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Staluigi posted:Don't get why it's got to be put as "vote blue no matter who" like it's some team pride poo poo  " Perhaps to make the non-literal nature of the phrase more explicit we should paraphrase some kind of internationally recognized metaphor. How about "death to voting not blue"?
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Nov 19, 2023 21:02
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In addition to material conditions becoming significantly worse for most Americans since Biden's election (vis a vis inflation, the end of the pandemic era child tax credit, the restart of student loan payments, massive inflation, and so on), there's a very visible genocide happening with the full-throated support of the majority of Democrats in the House, Senate, and White House, despite this being unpopular with a majority of their constituents based on recent polls. Instead of turning to vote scolding and lesser evilism, a playbook the modern Democrats and supporters have trotted out since 2008 with very mixed results, they could try changing course on some of their unpopular policies and following through on previous promises. For example, Biden could call for a ceasefire. The rest of the party would follow suit, and this might help at least do something to arrest his slide in the polls with younger voters. Biden could also follow through on descheduling marijuana to schedule III, something he asked the HHS and AG to examine doing over a year ago. Neither of these things would require legislative action as far as I'm aware. Both are popular things to do and things Biden should do, morally. He could also do more to forgive student loan debt. Since it's unlikely Biden or the Democrats will do any of these things, and hope for legislation that would affect material conditions is long dead, I expect their poll numbers to continue to decline over the next year, barring some major black swan event. The Democrats seem incapable of responding to their constituents policy demands, so the only thing left is executive action. Biden has not shown great promise on that front.
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Nov 19, 2023 21:05
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As a resident of a competitive state I consider how many kids are killed by US bombs if I let the greater evil win. I find the idea of allowing a fascist government to take power in the US and dismantle elections for the rest of our lives a strategically unsound way of helping anyone or achieving the left's goals. Obviously, an autocratic US will use its military force to overthrow democratically elected governments worldwide. Donald Trump supported the coup against a democratically elected government in Bolivia, and he would support others. He has told Israel to show no mercy towards the people in Gaza and I expect if Israel ever decides it'd like the West Bank as well he'd fully bankroll such a holocaust. He has said that he intends to destroy leftist vermin within the US, and his plans to declare martial law, expand executive power, replace the FEC and judiciary entirely with far right loyalists to undermine democracy are well laid out at this point. I have seen Republicans make these kinds of powergrabs (and in fact even more extreme ones) at a state level already so I am confident all of this is not just talk. I could spend a long time talking about what Republicans have actually done in OH, NC, and FL and these states have been the sandbox for testing a far right takeover. I mean, I feel like I'm being facetious at this point. We allowed the right to win too much so now we're at the stage where we can't lose anymore. If it hadn't been for Citizens United or Veith v Jubilerer, partisan gerrymandering and foreign money interfering in our elections wouldn't be such huge problems. I really do think allowing Gore to lose may be the biggest tactical mistake the left has ever made in US history, and if you consider the loss of life that resulted from Bush's foreign policy I find it hard to morally rationalize that by claiming those that vote for the lesser evil have the blood of foreign policy failings on their hands for everyone they voted for.
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Nov 19, 2023 21:06
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Oh huh, now this is interesting. https://fortune.com/2023/11/16/pharmacy-benefit-manager-biden-administration-fees/quote:The Biden administration’s first major step toward imposing limits on the pharmacy benefit managers who act as the drug industry’s price negotiators is backfiring, pharmacists say. Instead, it’s adding to the woes of the independent drugstores it was partly designed to help. Whole thing's worth reading. Yet another policy change nobody outside of the industry particularly notices directly with gigantic impacts. also something that certainly didn't happen under trump quote:After a parade of hearings — and an ad campaign from drugmakers — attacking the PBMs, Senate and House committees have advanced bipartisan bills to tighten controls on the companies. Senate Finance Committee bills would require the Department of Health and Human Services to issue rules ensuring that PBM payments to pharmacies and other contract terms are reasonable, and that PBMs no longer impose unfair pharmacy performance requirements, said Julie Allen, a law firm lobbyist representing the National Association of Specialty Pharmacy. i'm hoping this is sufficiently nerdy / has sufficient division among parts of the industry for bipartisan legislation to happen Google Jeb Bush fucked around with this message at 21:13 on Nov 19, 2023 |
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Nov 19, 2023 21:06
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), according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, an agency created to advise Congress on the program for people who are 65 and older or have disabilities.
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World Famous W posted:some people have a limit to how much they'll tolerate the_steve posted:Here's the difference though: ex post facho posted:vote scolding
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Nov 19, 2023 21:06
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Wayne Knight posted:Some people are just too morally pure to prevent the guy who’s going to make being queer carry the death penalty from being president. The only people who's personal vote might even matter live in, with the loosest of parameters, like 8 states and 2 congressional districts. Everyone else can decide to write in Mickey Mouse and it won't make a difference. Even within the small slice of places where the election is competitive, an individual vote is almost never going to make a difference. In our lifetimes, the closest anyone has been to their specific vote making a difference is Floridians in 2000. Arguing with people who say they're not going to vote for John Kerry/Hillary Clinton/Joe Biden/The Next BLUE rear end in a top hat is a near meaningless argument of competitive purity. Unless someone says they're not only not voting for BLUE but actively campaigning for other people to not vote BLUE, it seems kind of silly to argue that they personally are going to make things worse or, actually if you think about it, counteract their particular stance.
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Nov 19, 2023 21:08
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We just did this in USCE like a week ago, so if you still have ~opinions~ on the utility of voting make a new thread to talk about it.
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Nov 19, 2023 21:09
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Fart Amplifier posted:He'd also lose support if he didn't express support for Israel Technically coming down on any one side of a dispute will lose you the support of people on the other side yes The point here is that there are way way more people who do not support Israel's genocide than there are people that do support it. Especially among the traditional voter base of the democratic party, but even in the country at large. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/nov/15/poll-us-israel-support-hamas-war
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Nov 19, 2023 21:10
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Gyges posted:The only people who's personal vote might even matter live in, with the loosest of parameters, like 8 states and 2 congressional districts. Everyone else can decide to write in Mickey Mouse and it won't make a difference. Even within the small slice of places where the election is competitive, an individual vote is almost never going to make a difference. In our lifetimes, the closest anyone has been to their specific vote making a difference is Floridians in 2000. Your whole post is basically correct - I'd say fewer states and and more congressional districts - but it extends out to everything an individual American can do: extraordinarily low, virtually no, or action ally no chance of impacting the country enough for another poster here to notice or care. If we're going to argue at all over which political behavior has the best moral valence or practical consequence, then the question of "how do I vote" is at least as important as anything else.
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Nov 19, 2023 21:11
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Fart Amplifier posted:He'd also lose support if he didn't express support for Israel I also think it's this. There's no real right and wrong clear cut stance here regarding this war and the democratic base is much more given to nuance and viewing thing through a lens that isn't like the GOP's "gently caress these terrorists and nuke em all". I'm not sure there's a clear path Biden can take that won't catch heat or ding his favorables, even though (or in spite of) public statements he's made on the issue that would satisfy 100% of republicans if they were made by Trump or McCain or Bush, etc.
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Nov 19, 2023 21:13
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Gyges posted:The only people who's personal vote might even matter live in, with the loosest of parameters, like 8 states and 2 congressional districts. Everyone else can decide to write in Mickey Mouse and it won't make a difference. Even within the small slice of places where the election is competitive, an individual vote is almost never going to make a difference. In our lifetimes, the closest anyone has been to their specific vote making a difference is Floridians in 2000. And those other elections are just as important if not more so. Once again we know that consistent voting does accomplish results because we've watched the opposition do so successfully. It took them half a century but it worked. What makes you think that countering that won't take as strong and constant an effort? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 19, 2023 21:18
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Bodyholes posted:
Not to be that guy, but I feel compelled to point out that Obama and his party oversaw a massive wave of judicial, 'anti-corruption' coups all over Latin America, and most famously in Brazil by backing the hilariously partisan Lava-Jato probes with FBI resources, helping lead to Bolsonaro's rise. I don't envy your position. but the main difference seems to be dems favoring clean, deniable coups, and Trump/the GOP just shrugging and smirking while giving the local chuds a free hand.
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Nov 19, 2023 21:24
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ex post facho posted:He could also do more to forgive student loan debt. I mean, this is still a talking point after A) a strong attempt struck down by the courts, B) a massive, massive overhaul of debt payment and forgiveness in the SAVE plan, C) a related PLSF etc adjustment,, and D) more and smaller bites at the outright forgiveness apple actively ongoing right now. We even have a handy dandy thread right here in dnd to help people get the relief they're entitled to, because we may be a bunch of pedantic dorks but by god we're a bunch of pedantic dorks who can read the details of federal programs. Anyone who has student debt and hasn't poked their nose in, should. If none of this is making a dent in the talking points, I don't think the problem is policy. Sephyr posted:Not to be that guy, but I feel compelled to point out that Obama and his party oversaw a massive wave of judicial, 'anti-corruption' coups all over Latin America, and most famously in Brazil by backing the hilariously partisan Lava-Jato probes with FBI resources, helping lead to Bolsonaro's rise. the biden administration told bolsonaro to sit down and shut up when he lost the election in 2022, so there's that Google Jeb Bush fucked around with this message at 21:31 on Nov 19, 2023 |
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Nov 19, 2023 21:29
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ex post facho posted:Biden could also follow through on descheduling marijuana to schedule III, something he asked the HHS and AG to examine doing over a year ago. The head of HHS expressed what amounts to quiet support for marijuana descheduling last week, after the release of the HHS eleven-month review concluded that marijuana was improperly overscheduled. Based on the chatter I've been reading from people more familiar with federal rulemaking, something is probably going to come up for public comment by the end of the year, with a decision sometime in 2024. bonus on the HHS timeframe you mentioned: quote:An HHS spokesperson said the department’s “comprehensive scientific evaluation” was completed in less than 11 months in an effort to respond quickly to the president’s directive.
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Nov 19, 2023 21:41
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Is descheduling something that can be done just by HHS or does Congress have to get involved?
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Nov 19, 2023 21:46
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FlamingLiberal posted:Is descheduling something that can be done just by HHS or does Congress have to get involved? As I recall, the last time a president proposed this, he believed that he did not have to give a hot gay gently caress what Congress thought, although he may not have consulted his full array of legal resources at the time
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Nov 19, 2023 21:50
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FlamingLiberal posted:Is descheduling something that can be done just by HHS or does Congress have to get involved? It's more or less at the DEA's discretion. Congress can override it, HHS can make recommendations, and I'm a little unclear on FDA powers but they seem happy to take an advisory role to the DEA. In this case it looks like all the way back in 2020 the DEA grumbled that if HHS/FDA recommend rescheduling they'd do it. https://www.mcglinchey.com/insights/dea-likely-to-reschedule-marijuana-based-on-congressional-report/ congress probably isn't going to override it in either direction rn but the Senate Democrats have been being very pro-marijuana in the hearings Killer robot posted:And to add to the others, as I understand the executive-only route has processes and procedures defined by statute, so it doesn't happen overnight if you want to make sure it avoids court challenges. "why are public comment periods so weird and stodgy and long" is not an uncommon gut response to encountering the federal register for the first time eleven pages helpful primer on the federal register: https://www.federalregister.gov/uploads/2011/01/the_rulemaking_process.pdf like i said, people more informed than i am are thinking proposed rule by the end of the year / maybe january and the dea's gonna be leaned on real heavy to have a final rule before the election for obvious reasons Google Jeb Bush fucked around with this message at 22:19 on Nov 19, 2023 |
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Nov 19, 2023 21:55
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FlamingLiberal posted:Is descheduling something that can be done just by HHS or does Congress have to get involved? And to add to the others, as I understand the executive-only route has processes and procedures defined by statute, so it doesn't happen overnight if you want to make sure it avoids court challenges.
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Nov 19, 2023 22:05
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I don't know why people continue to push the point that Biden is only supporting Israel because he has to for the votes. He was a big advocate 20 years ago of invading and bombing multiple countries full of brown people in the Middle East and not much has changed. Does anyone have any actual real evidence that he isn't doing what he truly believes? I've seen numerous posters try to argue this without any actual evidence, just vibes. (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 19, 2023 22:40
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Old white guys in America are generally pretty conservative and generally pro-israel.
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Nov 19, 2023 22:51
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koolkal posted:I don't know why people continue to push the point that Biden is only supporting Israel because he has to for the votes. Huh? Are any posters claiming this? I thought it was just people pushing back against the idea that Biden's ratings would be better if he pushed back a lot more against Israel. Kalit fucked around with this message at 23:41 on Nov 19, 2023 |
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Nov 19, 2023 23:35
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koolkal posted:I don't know why people continue to push the point that Biden is only supporting Israel because he has to for the votes. Nobody is saying that? Could you quote some people who've said that, plenty of people will say he will lose votes for not courting Israel but that is not the same as that being the only reason he is doing it.
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Nov 19, 2023 23:49
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koolkal posted:I don't know why people continue to push the point that Biden is only supporting Israel because he has to for the votes. Can you give context to this, did you mean like in 2001 when the US invaded Afghanistan? Can you elaborate?
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Nov 19, 2023 23:49
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Raenir Salazar posted:Can you give context to this, did you mean like in 2001 when the US invaded Afghanistan? Can you elaborate?
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Nov 20, 2023 00:15
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I mean a better question is if it even matters. People are so obsessed with figuring out 'the real reason' Biden is doing whatever and it's honestly not relevant; I haven't seen many politicians with real convictions in my lifetime anyway. Whether he actually believes in immigration reform or peace the middle east doesn't matter. It isn't politically expedient to come out against Israel right now regardless of what Biden believes, but that could literally change any day and I think it's really commendable how many people have made their dissatisfaction with the situation apparent, because that's the only thing that's going to have an affect on anyone. Putting the Democrats between two equally powerful voting blocs and seeing how they react is pretty useful to be honest. I have some sympathy for the Democrats even if I hate how ineffective they are. The Republicans - at least the loud, politically viable core - are basically just a death cult, proven they'll vote for whoever is the loudest and most anti-woke, regardless of any other material platform or principle. The Democrats are where everybody else in the entire country with any kind of platform whatsoever is left to roost, a giant right-of-center compromise hive that pleases absolutely nobody. I think leftists breaking with the Democracts in the next 30 or 40 years would be a viable political move, because I don't see any other way to be taken seriously. It wouldn't work right now for a variety of reasons but in the future, who knows.
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Nov 20, 2023 00:16
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ex post facho posted:In addition to material conditions becoming significantly worse for most Americans since Biden's election (vis a vis inflation, the end of the pandemic era child tax credit, the restart of student loan payments, massive inflation, and so on), there's a very visible genocide happening with the full-throated support of the majority of Democrats in the House, Senate, and White House, despite this being unpopular with a majority of their constituents based on recent polls. When it comes to the bolded, are you talking about the child tax credit expansion passed in March 2021? The one that expired because Republicans (with Manchin's help) blocked its renewal in Nov 2022, right after winning a House majority which has essentially blocked any further attempts to renew it? Seriously, I'm frantically Googling here to find a child tax credit expansion that happened in 2020, and I'm not finding anything at all. All I can see is that it's a Biden administration initiative which was forced through only with much trouble, and then dismantled by unified GOP opposition in a Senate that the Dems had absolutely no loving margin in. And yet here you appear to be crediting it to Trump and blaming Biden for ending it. That doesn't really make a ton of sense. koolkal posted:I don't know why people continue to push the point that Biden is only supporting Israel because he has to for the votes. He's hardly unique there, given that the Iraq AUMF passed the Senate with a clear supermajority (77-23), and the Afghanistan AUMF passed Congress almost unanimously (420-1 in the House and 98-0 in the Senate). Invading countries seen as responsible for terrorism against
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Nov 20, 2023 00:22
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Google Jeb Bush posted:I mean, this is still a talking point after A) a strong attempt struck down by the courts, B) a massive, massive overhaul of debt payment and forgiveness in the SAVE plan, C) a related PLSF etc adjustment,, and D) more and smaller bites at the outright forgiveness apple actively ongoing right now. We even have a handy dandy thread right here in dnd to help people get the relief they're entitled to, because we may be a bunch of pedantic dorks but by god we're a bunch of pedantic dorks who can read the details of federal programs. Anyone who has student debt and hasn't poked their nose in, should. There certainly is. Which is no guarantee that they will not lennd quiet support to other ways of ratfucking the current government, not in favor of Bozo but one of the PSDB 'moderates' they always favored down here.
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Nov 20, 2023 00:32
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FlamingLiberal posted:The Iraq War IIRC didn't he only support it because he was misled about the intelligence about Saddam's role in 9/11 and then turned against invasion when this was bunk?
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Nov 20, 2023 00:42
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B B posted:Protestors have disrupted the California Democratic Convention to call for a ceasefire: There are some 20,000 Palestinians living in cook county, IL. The Democrats absolutely need this war over soon, otherwise expect to see scenes like this at the DNC in Chicago this summer.
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Nov 20, 2023 00:59
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Raenir Salazar posted:IIRC didn't he only support it because he was misled about the intelligence about Saddam's role in 9/11 and then turned against invasion when this was bunk? Here's Joe Biden a year after the invasion, when many of his colleagues had already started turning against the war: Joe Biden posted:Let me tell you what I see with Iraq. We had to go into Iraq, not because Saddam was part of Al Qaeda, there was no evidence of that, not because he possessed nuclear weapons or because he posed an imminent threat to the United States, there was no evidence of that. The legitimate reason for going into Iraq, was he violated every single commitment he made and warranted being taken down. And the international community and us had a right to respond. I don't think you recall correctly. That said, he has consistently and regularly lied about his various positions on the Iraq War, so it's possible you're thinking of one of his various misrepresentations of his position.
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Nov 20, 2023 01:07
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Bar Ran Dun posted:It is obvious it is trivial. So are you naive? i am agreeing with your conclusion and emphasizing that it does not rely on your weaker supporting arguments. you're right to bring up florida, and i think that kind of orban-style guided democracy is where the GOP wants to head. (if you wanna call that fascist, i guess i see where you're coming from, but i think it's a different kind of mess.) i think it's more likely that's where this is headed, where the government is structurally incapable of functioning to do anything but harass minorities and political opponents unless one party controls every branch. you are saying it's a torrent of literal human poo poo, i'm saying idk maybe it is and maybe that's catastrophizing, but it's definitely a flood of raw sewage, and even just a single wave of raw sewage is awful. koolkal posted:He was a big advocate 20 years ago of invading and bombing multiple countries full of brown people in the Middle East and not much has changed. this war is blowing up his efforts to build on top of the abraham accords and reconcile the US's allies in and around the ME Cease to Hope fucked around with this message at 01:43 on Nov 20, 2023 |
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Nov 20, 2023 01:38
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Cease to Hope posted:... Yeah, looking at the Iran nuclear deal (and it's destruction) through to what they were trying to negotiate in Saudi Arabia recently, it would make little sense for Biden to want Israel to be doing what they're doing. Whatever difference that makes...
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Nov 20, 2023 02:32
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There was a lot of discussion when the Abraham Accords were being drawn up that they were going to significantly gently caress over the Palestinians, since as far as I can tell those Accords did nothing to alleviate the Palestinians' current issues, but all of the Arab Gulf states were going to normalize relations with Israel. I know SA is pissed that Hamas stirred poo poo up because they wanted those accords signed.
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Nov 20, 2023 02:37
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Raenir Salazar posted:IIRC didn't he only support it because he was misled about the intelligence about Saddam's role in 9/11 and then turned against invasion when this was bunk? It's reasonable for some dude off the street to have been honestly mislead into supporting Iraq 2. It is not reasonable to believe the Chairman/Ranking Member(I forget which he was when we started) of the Committee on Foreign Relaions was bamboozled into supporting the war. Especially when the guy was in the Senate coming on 30 years at the time.
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Nov 20, 2023 02:39
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So reading about all the Project 2025 poo poo, will we be able to survive under another term of Trump? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST) (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 20, 2023 02:44
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Willo567 posted:So reading about all the Project 2025 poo poo, will we be able to survive under another term of Trump? I don't know, Willo. What on earth are we supposed to tell you at this point? You are already hardwired to seek constant assuaging, then inevitably mentally latch on to any possibly negative outcome as part of your catastrophization cycle. No matter what anyone tells you, you will just fret and ask again the instant anything sparks your anxiety about this or any political issue.
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Nov 20, 2023 02:56
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420 Gank Mid posted:Technically coming down on any one side of a dispute will lose you the support of people on the other side yes Simply not true. https://twitter.com/ArmandDoma/status/1726370025098137671 (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Nov 20, 2023 03:03
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Willo567 posted:So reading about all the Project 2025 poo poo, will we be able to survive under another term of Trump? We will but you wont. Edit: Wait, maybe the other way around.
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Nov 20, 2023 03:36
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I'm not yet entirely convinced we survived the first Trump administration. I think it's one of those situations where we're not going to know for another 15 years whether that was a threshold that, once passed, started a series of knock-on effects that will continue to unfold to some pretty bad outcomes, potentially including a second Trump administration.
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Nov 20, 2023 03:41
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I AM GRANDO posted:I'm not yet entirely convinced we survived the first Trump administration. I think it's one of those situations where we're not going to know for another 15 years whether that was a threshold that, once passed, started a series of knock-on effects that will continue to unfold to some pretty bad outcomes, potentially including a second Trump administration. I feel like if Trump is defeated in 2024 and the Dems do pretty well downballot, we might finally be able to crawl out of the danger zone. After Trump, who else is there? I know that 2-4 years is a lifetime in politics and anyone could emerge, but it's hard to see who. The GOP has no one else even close to Trump's appeal and charisma, and their policies are not getting any more popular. 2026 will be two more years of the GOP base dying and more young people entering the electorate. Then 2028, then 2030, etc. If fascism is averted next year, the GOP is either going to have to change their policies to win more elections, or just continue to rule over the reddest of states and little else.
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Nov 20, 2023 04:10
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