills and suddenly you aren't a scary abstraction being screamed about by a pundit, you're a person.

There are sociopaths in this world. There are Stephen Millers. But they are rare. All hate springs from weakness, and nearly all bigotry springs from ignorance. The trick is to be gay around a Republican without also being murdered by him.

There are plenty of people in-between Miller and someone that's simply never been exposed to a minority enough to realize they're just as human.

I have an uncle that I've never heard utter a slur in my life. He's the type that would give the shirt off his back to anyone - LGBTQ, black, Hispanic, etc. He's had some as neighbors and I've never once heard a complaint from him. But God forbid him voting in favor of gay marriage for instance. He's not a white nationalist nor a Bible thumper, and I don't think those like him are small in number.