I wonder what these numbskulls thought of Tim Walz. He seemed to do the real, down-to-earth thing pretty well also.

He could have, yes.

Instead, he doubled down on it and continued his campaign essentially with the message “Yes, I really do want to take away certain guns. Vote for me, Texans!”

So I’ve read.

They still blew up their launch pad and showered a protected wildlife area with particulate, metal, and concrete debris.

They then built and operated their water deluge system without obtaining permits.

Typo or no, they’re still taking a fast and loose, “better to ask forgiveness than permission” approach that is a detriment to a protected natural environment. They intend to test the limits of the Texas government’s ability to show disdain for the environment in favor of private enterprise.

It’s not just blind hate for Elon, they’re genuinely terrible stewards of the environment in south Texas. They constantly lie about their intentions and impact to avoid having to take responsibility for anything. Say what you will about how independently they operate from his input, this is definitely a company culture that he cultivates and promotes.

Eastern District of Texas is extremely favorable to patent trolls. It’s not a coincidence that they filed the suit there.

I’m really surprised as well. But if you think about where American culture was in the ‘50s and early ‘60s, there was a huge emphasis placed on being “normal.” You can be sure that most boomers were told by their parents or peers at some point to “just be normal” or criticized someone by saying they’re not normal, and there’s still plenty of conservative families raising their kids like that today.

I can only imagine that’s the nerve being touched by the “weird” criticism.

Not surprising. Musk has referred to the entirety of Bellingcat as “a psyop” before.

Well said.

I get Jon Stewart’s position and agree with nearly all of his criticisms, but I think the biggest thing he’s not acknowledging in his “why can France and the UK do this but we can’t?” argument is that this would absolutely not be confined to just the Democratic Party. Literally every step of the process would be decried as election fraud, cheating, “the steal of the century” etc. by republicans. If they got pissed enough to attempt an insurrection in 2020 when there was absolutely no credible evidence of fraud, just think where things will go if there’s this whole slew of unprecedented last-minute decisions that are nearly impossible to reconcile with every individual states’ laws. I’m not saying we have to bow to repubs demands, but the more excuses they have to claim anything isn’t above board, the greater the risk that the “stolen election” narrative gains traction beyond the far right.

We’ve spent the last 4 years witnessing how slowly our legal system works on huge matters like this. By the time the dust settles on all of the legal challenges, the resulting chaos will have already rendered the decisions nearly irrelevant.

Shame to see Colin Allred voted yea. He’s the only hope we have to unseat Ted Cruz this year.

It’s like he watched Beto O’Rourke commit political suicide over guns and thought “I bet I can do that on a national scale.”

How do you think smoking went from something nearly everybody did to being taboo? Maybe the labels don’t do anything for the last 10% of the population who still smoke today, despite the taboo, but those labels played a big role in reinforcing public awareness of the health effects of smoking.

As the holder of roughly $45 worth of Tesla stock, I voted against his pay package and every other shady, bullshit proposal on the ballot. My vote counted for almost nothing and I’d probably be considered an “activist shareholder” anyway, but it was worth the money I’ve lost to get to click that button anyway.

Only if you ignore that there’s also a segment of Democratic voters who would reconsider support for Biden if he took a stance that they perceived as anti-Israel. Democrats are a coalition party of compromises between factions who have to work together to find as much common ground as possible in order to have any political relevance in a first-past-the-post system. Biden has to walk whatever tightrope loses the fewest votes, and he seems to think that not doing a 180 on decades of US foreign policy is the best way to do that.

Unfortunate that this graph starts in 1972, when the oldest baby boomers were already 27. If you compare that first section of the boomers’ line to the corresponding section of the millennials’ line, boomers were to the left of millennials around the same age.

Now, I find it hard to imagine that millennials will have the “Reagan moment” that boomers had in 1980, but this data shouldn’t convince anyone that millennials are some shining ray of hope for the future. Today’s non-voting, politically apathetic millennials could easily be swayed to the right by the time they’re the age of today’s boomers. I see this sentiment repeated a lot lately, but it’s pure foolishness to think that conservatives will die with boomers.

Unless, of course, you expect to rely on that permanence for archival purposes, in which case the internet is a fleeting, ephemeral fart in the wind.

I’ll just pull it up on this display that’s more than 9 feet away from the source…

Sorry, but you’re not going to get ranked choice voting just by pretending you already have it. FPTP and the electoral college are realities of US politics and the “lesser of two evils” approach is the only realistic way to play the game.

The executive branch is the wrong place to try to achieve ranked choice voting anyway. Vote for legislative candidates who support ranked choice. If nobody is talking about it, call your representatives. Start petitions. Join grassroots organizations. Anything, but don’t fool yourself into thinking the path to fixing our issues involves voting for Jill Stein over Biden next year.

Unwavering support for whatever Israel wants has been status quo for the US for decades. There’s plenty of people who don’t like it, but the unfortunate truth is that we are too broken and divided to fix it right now.

Trump is a literal existential threat to democracy. Assuming he becomes the republican nominee next year, our only chance of ever having a voice in US foreign policy in the future is through a second Biden term.

No candidate will ever be perfect and no vote will ever be without moral baggage, but when you consider all of the issues together and look at what Trump has already said he would do if reelected, there’s really no other choice on the table anymore.

Dragging his feet on student loans? I feel like that’s the only campaign promise he’s been making a consistent effort on. He literally got shot down by the Supreme Court and has kept trying different strategies. The only times he’s reduced the scope of the proposed relief is once he’s been blocked at every turn.

Even as someone with student loans, I’ve almost been frustrated that he’s been putting as much effort as he has into student loan relief while bigger issues see no action.

I guess it depends on what you’re using Mint for, but I’ve been getting a lot of use out of Empower (formerly Personal Capital) for tracking all my accounts in one place. No subscription or anything, just some pressure, sometimes including phone calls, to use their financial advisor services.

I’ve had an account with Credit Karma for ages and I’m not sure what service they offer that would be comparable, but they were bought by Intuit a few years ago, so I’d find it hard to recommend them for much anymore.