Whatever happens between now and November, it doesn’t change the fact that an election is going to occur in November. Furthermore, in that election Trump would be worse in quite literally every conceivable way, including for the people of Palestine / Gaza. Therefore nothing you said has any impact on my point in my comment.
Feel free to pressure Biden to do more for Palestine in the meantime; just try to comprehend that if Biden too quickly shifts to abandoning longtime support for Israel, he may ostracize an even-larger voting bloc of Jewish Americans who by the polling support Israel pretty vehemently (80%+). If you think politically he can jeopardize that group versus the smaller far-left and Palestinian segments of the population, you’d be wrong. He must toe the line between these two groups.
No matter how hard you try to shoehorn Biden being responsible for the Genocide in Gaza, as a convenient wedge-driving tactic for which right-wingers love you for – it’s not goin to work. Netanyahu is responsible. Period.
If Trump were in office right now, the fate of Gaza would’ve been even worse. Forget the fact that you seem 100% a-okay with Ukraine not getting any more assistance either.
So you’ve got no substantive rebuttal to my points. I’ll take that as an indirect concession, thank you. Keep chanting your little game in puritanical pyrrhic victory where you shoot one’s self (and Palestinians for that matter) in the foot.
Kyle Rittenhouse abruptly departed the stage during an appearance at the University of Memphis on Wednesday, after he was confronted about comments made by Turning Point USA founder and president Charlie Kirk....
The White House has approved nearly $144 billion in federal loan forgiveness for about 4 million borrowers in total, according to the administration....
Reading comments on Youtube and so forth, I actively lose brain cells. Fun facts to counter sour right-wing talking-points:
Those forgiven under this fall under the DoE’s discretion in lieu of the Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program that was legislation signed into law under… George W. Bush. The Biden Administration is just streamlining and actively using a system that was already in place but unused.
It’s nice to see the working class get bailed out for once instead of banks and big corporations.
Tuition has risen since the boomers’ time, and in addition to that unregulated private diploma mills have taken advantage of many people all the while contributing to degree-inflation.
Edit: You guys are too kind to have not pointed that out lmao.
I just tend to associate this style with right-wingers at least in my area, so I distance myself a bit.
Personally I think the long beard look is unkempt and a bit of a fad and a bitch to deal with from a functional standpoint; meanwhile it looks like they’re about to fly to Afghanistan to join the Taliban. To each their own though.
But I mean the change is certainly going to have to come from inside Israel, right? A pretty good place to start is getting the right-wing nationalist who’s been in power for like 20 years, and isn’t even that popular there, and under corruption charges out.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said policy differences toward Israel between her and President Biden won’t stop her from supporting him in the November general election....
Either they’re wedge-driving russo/right-wing bots, or they’re grandstanding only to shoot themselves in the foot on an issue they claim to care about.
Any rational person understands more people will suffer in both Gaza and Ukraine under Republican leadership. Period. That’s it. End of story. It’s election season, time to fall in line to save Democracy… Again.
If I understand correctly, you’re noting that the Jewish people in America lean supportive of Israel and because they comprise a larger population pool than the vehemently strong pro-Palestinians, Biden must then carefully toe the line between the two groups to court the largest % of votes to ensure the far-worse guy doesn’t get in power?
Huh? Did anyone stop you or anyone else from running for President?
I’m not a fan of FPTP and think massive campaign finance and election reform needs to take place, but the choice presented right now is unfortunately a reflection of the broader electorate, and for better or worse that’s democracy.
I wholeheartedly agree with money equating to speech being disastrous as to the healthy function of a democracy, but the complaint here doesn’t strike me as that. While we all know the game is skewed toward money, we should also know the better choice between these candidate couldn’t be more obvious.
Ok. If you’re going to play that game, then the obvious answer to what I asked:
Did anyone stop you or anyone else from running for President?
… Is No, nobody stopped them from running. Money may help, but is not prerequisite to running. People also get money if they garner support. Hence the success of grassroot organization.
It’s probably a good thing that the vast majority of candidates have to get word of mouth recognition by rising through the ranks of government starting small at the local level and going from there. But you’re right: that’s part of the reason why most candidates end up being on the older side.
Yes, name recognition matters in a democracy, no surprise there. But the personal wealth of the majority of presidential candidates is a paltry sum to the total funds needed to be raised simply by running on a platform and getting support from within and outside the party. When we talk about “money in politics,” it’s usually not the candidate themselves but the outsider influence who prop that candidate up.
Still you try to corner me by taking what I said verbatim and so I respond in the same literal way: Nobody stopped them from running. Nobody is stopping them from not voting or writing-in someone else. Sure circumstance can improve one person’s chances over another, but we have more choice than most countries of the world, and again the better choice between these two candidates couldn’t be more obvious.
The pathway of more choice is through the Democratic party and no other viable way. Do you agree?
He was also blessed by one of the largest grassroots mobilizations in recent history, let’s not discount that as well.
The point being: someone who came from nothing can rise to something. Obviously a whole range of factors influence odds, from intelligence to external beauty, to charisma, to networks and wealth… Nobody said Democracy is perfect, but that doesn’t change the fact that we have more choice than most.
Many poor people go to Columbia and Harvard. His parents weren’t just gifted, they went to school and rose in money themselves. What exactly is wrong with that? This isn’t the Rockefellers, my friend.And you’re referring to the father who left him when he was – checks notes – 2-years-old…?
Per Michelle:
Barack and I were both raised by families who didn’t have much in the way of money or material possessions.
CBS Fact check:
Obama, whose family was abandoned by his father when he was young, was brought up by his mother and grandparents, none of whom were wealthy. He attended the exclusive Punahou High School in Honolulu, Hawaii as a scholarship student. In his autobiography, Dreams of My Father, he wrote of his struggle to fit into a school where he was one of the few black students.
Put another way, how the hell do you advocate to prevent this from occurring? I can see campaign finance/election reform ensuring publicly-funded elections, sure, but now you’re saying because someone’s parents went from rags to strong middle-class (they weren’t basking in millions as far as I can tell), then that’s diminishing choice to such an extent that we no longer have a democracy or… What?
I sympathize with this, but how do we genuinely address it? Since the dawn of civilization, it always has been about who you know and the steps your ancestors took to improve your position.
If a black man raised by his middle-class mother and grandparents can run on a scholarship and succeed in school, then work his way up through higher and higher public offices… I think that’s a testament to choice in America. I won’t sit here and say it’s perfect, but I take issue with the user claiming, “I don’t really have a choice” and “doesn’t sound like much of a democracy,” — I mean shit, you know how many people of other countries would kill to have what we have? He takes it for granted.
You paint his stepfather as some wealthy oil magnate when he was a… Geologist who worked in Indonesia… Whose most notable description of their wealth I can find is, “replacing their motorcycle with a car” as they rented a home in Indonesia. Clearly basking in wealth, am I right…? By age 10, Barack was being raised solely by his grandparents, (whose grandfather operated a furniture store) while his stepfather in Indonesia and his mother going to school and then returning to Indonesia without Barack. Obama’s stepfather divorced his mother when Barack was 19. His background was middle-class. Otherwise please, show tax returns of his parents, or him living in a lavish mansion, or any indication whatsoever that he was well above middle-class.
So look how far the bar has dropped from your initial claim of wealth and privilege. The best you’ve got is a “connection” to a nice grade school that he earned a scholarship for…? If you’re referring to connections down the road, after he studied in school and became a professor, and then after that becoming a community organizer, then a state senator, then a US senator… Well, that’s generally how you make connections and rise through the ranks. The point being: a person from at-best middle-class origins managed to do that, as a black person in an otherwise racist America.
Resolving the influence of money from others in elections is pretty straight-forward, but what I’m asking is how you resolve “networking & connections” as you vaguely allude to what Obama had?
I stand by my claim they were at best middle-class.
There’s a lot of very smart, well educated, people who will never be president simply because they don’t know anyone who can write checks to cover the time off work and advertising necessary.
Then I contest they may not be as smart as you think, or they just lack any political ambition whatsoever and would rather throw peanuts from the peanut gallery without actually doing the ground-work of grassroots organization or running for office as Obama did loooooooooooooong before he had to get checks written. Besides, unfortunately in order to change the game you tend to have to first play by the existing rules of the game first.
I scrolled up. The conversation went about as follows:
ME: “Did anyone stop you or anyone else from running for President?”
YOU: “Yeah actually… [the current setup] bars 99.9% of people from ever running for President.”
From there I:
Proved Obama’s upbringing was fragmented and middle-class at best, wich contradicts your claim they had “plenty of money” and he was not remotely “born connected.”
Showed that Obama, a middle-class African American of middle-class parents of middle-class grandparents was not “in the club”.
I provided direct quotes from fact-checkers and Michelle Obama herself, noting as much.
Next:
You repeatedly used this unfounded claim that his stepfather — who was largely out of his life by 10 —was an “oil executive” when he was a geologist and consultant at best — Untrue. I cannot find a modicum of evidence on this except a literal uncited reference in some editorialized article.
Now you’re moving the goalpost from “middle class” to “working class” by some arbitrary definition no less… ? Come on, I call bullshit.
The main thing I see eye-to-eye on is that:
You need to be “networked” in order to be popular, which is kind of a given. There are many means by which to be networked, of course. In any realistic system you conceive of creating, that will always be inevitable.
Money influencing politics is probably the most important issue to address in order to save our Democracy.
Finally, please don’t straw-man my points. Nowhere did I claim they’re lazy. That is your filling in the blanks to make your response easier. I think I’m FAR more closer to reality in writing, “99.9% of people just don’t want to become President because they have other interests and ambitions and life circumstances” than your claim that “99.9% CAN’T become President” (in your words, “banned”).
Unanswered questions by you:
The pathway of more choice is through the Democratic party and no other viable way. Do you agree?
The better CHOICE between Biden and Trump is an obvious one, yes?
Relative to the user whom I originally responded, America has more choice than most nations of the world, yes?
Let me make my position very, very clear: Saying someone lacks political ambition does not mean they’re lazy. I have no idea how you misconstrued that, but I hope I made myself clear. If I wanted to call someone lazy, I would just do it. But are you denying it’s easier for people to be critics than actually do better than that which they criticize?
And you can’t just declare you proved something.
Well when there is no substantive or sourced rebuttal and I sort of, well, did… Then yes, I am going to say that.
Obama has a rags-to-riches side to his story he hopes will resonate with middle-class voters. His mother Ann Dunham was just 18 when she married Barack Obama Sr. and became a single parent when Obama was only two. Obama has recalled that his mother sometimes relied on food stamps to get by when he was growing up and used to wake him at 4 a.m. five days a week to tutor him during the time the family lived in Indonesia. She and Obama’s grandparents, who helped to raise him, managed to get him accepted to Punahou Academy, a prestigious private school in Hawaii. He later attended Columbia University and Harvard Law School.
I don’t know. Anyone whose parents depended on food-stamps may not fit your literal definition of “rags,” but I think I made my case. But it’s awfully convenient that you can continue to lie about his stepfather’s fortunes and giving Obama a cushy life while – let me check – giving absolutely zero sources thus far while obviously distorting the “oIl eXeCuTiVe” caricature for which you’ve clearly deflected because you know you’re full of shit on this front. Then finally just denouncing any biographical or autobiographical account of their status as being PR (without any actual evidence).
Then let’s turn a different way: We’ve proved you can go from middle-class to President, but that’s not enough for you and means 99.9% can’t be president (“banned”, as you explicitly wrote)? Finally: I thought I made myself clear in solving issues related to outside money influencing elections and largely agreeing with you in this respect.
Meanwhile you still dodged the questions, and now I’ll add to that list:
Unanswered questions by you:
The pathway of more choice is through the Democratic party and no other viable way. Do you agree?
The better CHOICE between Biden and Trump is an obvious one, yes?
Relative to the user whom I originally responded, America has more choice than most nations of the world, yes?
Who is closer to reality: “99.9% of people just don’t want to become President because they have other interests and ambitions and life circumstances” or your claim, “99.9% CAN’T become President” because they are, in your words, “banned”?
Anyways, this has been an interesting conversation and appears to have been exhausted, I’ll leave it there and oblige you with the final response.
I’ve long been advocating for the Democratic party to adopt a Teacher’s classroom mindset. Think about what Bernie, Warren, and Porter did in basically elevating the understanding of civics, history, and current-events of our country.
Use all donation money to just honestly spoonfeed Americans vital information one bite-size ad at a time.
Makes me think of the supposed bullet-proof cyber truck glass… Odds are much more likely you’ll be trying to escape your car than be under a hail of gunfire lol.
Yeah I’m not one to defend billionaires, but this place is littered with pretty cruel and inhumane attitudes. Crazy how bold people can be behind a veil of anonymity. All sense of decency and emphathy simply gone.
I hardly approach that level of hated for the likes of Putin, Cheney, or Kissinger let alone some generalized billionaire strawman.
Yeah I can agree with that. No billionaire should exist especially when we have terrible rates of homelessness, especially child homelessness, let alone myriad other metrics.
In a highly anticipated State of the Union address, President Joe Biden delivered a passionate speech on Tuesday night, outlining his administration’s vision for the future and setting the stage for the upcoming election....
There isn’t much of a difference when it comes to foreign policy,
I’m sorry, what? Ukrainians would beg to differ. And if anyone thinks Trump would ever say the words, “indiscriminate” in terms of Israel’s reaction. Floating withdrawal from NATO itself is a massive distinguisher, forgetting the fact that Trump jeopardized the Paris Climate Agreement and the Iran nuclear deal…
Maybe you can advocate for someone else during the primaries. Maybe you can run for office yourself, even! But at the end of the day, it’s going to be either Trump or Biden, and the former is objectively worse in every regard.
I’ve seen these same users spreading the same divisive wedge-driving nonsense that just exudes right-wing operative. If they aren’t, then I’m sure Republican strategists are grateful for their service.
Here Project 2025 is on the horizon but they’re here complaining about illegal vs undocumented after Biden apologized for it (something donald would never do), lol. Absurd.
It’s honestly so bad that it’s actually getting it more views and it’s being covered everywhere including the Daily Show. Part of me wonders if that’s the intent but then I realize much of the GOP is completely incompetent.
Also, since the BoRDeR CriSiS is going to literally be the GOP’s only attack this election cycle, let’ remind them of a couple things:
Republicans blocked the border plan THEY originally wanted and which the Border Patrol themselves endorsed. <— Republicans chose politics over policy.
iLlEGal ImMiGraNts actually commit less violent crime as a whole than American citizens themselves…
Right-Wing domestic extremists are far more violent.
Such undocumented immigrants yield a net-positive to our economy as a whole.
That was one of the more interesting SOTU addresses I’ve seen. Personally, I think he said most of the things that needed to be said, and he said them reasonably well. I’m sure he’s going to get some flack for attacking Trump directly (though not by name), but I was frankly glad to see it. Doing otherwise makes it seem...
Their whole spiel relies on reaching literally any bystander they can. Definitely worth dissecting their bullshit.
Anyone pushing for Stein, Gabbard, or the likes of any of these people is quite clearly trying to wedge-drive and there’s a decent probability they’re a Kremlin bot.
If you know that much but not the mathematical trend toward a two-party system that does not, again mathematically, permit a 3rd-party candidate without risking the FAR WORSE candidate via spoiler, Donald Trump, then you are arguing in bad faith or young and naive.
Tonight, Thursday, March 7th, is the State of the Union Address so lets keep everything related to it (including the Republican response) confined to this thread....
I really wish Biden would’ve turned around to Mike Johnson when he was talking about January 6th and ask, “what’s the matter with you, man? Why aren’t you clapping? So you support a fascist takeover? Of course you do…”
Also turn around and say, 'it’s this man here who is blocking aid to Ukraine while women and children die in Ukraine"
Look he’s old. I completely agree it’s a concern for >70% of Americans. Both are geriatrics with clear issues.
But one is morally sound. The other is not. One has smart cabinet members and advisors. The other has his fucking kids in a blatant act of nepotism and crooks.
Yeah that’s sad but I can completely understand. Religions have been abusing this for eons and now it’s being used directly for a political ideology. There comes a point where reason doesn’t even matter.
Blinken unloads on Bibi: "You need a coherent plan" or face disaster in Gaza (www.axios.com)
Kyle Rittenhouse storms off stage after being confronted by students (www.newsweek.com)
Kyle Rittenhouse abruptly departed the stage during an appearance at the University of Memphis on Wednesday, after he was confronted about comments made by Turning Point USA founder and president Charlie Kirk....
Biden cancels nearly $6 billion in student debt for 78K public service workers (www.nbcnews.com)
The White House has approved nearly $144 billion in federal loan forgiveness for about 4 million borrowers in total, according to the administration....
Trump loses bid to block Michael Cohen, Stormy Daniels testimony at hush money trial (www.reuters.com)
MyPillow CEO Loses It After Realizing the Courts Won’t Save Him | The New Republic (newrepublic.com)
From the top of the article, we come to discover that the MyPillow person is asking us all to foot his legal bill:...
Navarro’s bid to stave off jail sentence denied at Supreme Court (www.politico.com)
Peter Navarro, a former trade adviser in Donald Trump’s White House, appears to be heading to jail.
Disturbingly accurate (lemmy.today)
Top Democrat Schumer calls for new elections in Israel, saying Netanyahu has 'lost his way' (apnews.com)
Omar says Israel policy divisions won’t stop her from supporting Biden in November (thehill.com)
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.) said policy differences toward Israel between her and President Biden won’t stop her from supporting him in the November general election....
“Can’t make it up”: Experts say transcript shows special counsel Robert Hur “lied” about Biden (www.salon.com)
The full transcript undercuts Hur’s claims that Biden could not remember his son’s death and had “poor” memory...
Mitch McConnell’s billionaire sister-in-law Angela Chao made panicked last call before dying in ‘completely submerged’ Tesla on Texas ranch: report (nypost.com)
President Biden Delivers Fiery State of the Union Address, Drawing Election Battle Lines (www.infoterkiniviral.com)
In a highly anticipated State of the Union address, President Joe Biden delivered a passionate speech on Tuesday night, outlining his administration’s vision for the future and setting the stage for the upcoming election....
Republicans baffled by Katie Britt’s State of the Union response: ‘One of our biggest disasters’ (www.theguardian.com)
Biden uses feisty State of the Union to contrast with Trump, sell voters on a second term (apnews.com)
That was one of the more interesting SOTU addresses I’ve seen. Personally, I think he said most of the things that needed to be said, and he said them reasonably well. I’m sure he’s going to get some flack for attacking Trump directly (though not by name), but I was frankly glad to see it. Doing otherwise makes it seem...
Sweden officially joins NATO, ending decades of post-World War II neutrality (apnews.com)
State of the Union Megapost!
Tonight, Thursday, March 7th, is the State of the Union Address so lets keep everything related to it (including the Republican response) confined to this thread....
Opinion | New emails show Trump’s stealing the election was always Plan A (www.msnbc.com)
The real hero of Terminator 2 (i.postimg.cc)
Donald Trump will not win a war against the Swifties (www.businessinsider.com)