@admitsWrongIfProven @Pat Commenting on the actions of elected officials is largely a waste of time, but sometimes I feel compelled to do so. Out of respect for the people who don't want to get dragged into that nonsense and scroll past long, irrelevant rants (especially those outside of the US), I put a content wrapper around posts about US politics with a succinct subject line. #politics #CW
US Politics 2/8 - Trump's coup plot would destroy America
When I say Trump openly plotted a coup, I mean is that he was recruiting members of the political elite to publicly endorse a coup attempt, which would lend a veneer of legitimacy of a subsequent coup. He may have never 'pulled the trigger', and it may not be possible to convict him of any crimes, but that doesn’t change the political fact that he was claiming the powers of the President despite clearly losing the election. If he had won that elite support, many of his appointees probably would have ignored legal orders from President Biden and obeyed illegal orders from Trump, leaving it to the military, civil service, and law enforcement to decide whose orders to follow; we’d be in the middle of a civil war right now. 2/8
Are you fucking SERIOUS? At least you can get refills via telehealth but holy shit this is an accessibility nightmare. Fuck Biden, fuck the DEA. #ADHD
For anyone who needs to be extra cautious not to get infected with #SARS-CoV-2, I found the calculator below helpful.
This project will end before the middle of March, sadly, but I hope the calculator will still be available.
But as you can see, the specific phrase and specific wording has a history https://mediamanipulation.org/case-studies/viral-slogan-its-ok-be-white
Never fall for the politician's lie that their party (Dem or Rep) represents half of the USA. They may get almost half of the vote, but that doesn't mean shit. Half of the eligible voters stay home, so the politicians only get about one quarter of the potential vote. Even those voters are frequently voting for the "lesser of two evils", after the political-economic elite eliminates any chance for decent people to rise to the top.
#elections #USA
While Trump solicited treason, half of the Republican party went along with him, while the other half mumbled "that wouldn't be prudent". #elections #USA #Trump #GOP
In 2016, the Libertarian Presidential ticket featured two former Republican governors. They got 3.3% of the vote, while the Republican party rallied 46% of the vote for an inexperienced demagogue. Even as this crowd cries about their precious 'liberties', they lined up behind an authoritarian President in 2020 who was consolidating power wherever he could. These people are no friends of liberty -- even in its most conservative form. #elections #USA #liberty #freedom
"Parachute use did not reduce death or major traumatic injury when jumping from aircraft in the first randomized evaluation of this intervention" https://www.bmj.com/content/363/bmj.k5094
highly educational trolling!
h/t @riana
Right on, Kareem Abdul-Jabbar https://kareem.substack.com/p/hannity-and-carlson-admit-lying-to?sd=pf
RT @dancow
Oh my god…LOL. When I read the Dr. Barrett’s glowing praise of Elizabeth Koch in Koch’s NYT profile, I thought “surely she must have a financial tie”
… but I didn’t bother googling because I naively thought: “but surely the New York Times would obviously disclose that!”
🥴 https://twitter.com/brooksbarnesnyt/status/1628787136886611970
WTF
An #Oklahoma judge just transferred a #lesbian mom’s parental rights to her son’s #spermdonor
https://19thnews.org/2023/02/oklahoma-judge-parental-rights-lgbtq-same-sex-marriage/
“[TheOklahoma’s parentage act] does not take into account #samesexmarriage, and there is no presumption that the wife of the mother is automatically presumed the parent of a child born during the marriage,” Judge McGuire wrote.
Earth's human population recently reached 8 billion people.
Here's where they live.
Data visualization by Pietro Violo https://pietroviolo.com/
Why are so many people seeing more engagement on Mastodon than Twitter?
To me, the answer is pretty simple: Twitter tries to aggregate as much attention as possible around stuff that goes mega-viral.
There are only so many minutes in the day. So for stuff to "blow up big" necessitates that most of the rest of the posts from people we might actually want to hear from must go unseen.
more from @heycaseywattsup
I was heartened yesterday that the Supreme Court is grasping for a more sophisticated vocabulary for how recommendation algorithms work. We’re overdue for a thoughtful reckoning about the interplay between algorithmic ranking and the surges of user activity it purports to measure, and how that interplay shapes the public sphere. But the question for the Supreme Court isn’t that; it’s whether a key division of responsibility enshrined in Section 230 should persist. Some thoughts… [1/22]
The FTC has started a new Office of Technology! Now they're hiring technologists to power their investigations: https://ftc.gov/technologists
* Remote work possible.
* Pay is amazing by non-tech-sector standards (up to $176K).
* Blessedly simple application process.
Get in there!
USA politics -- MTG is not 'just asking questions'
MTG and her allies will present this "National Divorce" idea as a sincere attempt to find solutions to problems in the US. But MTG's never wanted any solution that allowed us to live together -- her entire career has been built on divisiveness. Maybe we should be happy that she maybe giving up on imposing her supremacist plan on the whole country, but don't be fooled that she is doing anything more than trying to create a sense of crisis that her faction can exploit. Anyone who takes her serious is either a total fool or in league with her plans.
#NationalDivorce
USA politics -- secession when convenient for supremacists
The people of Atlanta don't want to be part of MTG's neo-Confederacy. The supremacists love to talk about "local control" -- but only when it pushes power to institutions that they control. They want Buckhead to secede from Atlanta; they want Georgia to secede from the USA; but what would they say to Atlanta and other areas seceding from GA?
#Georgia #NationalDivorce
USA politics - stupid ideas from wannabe tyrants
The politicians (MTG) and pundits talking about a 'National Divorce' have never considered serious ideas to address their stated concerns, such as 'democratic confederalism'. Instead, they are just trying to get people riled up and possibly identify/establish a polity where they can have uncontested control.
I recently discovered this divide between chemistry and astronomy and had to make the meme.
Nature lover in Decatur, GA, USA. Interested in the sciences and science education. Science is a practical philosophy to be shared with all, not a commodity to be owned and sold.