jhymesba

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. Your evidence is not in evidence, so to say. :)

Add another voice asking for sources, but if true, this is great. IMO, we need a strong 50 state strategy ala Howard Dean's strategy from the mid to late 2000s. Abandoning that to focus on swing districts is a huge part of why we're where we are at right now, and why so many Americans think Democrats don't work for them.

We need to be doing this more. Obviously, we need to prioritise our spending, but if there's a chance, like somebody's only 2 points down next to an incumbent Trumper, throw some money their way and let's see what sticks? Lots of people getting frustrated with the Shitgibbon and his merry band of miscreants. Maybe we can get some wins and put the screws to those shitheads.

Yeah, I was about to say this. They're taking passports from naturalised AND native born Americans now. A piece of paper will not protect you from the Gestapo at the border. Cruelty is the point, and you're not going to evade it by playing by the rules. Once you learn the truth of that, not entering the US just makes sense. Put our economy in a vice grip and stay away. That's the only way to run the Shitgibbon out of office.

This shouldn't even be up for discussion. Don't diddle the kids. Don't force people to have sex if they don't want to. Don't have sex with someone you have an unequal relationship with, like teacher and student, coach and player, or employer/employee. Don't expect sex from someone. Unless you're in your teens (and not 18 or 19, either), teens are off your dating card. None of this should be controversial at all!!! Ug!

That it is shows that America is not a moral country and never has been.

If you really wanted to do something about Mamdani winning NYC Mayor, wouldn't you do it way before the day before the election? Or is that just crazy talk?

I know what I'm about to say may get reactionary downvotes, but I think the answer is not overconfidence.

Let's get real. Jan 2021 until Dec 2024 was a rough time all around. Starting with COVID, then the supply chain disruptions that brought, then the bird flu with chickens and the impact on the cost of eggs, and Putin's invasion of Ukraine and the global impact on energy costs, and not to mention the whole rent-seeking, profit-taking megacorpo bullshit we're still living with, people struggled from 2021 through 2024. This struggle was what caused the Shitgibbon to win more than any overconfidence.

Democrats did themselves no favours, either. When Biden ran against the Shitgibbon, people got the impression he was a caretaker POTUS, someone who would stand up for Democracy in 2020 then run as a Lame Duck until 2024, when Team Blue would select the next generation for POTUS. Unfortunately, nobody stood up. Harris was invisible, and not the attack dog I expected her to be. None of the other Democrats stepped up, either. It was business as usual, not the 'Democracy in danger' moment they were portraying it as.

And their handling of Trump? Absolute dogshit. Trump skated on his 6 Jan 2021 crimes, and Death may well take him before Justice does. And obviously, the Dems wouldn't let him skate if what he did was so bad, right? That's what many voters, especially low information voters, think about the whole situation.

So, Fall 2024 rolls in, and you're the typical American voter: a knucklehead who can't see anything that's not directly in front of you, pulled a thousand different directions, and trying to decide what to mark on your ballot for President. Eggs are ridiculously expensive. So are so many other essential groceries. High fuel costs are still in the back of your mind. Your kids are duller and dumber thanks to missing the '21-'22 and '22-'23 school years, and you remember missing your friends at Church, the weekly hangout, and work/school those years. And man, those Dems said that Trump was a threat to Democracy and needed to be gotten out of office so America didn't die or such shit, then 4 years of doing jack and shit and he's back running for office, and you remember that groceries were affordable and you could fill up your car for cheap when Trump was in office, and now you can't do any of that, and so you say "Hey, how bad can he really be?" and you vote for him. 77.3 other knuckleheads join you for various reasons, including looking forward to the American Reich and putting those upity minorities back in their place, and bam. Trump 2.0. As the old saying goes, consider how stupid the average American is, then remember that half of Americans are dumber than the average American.

At least now, Trump's shortcomings are front and centre for a lot of American voters; enough so that 2/3rds of them are saying "yeah, we fucked up putting the Shitgibbon and his Merry Band of Miscreants back in." Small victories!

I'm not going to begrudge the people who think resistance needs to be more kinetic, but that's not who I am. I'm fucking 52 years old and have never been a fighter. I barely know how to punch properly, and while I can shoot a gun, I've never shot a gun while being shot at, and likely would be as much a danger to my side as to the other side. I suspect a whole lot of that 2/3rds we're dismissing in the polling is like me. The protests bring us out. Civil war will have us hiding or fleeing.

And like others have said. Trump was so annoyed by our presence he generated AI slop. We live rent free in his head.

This is an excellent point. Trump brought out 77.3 million votes for his coalition. Meanwhile, 75.0m voted Harris, and 3.0 million voted third party (mix of ideologies, not all would-be Harris votes). Add to that 90+ million non-voters, which probably has some fraction of the 6 or so million voters who voted for Biden in 2020 who didn't turn out for Harris. Convince 29k people in Wisconsin, 80k in Michigan, 120k in Pennsylvania, and like 45k in Nevada to turn out for Harris, and we're not having this conversation right now. We don't need all the cult to switch votes. Frankly, 1% swapping or 2% actually turning out is all we need. And people dooming about how set the Trumpers are seem to be working more to depress enthusiasm amongst Blue Team players than actually save democracy.

How I explain Self-Hosting to the non-techies in my life: "This is me practicing my trade. As a server and systems admin, I need servers and systems under my control that I can experiment with, set up, configure, break, and fix, and self-hosting has a benefit that instead of four computers, two by my wife and two by me, each hosting its own data, I can set up a network storage device where both of us can store our data." Any more than that, and I probably won't go into detail, because I don't ask my accountant friends to go into the weeds about their career and return that favour by not going into the weeds about my own. :)

I think that is exactly what happened. As others mentioned, the Bell Riots led to widespread clamouring for rights in general. Between the 2024 Bell Riots and the 2063 first contact between humanity and the Vulcans, we have, in Christopher Pike's own words, "... the Second Civil War, then the Eugenics War, and finally, just... World War III. This was our last day. The day the Earth we knew ceased to exist. What began as an eruption in one nation ended in the eradication of 600,000 species of animal and plants, and 30% of Earth's population. Global suicide." And what Captain Pike glossed over? Oh gee, you could write whole books on it. Look up Colonel Green. After World War III, he went on an Exterminatus campaign. Everyone who was not 100% genetically pure, such as Augments and mutants from the war, was exterminated by his faction. 37 million deaths were attributed to him, and he was seen as such evil that an alien silicoid race known as the Excalbians made a simulation of him to understand humanity's concepts of good and evil.

So, yeah. The story we get is the realistic story you mentioned. If we are on the Trek timeline, we've got some horrible shit ahead of us. We still have the Bell Riots ahead of us (we're actually past the point in time, but it sure looks like those writers were presentient when they wrote Past Tense Parts 1 and 2 back in 1995!), and we sure seem on course for World War III. The world sure doesn't need Khan Noonian Singh, though. Between Xi, Putin, Kim, and Trump, we have the megalomaniac asshole niche QUITE filled!!!

Absolutely. And while the person is filibustering, he should be placed in a small room, with a lectern, cameras, and a microphone, and must speak on the topic at hand. No reading from the phone book. You best be talking about the bill you're stopping, or any supporter of that bill can immediately call for a vote. And you lecturing doesn't mean the Senate's business stops. Other bills can be called and the only way you get to vote is have someone take over the stand for you while you go vote. Regardless of who's up there, you gotta keep talking about the bill. Make filibusters put skin in the game.

And my point is that while on the surface, your point makes sense, and yes, we are on the road to a bloody civil war, your point rings hollow when seen by someone who looks at people who look like you and me abusing them because their skin is darker than ours. This is a real thing going on. It's a real problem for an awful lot of people. You may think pointing fingers gets us nowhere, but not pointing fingers and calling this out is how we got to where we are now. And frankly, you saying 'pointing fingers gets us nowhere' is your privilege speaking. My beautiful Black wife getting called an ape, an n-word, or worse by people who look like me is more important to me than coddling some racist asshole's feelings. I'm going to call them out every chance I get, and I'm going to call people calling to just look the other way out as well. It's easy to do that, and in my book, it's cowardly as well.

If you're truly on the progressive side of the aisle, please use your privilege to stand up for those who can't. Otherwise, you're part of the problem.