100% death tax on all assets over $1m excluding a single house. That my final offer.

There’s no justification for a birth lottery that awards democracy-warping levels of wealth to whoever had the evilest parents.

That’s just completely not true though.

We don’t have any evidence of finding out yet.

He’s unlikely to get jail time, unlikely to pay any fines he receives and may still ride gerrymandering to finally Noeming the last sickly vestiges of US democracy.

I’m very happy with the verdict though.

Nothing but his own internal monologue and no interaction with the rest of the world? That’s basically a campaign rally for him. He’d love it.

The only way this gig is ethically justifiable is if the support act is a guillotine.

Obviously there’s a proxy war between russia and the west in ukraine, but I don’t think the US wants a long attritional war.

They could have done more to not end up in one, but I think escalation management really is driving a lot of decisions in washington.

That much power fucks with your head, even if a well adjusted person manages to make it to that position, they won’t stay well adjusted for long.

Neuroscience supports this. Giving someone power causes changes in your brain that makes your brain less capable of empathy, closer to the brain of someone born with psychopathy.

https://www.npr.org/2013/08/10/210686255/a-sense-of-power-can-do-a-number-on-your-brain

https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/news/how-power-erodes-empathy-and-steps-we-can-take-rebuild-it

https://hbr.org/2015/04/becoming-powerful-makes-you-less-empathetic

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/social-empathy/201909/power-blocks-empathy

https://www.livescience.com/1128-mere-thought-money-people-selfish.html

https://blog.ted.com/6-studies-of-money-and-the-mind/

In parliamentry systems you can dissolve parliament, requiring an election. It’s usually a way to bypass deadlock. Imagine if, when republicans are fucking around with the debt ceiling and pissing off the country, you could threaten to call a snap election and let them answer to voters then and there.

So if this passes it would basically force a national referendum on netanyahu’s leadership.

If gantz is pushing this, probably he thinks he can win. That could mean netanyahu’s many financial and political crimes being looked into again. Maybe.

It could mean more of a focus on getting hostages back, but it might not lead to much change in gaza:

Gantz’ centrism is not equivalent to Western centrism: Natenyahu’s Likud party and other Israeli nationalists have “gone so right-wing that the center in Israel has changed,” a Middle East Institute think tank fellow told Al Jazeera. Previously serving as Commander-in-Chief of the Israeli Defense Forces, Gantz has overseen two military offensives in Gaza and labeled several Palestinian NGOs terrorist organizations, indicating it is “unlikely” he would improve the conditions for Palestinians living in Gaza

Thank you this kind of comment is why I come here.

Yeah but presumably the parent in the M1 has a spouse operating a surveillance drone to provide real time fire child correction?

When the genocide is this obvious, and the ongoing consequences for the democrats and democracy this serious, it really makes me wonder what’s the political calculus behind it.

Is AIPAC really that big of a threat? Is netanyahu that important to our imperial interests in the middle east? Why choose full on putinesque post-truth politics over this?

I’ve never had much faith in the democrats, but I honestly just don’t understand what’s driving such terrible decision making.

That’s just not true though.

That would be the structural issue. The candidate who won the election by a light but comfortable margin (48 v 46) didn’t win power.

Yeah, I’m guessing it was that, which won an IgNobel prize like a decade ago.

If you’ve ever worked in a call center, this kind of thing happens from time to time. After a couple times you learn to ignore it and push through.

throwing muck

You seem to feel like you’re being attacked by a description of how some people suffer. It doesn’t imply that others don’t.

You see your hardships, can’t look past the color of your skin, and project.

I don’t see how my ‘hardships’ as a middle class white australian-american who moved to the US come into it. I’m describing how I observe the US to work.

Yes, rich people are more likely to crowdfund their rich friends.

White people are just more likely to be successful in their crowdfunding, even when poor.

I’m not arguing that there are no poor white people, that’s silly. My wife’s dad’s grew up shoeless and white in rural illinois. The existence of poor white people doesn’t disprove the fact non white people are a greater target for deliberate impoverishment.

I’m not deaf to class-based analysis. But this is the US. You just can’t talk about class without also talking about how racialized poverty is in most of the country. Crowdfunding is one of the many facits of our society that very clearly reflects that.

Possibly timing played a role, sure. But both those candidates are men, so it could just be more proof of her point.

Why do you make this a white vs not white issue?

Because that’s what the intention is.

Republicans (post civil rights, Dixiecrats before that) specifically target non-white communities with laws designed to hurt them. They can’t be as explicit about it as they once were, so they have to find proxy targets. Instead of just jailing blacks, we’ll over-enforce drug laws in certain communities. Instead of saying we’re trying to starve black families, we’ll use ‘welfare mothers’ as a proxy. The goal is still the same as it was for all of US history - to win votes from whites by promising to take from non-whites. School vouchers. Stop and frisk. Zero tolerance approaches. Gang enforcement units.

But using proxies instead of specifically targeting leads to some collateral emiseration. Luckily, white communities have vastly more intergenerational and communal wealth, so those crafting the laws know that white communities will be more resilient to the kind of damage they intend to inflict.

not a problem with whites, it’s a problem with the rich.

Crowdfunding success is heavily racialized. It strongly favours people with more wealth in their extended community or identity group. Poverty is incredibly racialized in the US, especially at the communal rather than individual level.

I certainly agree that rich people enjoy watching all the poors suffer, but here in the US there’s still a large demographic beyond just the rich that feel safer when black and brown people are disproportionately targeted for misery.

35000+ tragic mistakes and counting.

Crowdfunding campaigns like this are a great way for white communities to avoid the consequences of laws that were mostly designed to emiserate non-white americans.