Or we could just readdress healthcare since in 2008 we got a more conservative version of the Republican’s plan and then promptly forgot about ever improving it
We need actual progressives to get shit done, Biden and other “moderates” just won’t even try, and want us to be happy for crumbs.
I am not an American so there’s parts of this I don’t get. My national health agency negotiates prices for all drugs, thousands of them so this reads weird to ke.
Article says even these measures are uncertain to become law, does that mean it would be even less likely if something more ambitious was planned?
Medicare negotiating prices is a fairly new thing for the US and something that could ultimately be killed by the supreme court (it shouldn’t be, but we have a majority of extremists on the court).
Why it’s uncertain to become law is because our right wing party (republicans) have historically been completely opposed to any social program. Our “left” party is also fairly centrist and arguably even right leaning in parts so it’s uncertain that even with a majority of them in power that improvements would pass.
The problem we have is the filibuster in the senate. It allows any senator to kill a bill. To overturn it takes 60 votes (out of 100) and the senate is currently split 50/50.
The meager changes we got under obamacare literally happened because a republican senator died which opened the gate to ram through a few pieces of legislation which would otherwise not pass. Obamacare was overall an OK bill with some good stuff in it, but it really just re-enforced the current crazy capitalist market system. That was all the right leaning democrats would stomach. There was talk about an option for using government healthcare but that was quashed.
I know all political systems have their problems and limitations, gotta say that sucks especially the part about one man blocking new laws and also having extremists running a court? That’s literally the opposite of what a court should be in my opinion.
I guess that would make it really hard for anyone, even a president, to put meaningful changes in place.
Over here we have a competent leader totally bogged down and derailed by their party extremists. He could be good, but the system itself means he’s really not. Sounds like America has a version of that too.
I guess that would make it really hard for anyone, even a president, to put meaningful changes in place.
Yup. We can pass legislation that says “hey SC, you are wrong about the interpretation of this legislation so do it right”. However, they’ve invented this “major questions doctrine” principle that basically lets them strike down “big” things that they don’t like.
The only solution to that problem is either justices dying or legislation being passed to raise the cap on justices and the president packing the court. Which runs right into the filibuster problem.
At the beginning of biden’s term democrats nearly nuked the filibuster. However, 2 centrist democrats squashed that.
Democrats only had a Senate supermajority for 72 days.
Furthermore, a supermajority of exactly 60 votes only allows Democrats to pass something that 100% of them support. And Lieberman did not support anything more far reaching than the ACA, such as a public option.
What’s your narrative? Democrats had control of both the Senate and the house with a Democrat president for years and somehow it’s still Republicans fault they did basically fuck all with it?
And if that’s not sufficient evidence to believe either our Democracy is completely broken or Democrats are corrupt or incompetent then you must be someone who’s continuing to benefit from all of this while quality of life deteriorates for the rest of us.
I’m really sick of this lecture as if I don’t understand that. I’m a human being who lives in reality I’m very familiar with not getting everything I want. I don’t buy a car for $20,000 and then complain it doesn’t have the quality of a $300,000 car. I will complain when the $20,000 car doesn’t deliver what I expect for a $20,000 car. This is no different. Democrats held a majority in congress for four years. What they delivered with that kind of opportunity was inexcusably insufficient.
The system can’t be changed in the near future. And it was deliberately designed to interfere with progress.
I’m sure you can imagine a better system, but we don’t live in your imagination. So I don’t defend the system, I defend Democrats who do the best they can in spite of the system.
Lol. Oh, there it is “I’m not defending the system I’m just defending the people who have played a huge part in shaping that system.”
So I’ll go back what I was saying earlier. You’re defending Democrats because you’ve benefited from their ineptitude while quality of life deteriorates for the rest of us.
Yes, I benefitted from the Civil Rights Act, Medicare, Social Security, and the ACA. And you’re right, fuck the trust fund babies who had to pay higher taxes to support those programs.
You didn’t benefit from them, so you must be among the lucky few who prospered under Trump. It all makes sense now.
If you’re only celebrating things that benefit other people the rest of your life must be pretty sweet. Unless you’re trying to tell me you’re suffering and in spite of that you don’t care you’re not seeing anything directly benefit you.
But life isn’t necessarily “sweet” for people who have to take care of others. Plenty of people are struggling yet have to take care of their children and their parents. All of the legislation in that list helps to ease their burden.
But life isn’t necessarily “sweet” for people who have to take care of others. Plenty of people are struggling yet have to take care of their children and their parents. All of the legislation in that list helps to ease their burden.
So your life sucks then? You seem to be having a difficult time explaining why you’re grateful to Democrats for what they’ve done without accidentally admitting it’s because you’re not suffering.
I never said I was personally suffering. But my loved ones are struggling in retirement and I’m deeply grateful for what Democrats have done for them.
You seem to think all that matters in life is whether you are personally suffering. You truly think like a Republican, every “I got mine Jack” accusation is a confession.
The ACA provides a benefit to a family of four with an income under $120K or a single person with an income under $58K.
If you don’t qualify, then congratulations your income is above the US median. You got yours, Jack. And Democrats will focus their attention on those who are less fortunate.
When talking about things that cost money, it’s always either/or. If you spend $X someone in the top 50%, you have $X less to spend on those in the bottom 50%. And personally I prefer that Democrats generally prioritize spending for the bottom 50%.
Democrats also support things that help everyone and don’t cost the government anything. For example, the ACA banned insurance companies from rejecting people with pre-existing conditions, banned them from raising premiums on sick people, banned them from dropping people in the middle of treatment. Those were all major problems before the ACA, and the ACA helped everyone by fixing them.
If you always prioritize the less fortunate and ignore any issue affecting anybody who is anywhere above less fortunate it means more people will slip into being less fortunate. If you want the less fortunate to be able to get out of their situation and stay there then you need to also prioritize making sure there’s a viable path to success. That path to success is being eroded and neither Republicans nor Democrats are addressing it. What do you think that leads to?
By definition, half of Americans will always be below median. Even if you could make everyone in the US into a success story, half would be below median.
So the point is not make everyone above median, that’s impossible. The point is to use the median to determine who needs help the most. And someone who is below median right now needs more help than someone who is not right now, even if they might be in the future.
Because it includes investments and so it is a better indicator of need than wage.
There are plenty of people who have small wages/salary, or even zero wages/salary, and instead rely on investment income.
For example, most landlords. Or retired people. Or the idle wealthy, like the various unemployed children of billionaires. Jeff Bezos has a salary of roughly $80K at Amazon. But he is way better off than someone with a salary of $90K.
If you look at wages instead of overall income, you might think some of those folks are struggling when they absolutely aren’t.
Some of those people are definitely below median, like many retirees struggling to live off their life savings.
But in general, a rising GDP does not target people below median income. That’s exactly why Democrats prefer additional spending that is specifically targeted towards those people.
Yes, increasing median income amounts to increasing GDP.
And increasing median income is preferable to increasing median wages, because it also helps people who are struggling to survive off their life savings.
Everyone wants higher income, but an elderly retiree no longer cares about higher wages.
And increasing median income is preferable to increasing median wages, because it also helps people who are struggling to survive off their life savings.
Lol. No. Our GDP has been increasing steadily for decades and quality of life has deteriorated for most Americans while billionaires are absorbing most of that growth.
Turns out you’re the one advocating for the rich and boomers while fucking everybody else in the process.
The fact that you’re against this tells me you wouldn’t qualify, and that you want to take money intended for those less fortunate than you.
Buddy, you just flew over the point that the GDP has been increasing for decades and the quality of life for Americans has gone down. Clearly this challenges your view that:
And increasing median income is preferable to increasing median wages, because it also helps people who are struggling to survive off their life savings.
Because there’s over 50 years of evidence showing that’s not how it plays out.
Standard of living has generally improved over the past few decades. The percentage of people in poverty is decreasing over time. The percentage of families that are food-insecure is also decreasing. These changes have gone hand-in-hand with increased spending per capita on social programs targeted towards the disadvantaged.
Democrats had a majority in the Senate and the house for four years. If you’re acknowledging that establishment Democrats are corrupt pieces of shit then I agree with you but it seems like you’re trying to avoid acknowledging that fact.
Sometimes they get elected, but the system is so filled with corruption that it seems those progressive values are quickly abandoned. Justice Dems are, sadly, often good examples of this.
We have to end the legalized bribery and get money out of politics before any true progressive agenda can be implemented.
“Actual progressives” can’t get shit done because they can’t get elected.
But then the people who won’t vote for progressives browbeat progressives into voting for their pro-corporate trash candidates. Or scream and cry when their pro-corporate trash candidate loses in the general.
I really hope that ban will take effect before the elections, then you will see both parties scrambling to retract the legislation after enormous backlash.
I feel like the Democratic party is the only one who will feel backlash from this, the typical TikTok-er doesn’t lean Republican I don’t think (well, other than creepy old dudes who get way too into videos of teenage girls dancing)
Quick outline of why TikTok is so uniquely dangerous:
The Chinese government treats communication networks as their personal hoovering-attachment for any data they might want. Companies are required by law to operate as an arm of Chinese intelligence, both in terms of giving information and in terms of manipulating what information people on their network are allowed to see.
It's not just your TikTok data. It's photos and files on your phone, your contacts, your messages, basically anything that the app with its too-permissive permissions can get its hands on, can potentially go up to Chinese intelligence.
TikTok is not structured like any other app. It has features like custom-downloading and running arbitrary binaries from its central server that honestly don't even make much sense except as spying apparatus (consistent with #1).
What China might do with this unprecedented level of access to everyone's phones is malevolent in a different way than, say, Facebook's access to everyone's data. Like Facebook they have the ability to e.g. influence an election, but they also have the ability to try to blackmail an individual to compromise them, or do for-real torture in the real world (say by tracking down a dissident via TikTok spying and then having one of their little Chinese-police-in-America units grab them).
Basically I don't think any government should have that kind of access to access people's private communications or design the algorithms that dictate people's social media experience, but definitely not China's in particular.
The only valid criticism to this move I’ve seen and actually agree with is that instead of banning individual companies, the US should enact legislation that makes these practices illegal.
The most baffling thing to me about that whole “data buying scandal” is that the government was PAYING for it and not just seizing it saying “yeah you’re giving us that, here’s a gag order so you cant talk about it”
Sources on any of this? Perhaps it works differently on Android.
The main thing which you miss though is that it has “the algorithm” down pat. While it knows I’ll watch cooking videos and videos of people yelling at cops, it doesn’t bother trying to show me things about Trump, etc. it is keeping me in my own custom echo chamber. I have no idea how it works so well.
Now imagine someone hell bent on believing things like the pizza molester stories or Jan 6th alt histories. This is a very effective tool for radicalizing people and reinforcing the “truth” they already suspect. It’s easier to divide people based on preconceived notions than trying to convince people of something new.
While I agree that the fingerprinting data is interesting, on iOS, TikTok doesn’t require any of those permissions as indicated. Some of the articles state that they are required, but they aren’t. As far as I know it isn’t possible, without a zero day of some sort, to access camera, sound, contacts, etc without explicitly granting those permissions.
That said, that is a lot of data, and for those that can be linked back to an individual. And I’m sure most people are less careful with permissions. The fingerprinting data is clearly powerful, and I find it extremely fascinating, since there is VERY limited input and such effective output.
I don’t believe 3 is possible on iOS? Arbitrary code execution is something Apple explicitly disallows on the App Store. While some apps sneak through, something as large as TikTok likely wouldn’t survive long with blatant rule breaking.
The time I saw it, the researcher said specifically that they'd observed it on Android. Whether that means that that feature of TikTok is only an Android thing because of the feature you're talking about, I don't know, but that would make some kind of sense yes.
They can’t control it. Simple as. Everyone talking about spying is silly if they think that would change under a different ownership. Spying is going to happen either way, I’ll take the spy that can do less to me.
Yeah, I support banning it but the whole “either sell it or get banned” does have me wondering if they are doing the right thing for the wrong reason here. Or even the wrong thing for the wrong reason, if they intend to just keep it going under new management that isn’t the CCP.
Yeah so that logic only works if people make informed decisions and they don’t, that’s why society the size it is at the moment only works with a government in place setting some ground rules and preventing people from being morons… Our trying to anyway.
Also, the internet is not hosted in international water as far as I know so there’s no reasons it can’t be regulated… Hell, I’m sure you’re very happy (or hope that you are) that CSAM isn’t just everywhere in the name of net neutrality and letting people do what they want on it.
An american company that sells data to foreign intelligence so they can manipulate the public. Facebook is a way bigger threat to peoples freedom than TikTok but the CCP boogeyman has y’all in a chokehold so you’re distracted from the real threat
What if the government decided Lemmy was a dangerous (communist ?) platform that needs to be shutdown? This is a matter of censorship, however the outright open market for our data from all platforms is the elephant in the room here.
Well, I would expect there to be some shred of evidence that it is dangerous to the security of the United States. We have LOADS of evidence of that for TikTok.
So you believe that pictures of consenting naked underage people should be freely shared and even made available in magazines because making them illegal is fascism?
I experimented with tor and signal at some point and it was enlightening to see how much of “the internet” as we think we know it is already heavily filtered and served to us through a very narrow pipeline of modern browsers.
Yea, they’re struggling to get their suicide numbers up as high as Instagram. America demands nothing short of the best so we take deep pride in Zuckerberg’s accomplishment
I’m actually torn on this. If they don’t pay for Trumps legal woes, he has to pay them out of his own coffers, which will seriously hit his pride and self image, which in turn will make him suffer. On the other hand, draining the RNCs chests will impede their ability to support REP candidates everywhere.
My thought is, If Trump pays himself he will simply finance it and when his whole house of cards falls someone else will be on the hook with his biggest bankruptcy in history - which is inevitable.
On the other hand if it comes from campaign funds then the money will actually get drained from people who need it right now, so for me it’s a clear choice, let the campaign pay!
How many ‘Republican National Committee members’ are there and are they, like, filthy rich? (not from US). Kicking in a few million each could be a small price to be in favour with your future dictator
While I’m not sure about your exact question, I do recall hearing recently that the republican establishment is effectively broke, and has been causing a myriad of issues for local campaigns everywhere. There may be some number of private donors that will want to help bail Trump out, but that’s still going to be money they won’t be donating to help republicans win the house and the senate.
The RNC shouldn’t be allowed to cover his expenses. We can’t stop random billionaires from bailing him out but he should need to grovel like a bitch to make it happen… and be required to pay tax on that bailout.
This whole thing is such an insanely high risk/high reward dynamic for both parties. I really hope this election ends up shattering the GOP as a viable political party… but that might not happen. Also, even if it does, it’s anyone’s guess what the successor party will turn into.
It takes s a long time to really fracture a party, it doesn’t happen overnight
And honestly, the DNC’s actions over the past primaries culminating in them pulling an entire states delegates in a primary Biden was not in any danger of losing…
Ds will fracture first. Or they’ll both happen the same cycle at least.
If NH doesn’t get delegates in 28 for something Dems in NH has no control of, the dem party is pretty much over.
I don’t see NH republicans changing the state law, and I don’t see DNC backing down because NH keeps going progressive.
So I expect NH won’t get primary delegates for a while.
DNC drew a line in the sand. And there’s no way for NH Dems to legally do what they want.
Whether or not the DNC understands doesn’t matter. They’re either completely ignorant of how the law works, or actively working against democracy.
The Federalist Party basically died with Hamilton. The Communist Party of the USSR was thought to be entrenched right up to the moment it wasn’t. Political change can happen surprisingly swiftly.
That goes double when the group is rallied around a specific person. That person goes away and the group shatters. The GOP is primed for this, and we’re somewhat fortunate that even in the worst case scenario, they rallied around a 77 year old man who eats a lot of McDonald’s.
If trump died today, another grifter who wants the same shit would emerge by morning.
If anything they’d be more dangerous because they wouldn’t be so open about it.
Don’t forget Hillary was pushing for trump in 2016 because he was the only one she thought she could beat.
trump isn’t special, he’s not some once in a generation politician. Neoliberals just say that about any Republican running for president because that’s the only way people can be convinced to vote for neoliberals.
Doesn’t matter who his replacement is, the replacement would be better at hiding the crimes.
No, he’s exactly that. His cult of personality is not easy to replicate. There will always be political grifters, but ones who can mobilize a mass movement are rare.
If you didn’t live thru, you might believe that no Republicans supported him while president, because as soon as he left office they all said they never did
When trump is gone, it’ll be the same.
They’ll drop him in an instant, move to the next one, and claim that’s how it’s always been.
They do it with damn every president.
Hell, look at fucking Regan, he managed to hang on a little, but it was the same thing
This happens over and over and over…
But you’re just going to keep disagreeing, and I don’t think explaining it a 4th time will help
He was not a cult of personality the way Trump is. There is nobody who can follow him. The GOP is no longer fostering a clear successor like they used to. You can see this in how well Trump-endorsed candidates do in their elections. Even when they win, they under perform, because Trump voters want the man himself, not his lackeys.
For every L Ron Hubbard (where the organization goes on without him more or less as it was), there are a hundred Oneida cults (where the leader being jailed left the group a shadow of what it was).
That full quote was critical of Republican voters, but you could also see the yearning he had for democratic voters to be that basic and easy to trick.
And the party has been trying to make Dem voters like Republican voters ever since
cnbc.com
Newest