People SCREAMED at the party. Muslim Democrat voters made all the democracy moves, and got told to get lost:

• Organized a massive protest movement,
• Made their desires and convictions known publicly and directly to leadership who’d listen
• Turned out and protested in person
• Were snubbed any kind of representation or platform at the DNC, even for a curated speech by a sitting Congressional member
• Ran a massive protest vote in the Democratic primaries, which if sustained (which it was in the general) meant that the Dems would loose Michigan at a minimum (which Kamala did) and its 15 electoral college votes went for Trump

The party has to be listening for anyone’s voice to be heard. Until you hit your FEC donor limit and the throw down even more for a Super PAC, or pay for a seat at fundraiser dinner/chat a you’re definitely a nobody to them. We need a new party:

Organizers said about 700 people attended the fundraiser. Ticket prices ranged from $3,300 to a half million dollars. Political experts said this visit is essentially a trip to the ATM.

August 12 Zoom event with North Carolina Gov. Roy Cooper, where tickets ranged from $1,000 to $25,000

Wut?

U.S. regulations have three levels of a circuit breaker, which are set to halt trading when the S&P 500 Index drops 7%, 13%, and 20%.

Granted that’s the main market index not an individual security, but a 5-11% drop is significant. Iirc the last time it ended the day’s trading for the S&P was the start of COVID, when investors ran a fire sale liquidation because nobody knew if the whole world was going to die.

A downswing is a hurdle to recover from in raw math terms, and represents a bigger blow to vibes based trading, especially given the legislative (virtue signaling so far) action on anti-trust, or the current popular sentiment against insurers.

Perfidy has never been easier - no uniform to take off, just loose the insignia. The Hauge hates this one trick!

He could have been Jimmy Carter 2.0 after Trump’s bullshit - but instead chose to be another Lich stubbornly holding onto the throne whilst fueling genocide.

The UK has a long tradition of pieing awful politicians - and guess what? It gets a laugh and memable pictures, but changes nothing.

• Nigel Farage has milkshake thrown at him, protester gets a criminal record. Policies unchanged.
• Tony Blair gets pelted with purple flour. Protester gets a criminal record. Policies unchanged.
• John Prescott gets egged, punches protester in the face. No arrest, policies unchanged, Labor wins election, Prescott survives politically in government.
• Peter Mandleson, government spin docotor, has green custard thrown at him. Policies unchanged.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HCCEt09G9P8

Compare that to the possibility Russia had when Russia worked on getting closer to the west after the fall of Gorbachev and becoming a democracy, If they had continued along that path, Russia would almost without a doubt be the biggest and most influential economy in Europe now.

This. They could have very easily been the “bridge to the east” for Europe, and vice versa for China & the islands. Trade, security, resources, etc instead of giving that role to Türkiye and Israel. Massive reserves of oil, gas, fertilizer precursors, and titanium. Combine that with Chinas heavy metals and labor pool, Russia could be in an economic powerhouse alliance, off ramping from a hydrocarbon economy into a manufacturing and innovation society. The Soviets kept abreast of the entire western output, their military hardware was super competitive until like the 80s.

Instead one guy threw it away.

And a buttload of live-fire data from actual combat to boot. The CIA jacking a Hind-D was chill to research its flight profile limitations, radar signature, weaknesses, etc, but seeing how it’s used in practice and deviation from doctrine is key.

The Ka-52s had their feast of the counteroffensive’s battlefield when first committed, until we figured out their limitations and counter-meta. They haven’t had so much fun lately.

Listened to the first season a while back, I genuinely had one (1) note/dispute, for a series spanning nearly 11 hours on the Iraq invasion. They brought receipts, sources, archived media snippets, and a lot of context that mainstream media still glosses over with 9/11 remembrance justifications.

Very listenable, add it to your queue if you remotely enjoy geopolitics

NYPD barely bats above 50% for murder arrests in a ‘good’ period - not convictions. 33% is abysmal given their absurd budget and frankly unconstitutional practices like stop and frisk.

Within the U.S. criminal justice system, criminal cases can be cleared (or closed) one of two ways. The first is through arrest… The second way a case can be closed is through what is called exceptional means, where law enforcement must have either identified the offender, gathered enough evidence to arrest, charge, and prosecute someone, identified the offender’s exact location, or come up against a circumstance outside the control of law enforcement that keeps them from arresting and prosecuting the offender

“Must pass” is part of the language that ostensibly liberal media outlets like HuffPost use to cover for Democrats rolling over yet again.

Literally nothing “must pass” we’ve had how many government shutdowns from Republican shitfits over stupid culture wars and cynical “fiscal responsibilities” whilst rubber stamping national defense budget blowouts?

Democrats can add poison pill amendments too, or at least burn down the clock with the filibuster they cling too so desperately each time they achieve a majority. But they don’t, because deep down most of them are okay with this.

I guess the “Free staters” wanna die then, given their motto they’re so inexorably proud of parroting without any praxis:

Live Free or Die

I could have done without the “Palestinian” erasure, and the conflation of IDF and civilians killed on Oct 7th - just like it’s important to delineate between 7,000-17,000 Hamas fighters and at least 20,607 dead civilians the IAF bombed callously with AI driven targeting.

But otherwise you’re mostly right; Iran/Hamas set the stage for the Israeli overreaction, Hezbollah attacking the north in ‘solidarity’ and Iran loosing their chess pieces, whilst Russia was bled out in Ukraine and distracted.

A lot of people don’t make it out of Rikers…

Someone did their Snowden reading:

Parallel construction is a law enforcement process of building a parallel, or separate, evidentiary basis for a criminal investigation in order to limit disclosure as to the origins of an investigation.

In the US, a particular form is evidence laundering, where one police officer obtains evidence via means that are in violation of the Fourth Amendment

De facto illegal and shady as hell, but in use when the (feds especially) want to catch someone, typically via warrantless SIGINT mass surveillance. They’ll do the investigation using dragnets and broad searches through metadata and other means that are illegal and inadmissible in court, then an incredibly convenient cop/witness/informant will appear with information that permits an arrest/search under permissible means - under the hope that the suspect has incriminating evidence.

This is wayyy too convenient to get him, with all the evidence on hand, from a ‘concerned citizen’. We live in a police state, that serves the ruling and moneyed class.

Forgot a step

0. “Allahu akbar!”

Exactly. “My nepo failson” was the issue he was willing to defy norms and undercut institutions for, feeding directly into Trumps line that the justice department has been politicized in prosecutions. He didn’t cross that line for;

• Palestine
• Student loan forgiveness
• Budget negotiations/default
• Supreme Court expansion
• Judicial reform/integrity
• Corporate greed excess leading to toxic rail spills or children working in slaughterhouses

The Republicans fight hard and dirty, playing from all angles and he slid backs and took it from them on multiple fronts. Sinema/Manchin holding up a vote? Trump has all his toadies marching to the same music, why can’t we? Tuberville playing obstruction in the Senate? It’s called the bully pulpit for a reason, whilst the president has no actual legislative power he can put a Senator under the microscope if he desired. Biden had no sustained fight in him

Yeah. I understood the (good faith) arguments that the presidency is a high tempo, stressful, 24/7 job and that Biden was wiped out in interviews or public appearances - but that’s an excuse not an exoneration.

If he couldn’t make it through the work each day without being cooked, every single day, then he should have stood aside for someone younger/sharper who could. I voted for Jimmy Carter 2.0 in 2020, not for Biden - the downslope was apparent even before then if you cared to look beyond the news headlines. He never should have ran again in 2024.

Crazy theory, but given the proliferation of mines and FPV, could Russia be focusing on IFV/et al in lieu of tanks? If they’re gonna blow up quickly either way and a cannon is less useful than 20mm for treeline assaults, at much lower cost?

Undoing the vestiges of colonialism is bloody work, but the current system of dictatorship/oil-cartel is hardly sunshine and roses for the locals.

I truly hope the people living there get to decide their future and the Kurds carve out a real state, not just autonomous zones that Turkey bombs at will. The way we abandoned them was disgusting after they led the fight on the ground against IS/Daesh.