volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@albnelson the answer is simple: the US is a diverse country, and not everyone shares your personal upbringing and experiences.

It's so important that people realize that diversity and take caution in projecting their own upbringings on others.

@witchescauldron I would push back on that saying it's not about balance but about different tools for addressing different, unrelated problems.

To go back to my analogy above, it's not that you need a balance between a hammer and a screwdriver, but that you need a hammer for nails, a screwdriver for screws, and the perspective of which is which.

@risibledog yes, a lot of people might say that, but they come across as promoting sensational stories instead of taking an honest and reasonable look at the state of the world.

And that's exactly what I'd criticize these reporters for promoting, the sensational instead of the responsible.

That you'd channel conspiracy theory only illustrates how problematic this sort of story is. We get nowhere with that nonsense.

@jchyip if nothing else, a sign of general distress simply represents the sense that so many of us have that things are pretty screwy in the country right now.

But news reports say there had been a lot of drama in the neighborhood, with different neighbors putting up their own signs.

There's no reason to jump to more sensational conclusions when the simpler explanations suffice.

@risibledog sounds like you're channeling that there are generally some screwy things in the world.

Well, what of the reported show that it was a sign of agreement with you? That the flag was upside down to express how messed up things were becoming?

I wouldn't say that's so fucked up.

@timo21 the thing to keep in mind is that there are technical differences between "people" and "people under the Constitution" just as the idea that corporations are people misunderstands the technical terminology.

It's important to recognize when a term being used is technical or common.

@breedlov if you've listened to Republicans over years, as their stances adapted, it's not so much hypocrisy as a recognition that the rules aren't what they'd prefer, but they have to work with the system as it is, especially if they ever want to change the rules to crack down on ballot harvesting.

It's been a longrunning conversation between them, with nuances that might be missed to a person who hasn't kept track.

@itslinklauren from what I've seen, the majority of Americans don't even know what the charges are, and so really don't have informed opinions about the trial.

But even without a trial, it's not like the money being spent on it would go to fixing overseas wars or whatever.

Heck, Trump's fines might help pad those budgets!
@vivekgramaswamy

@NewsDesk funny thing is that this administration has called into question whether those privileges can be claimed during future administrations, so the criminal shield might not stand either.

What a mess.

@dougiec3 The reporting has that backwards.

The LA motion was about PRESERVING voting rights after a lower court was acting screwy against them.

Sadly, the general state of voting law in the US is pretty screwy these days, but still.

This was a victory for voting rights, or at least not a defeat.

@sundogplanets it's all about balance, looking for the balance between risk mitigation vs advancement of public interests.

Like, everything we do can kill people. Do we not do anything? Ever? No, we sit down and work out risks, reasonable strategies for addressing the risk, and then we do our best to get that balance right.

I don't find this terrifying at all. It seems like the reasonable and acceptable outcome, with all of the oversight and risk management that's in place.

We can't just live in fear.

@JohnBarentine sure it can be both.

One possibility is that there was disruption that lowered performance by a few percent. Disrupted, but not terribly so.

Another possibility is that there was significant disruption over the weekend, but after that passed, now they're fine.

@PChoate I think you are mistakenly focusing on Trump and ignoring his voters.

You're looking at his strategies and changes changes in what Trump can do but overlooking people who actually vote for him, or might be willing to vote for him, when in the end they are the core of the situation.

To put it a different way, Trump likes to act like he is the center of the universe, but he's not, but you are falling into his preferred narrative, agreeing with Trump that he is the center of the universe.

@stevebenen It's also the opposite of reality.

No, the round of tax breaks wouldn't benefit them the most, just as claims about the last round of tax benefits didn't benefit them the most.

Outlets like MSNBC keep crying wolf, and they lose credibility with anyone willing to follow up to see how their frantic claims worked out.

@yogthos I mean they lay out their reasoning showing that there is no genocide there, particularly the efforts taken to avoid killing.

They deny it because they have the evidence that it doesn't exist.

@BeAware@social.beaware.live just view it as a language that you might not be fluent in.

Don't feel dumb, just feel like it's another language that you get rusty from not using!

@mcnado Yes! Let's actually talk about the larger picture so we can fix these problems!

Heaven forbid we actually try to save babies!

@MarvinFreeman Biden's own administration says otherwise, though, as the data coming out of official sources support those claims