The rates of rape experienced by trans people suggest you’re entirely wrong about that last part.

It’s only paedophilia if it comes from the pedophile region of Alabama. Otherwise it’s just sparkling ephebophilia.

https://www.cbsnews.com/newyork/news/zohran-mamdani-new-york-city-run-grocery-stores/

This, BTW, is why the deal with Argentina to import more beef will do nothing for prices. Argentinian farmers pretty much exclusively raise very high end free-range grass fed beef that sells for a very high sticker price. This might be good for, say, Michelin star New York restaurants, but it won’t help anyone out in the grocery store.

They can’t say ‘lie.’ It’s one of the few words you can basically never use as a journalist.

It’s not about the incontestability of the truth. It’s about the fact that a ‘lie’ (as opposed to a ‘falsehood’) requires intent. Basically, unless you have psychic powers, or a written, signed declaration from the person saying “Yes, I intentionally lied,” you can’t prove it’s a lie. And in journalism, you do have to be able to prove the things you say. Potentially in a court of law.

He could just be stupid. He could just be ignorant. He could just be suffering from serious mental decline. We don’t know for sure.

I get that’s not a satisfying answer. We all know, intuitively, that Trump lies, constantly and endlessly. He tells himself ten lies in the morning just to get out of bed. I get it. We all know it. But journalism has to be held to a higher standard, and that standard has to be applied consistently, not just when it suits us.

deleted by creator

“Have we tried ‘Kill all the poor’?”

Remember, releasing the files is extremely popular with Republican voters, to the point where anyone who votes no is going to look like they’re basically in bed with the evil deep state pedophile cabal hiding under the pizza parlor.

That means for them to kill it in the House, a whole bunch of GOP reps have to face a firestorm from their constituents.

If it does in the Senate, it’s because they let that firestorm spread to every GOP senator too.

And if it makes it to Trump, and he’s forced to veto it? That might just be the final nail in his presidency. His polularity is already tanking. This could kill it completely.

Yeah, I think recent polling puts it at something like 75-80% in favour of releasing the files, and it’s pretty evenly split across party lines.

Thanks, that helps a lot and definitely recontextualises the whole situation. I can still seem some advantage in forcing the GOP to burn their one CR in January, but that’s definitely a much smaller threat than I had previously assumed.

Thanks, that seems to be context I was missing and does change my read on this pretty substantially. Someone else made the same point earlier, but without the specific details about the procedural hows and whys.

That would still force the GOP to burn their one CR for the year in January, which is not nothing, but I can absolutely agree that it’s far less leverage than I’d initially taken it to be.

Interesting. That’s a procedural detail I wasn’t aware of. Is there somewhere I can read up more on that? Why is it specifically that this vote could be filibustered but that one can’t?

After reading more about the deal, it’s actually starting to look pretty smart.

They’re only funding the government until January.

So all the stuff where the Republicans have to bring votes by December isn’t a punt, because the Dems are keeping a loaded gun on the table. If the GOP fail to uphold their side of the deal, they can just shut the government down again, right away, with a clear and obvious justification.

The reality is, actually getting these ACA subsidies extended was never likely to happen. It has to go through a GOP controlled house, and Trump. But by holding out for an agreement to actually put it to a vote, the Dems have put the issue squarely on the GOP. They’re gonna force them to either shoot down their package in the Senate, shoot it down in the House, or have Trump veto it. It’ll fail in one of those ways, mark my words, not it’ll fail in a way that is very obviously the GOP choosing not to stand up for regular Americans. And by extending the issue with the shutdown there’s been enough time for people to start seeing the 2026 rates and really getting a picture of how this is going to hurt.

I think this is a solid win. The subsidies were always doomed, and I don’t think actually extending them was ever the objective. I think the point was to force the GOP to kill them in a very public and obvious way where its clear who is holding the knife. This deal achieves that.

Edit: Strike the above. After understanding some more of the details, it’s not looking nearly as smart as I’d first assumed. Leaving the original up to not ruin the continuity of the thread.

OK, this is starting to make sense.

The deal says “You have to put the ACA subsidies to a vote by December. In return, we’ll fund the government until January.”

So they’re not giving up their leverage, because if the Republicans fuck around the Dems can just slam the brakes on again right away. Meanwhile it puts the ball squarely in the Republicans court to actually do something about this issue that is raising healthcare prices for people all across America. It puts the focus on the Republican controlled House, and on Trump, letting the public really see who is fighting for them and who isn’t.

I know it’s easy to assume that this is another example of Shumer caving (God only knows, he does it so much I’m starting to think his spine is a paper straw), but looking at the details I’m starting to think this is actually a solid play.

Thank fuck for that. Maybe they’ll actually get something done this time.

The “room for throwing up in” is a myth. It was based on a misunderstanding of the appearance of the term “vomitorium” that cropped up a bunch in Roman texts describing certain structures.

As another user noted, it’s just a large exit door. From the root meaning of vomit; to expel.

He’s cautioning that Russia will be capable of launching a limited attack, and that they do have the motivation to do so, if NATO allows them to believe that an attack would not be met with a response.

Russia is very eager to test the strength of the NATO alliance. With the US clearly faltering, they want to know if the rest of NATO will still stand united.

No matter how much Russia arms up, defeating NATO - even without the US - is not a realistic possibility. It could be, if they heavily militarise their economy while NATO countries allow our militaries to languish. This is why increased military spending is necessary, as much as that absolutely sucks. We can no longer rely on the US to foot the bill for protecting us, and we can no longer rely on access to the global economy being enough of a draw to prevent countries like Russia from starting shit.

No one wants to live in a world where being prepared for all out war is necessary, but that is the world we live in now and there’s really nothing we can do about it.

Our only realistic option for NATO member states is to strengthen and rebuild our military forces, strengthen our bonds with each other (this is why Operation Reassurance is so important) and create a defensive posture that will prevent Russia from even thinking of trying anything, while we slowly bleed them to death with sanctions.

This the exact rationale used by climate deniers. Because you can state that there is “controversy” over an issue, you can dismiss it entirely.

The consensus is that Isreal is committing a genocide. Those who are disagree are a tiny minority, and should be considered nothing more than outliers. It doesn’t matter that some of the disagreement comes from nations like the US. They’re not more right just because they have a big economy and military.

As you said, “Wikipedia’s job is to describe historical and scientific consensus”, and that’s exactly the responsibility that they’re shirking here, choosing instead to gesture at a barely existent “controversy” that basically consists of “Isreal and their allies refute the claim.” By the same token we shouldn’t call Trump a felon because he still insists he’s innocent.

This is exactly the mistake that the Dems made going into 2024. They shouted from the rooftops about how great Biden’s economy was, while completely ignoring how cost of living was destroying the average person.

Trump has managed to make those problems even worse, fritter away the few good things Biden’s economy did have going for it (low unemployment, significant investment in certain manufacturing sectors) and now they’re doing exactly the same play. But it’s going to take the Dems waking the fuck up and actually offering real solutions on cost of living to capitalise on this. That’s how they won on the 4th; every candidate that won, from progressives like Mamdami to moderate centrists, talked about affordability, the one thing Biden and Harris refused to acknowledge.

How do you imagine that would actually work?