volkris @volkris@qoto.org

@ginaintheburg what? No, that's not what that means at all.

@Captain_Jack_Sparrow nah, we've had quite a lot of ridiculous impeachment motions lately.

But we keep voting for those congresspeople so I guess democracy is working out fine.

@dontreportme No, that's not quite what the ruling held, and yes the podcast does seem to get this wrong as well.

What the ruling found was NOT that it was a problem for the opponent to get more money, the problem was that the more money was triggered by the first person spending some, thus penalizing that campaign spending.

In other words, it's not the contribution to another's speech that's the problem. The problem is that your speech is what triggers the contribution, thereby penalizing your speech.

I hope that clarifies things. It's a significant distinction at the core of the case.

@cdarwin

@Jam123 Well then I would respond that the key is making sure people are aware that they can't trust what they're being sold as news.

And yeah, maybe more and more people are realizing that, but there's still so many who do put their trust in untrustworthy sources and make significant decisions based on falsehoods because they don't realize.

@MoiraEve@mastodon.world

@Downshift Walz has taken positions where he is eager to stick his nose in other people's business.

So it's kind of funny to see that hashtag.

If only he was of the philosophy of people minding their own business then maybe I'd be interested in voting for him.

@MoiraEve@mastodon.world part of the problem is that different news sources are reporting factually different versions of what happened, so a lot of people that are criticizing Walz do so based on a different set of claims.

Personally I don't know or care about this, but I definitely see how different people are coming to different conclusions based on different reporting.

@jcclement@mastodon.social EVERY president wants to concentrate powers in the executive branch, or else they're not doing their job. The US system was specifically designed based on the idea that different parties will balance each other out by working in their own interests, that's how they check each other's powers.

If the president doesn't want to concentrate powers in the executive branch then he would allow the other branches to get too powerful. Instead, the present is supposed to want to concentrate powers while the legislative and judicial branches refuse that because they want to concentrate the powers in their own corners.

That's a fundamental part of maintaining the balance in the US government.

The Supreme Court has been adamant in saying that no one is above the law. People talking about writing legislation to reverse the Supreme Court don't seem to understand what the Supreme Court actually said, and they are instead being misled by a bunch of special interests and politicians looking to score points.

@donm save our democracy?

Oh no, democracy doesn't need saving. It's perfectly fine. In fact it's working so well, that we're about to elect a moron because the people want a moron.

Yay democracy. The people get the government they want, it's just that they want a stupid government.

But in seriousness, it's not that our two-party system is flawed but rather that our voting system is flawed, and the two-party system is the best way of mitigating the flaws of the voting system.

It's really important to realize this distinction because if we got rid of the two-party system somehow but kept the flawed voting system then we would have all of the problems without the mitigation.

@StingrayBadger If the fascists let you stay on their platform speaking against the fascists, that's the best place you could possibly be.

It's getting a toe into an echo chamber.

@jstatepost

The problem is, we live in a time when the media is so full of falsehoods and falsehoods about falsehoods that nobody can tell what's actually true.

They're already debunking the story that this has been debunked.

The world we live in right now, nobody knows what it true or not

@lexfri

@benroyce wow, when's the last time you had a conversation with a conservative in person?

Because what you're saying here is the exact opposite of my experiences dealing with them.

@MattTheKnife @randahl

@solarbird Trump didn't dump project 2025. He never had it in the first place.

If anything, project 2025 dumped Trump as mainstream conservatives and Trump supporters found that Heritage Foundation was way off the reservation and made a fool of itself by publishing that white paper.

You're missing the interesting drama by promoting the conspiracy theory.

@Free_Press what in the world?

If you listen to mainstream Republican talkers right now, party is fawning over the guy. Well both of them.

@manton The problem is, a lot of elements in the story are disputed.

So it ends up being preaching to the choir as people who have heard a different story aren't going to accept this one.

@cybeardjm Well, I guess that goes to show that Megan McArdle doesn't know what they're talking about if they haven't had a broad enough worldview to see the uses for Bitcoin.

It really doesn't say anything about Bitcoin. It only has to say something about the ones who are ignorant as to its uses in the real world.

@timo21 you don't understand the conservative position here.

They're not crying about free tampons. They are holding up free tampons as indicator that an official has lost their way, is out of touch with the mainstream, is misspending money, whatever.

You misunderstand the argument of a mainstream conservative.

It has nothing to do with undeserving people at all. It has to do with what they see as politicians not serving or representing their constituencies.

@realcaseyrollins I think everybody in this race, presidents and vice presidents, are all fairly hated even though they may be loved by a core base.

It's similar to saying that Trump must not be that hated if he keeps getting the Republican nominee.

Oh they are hated, it's just that they also have a core base that supports them.

@donm I mean that's pretty much where I am personally where I'm going to vote for my dog because he's more qualified to be president than what either of the major parties is putting forward.

I've been begging either party to put forward someone worth voting for, Republicans declined first, and it looks like Democrats are going to put forward a ridiculous nominee as well.

The only way we can encourage the parties to nominate better people is to refuse to vote for either of their their ridiculous choices.

@nosmaharba That's not what's happening at all.

You're just buying into the propaganda.

@jcclement@mastodon.social It won't though.

The bill is based on lies, propaganda from Biden, where he leaned into a public that's been misled to propose solutions that won't work for problems that don't exist.

You talk about wannabe autocrats like Trump, and that's okay but this situation is about Biden himself exceeding the authority of the president and the courts calling him out on it, once again.

Presidents like Biden can't legally use their powers the way he wants to. That's the core of this whole thing, but social media is just full of misrepresentations of what's going on, just a whole lot of people parenting the autocratic message that folks like him want to spread.

It's exactly backwards. It's orwellian. These are the times we live in.