All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[Zauriel]

I will agree with this. The worlds is not near the same as it was in 97. neither are the two people that went even though they hold the same office. There are many differences between then and now. I do question Pelsoi going because of the spot it put Biden in when he is already facing so much. But I get why she did and agree that people need to show China they stand with Taiwan. it also would have been a huge mistake to cancel the trip or for Biden to tell her to stay in the USA after China said what they said.

Although the Chinese did object to Newt Gingrich's trip to Taiwan, they calmly tolerated it. They didn't make much fuss about it in 1997 unlike now.

Speaker of the House is second in the line of presidential succession after the vice-president. In other words, she is the third highest U.S. government official.

China would not dare go to war with their biggest customer over the House Speaker's visit to an island nation in the sea. Almost Everything bought in the states is made in China.

But God knows what will happen if the POTUS visits Taiwan. I recall Dwight Eisenhower was the last POTUS to visit Taiwan. But that was when the US government still recognized Taiwan as the sole legitimate government of China until the Nixon administration.

[kidfresh512]

Reading a lot of the takeaways from the primaries last night. It is somewhat comforting to see that these hardcore anti abortion measures are actively stoking turnout. Deep red Kansas now has to recalibrate these draconian measures. Even though gerrymandering alone will most likely help the GOP gain the House. The Senate outlook isn't as bleak as it was earlier in the year.

[hyped78]

Reading a lot of the takeaways from the primaries last night. It is somewhat comforting to see that these hardcore anti abortion measures are actively stoking turnout. Deep red Kansas now has to recalibrate these draconian measures. Even though gerrymandering alone will most likely help the GOP gain the House. The Senate outlook isn't as bleak as it was earlier in the year.

Five Thirty Eight updated their models some hours ago and are now saying the Democrats are slightly favored to win the Senate:
https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...e/?cid=rrpromo

[CSTowle]

Typical lib, can't cope with being challenged

And sadly a typical conservative response, a bit of snark and bluster but nothing really in the "challenge" department when it comes to arguments or facts. When presented with facts that run counter to their own narrative, they often reject them as being "biased" and then duck out of the thread for a few weeks before popping in again when they sense a weakness in the Democratic Party or Administration.

I am also hesitant on discussing further on this topic - and this has been a very sensitive topic here in the UK, has led to several politicians being kicked out/ suspended from the Labour party (left wing), as the party has been plagued by anti-semitism.

But would you agree that, for many people, being anti-zionist and anti-semitic is basically the same and that many/ most people who hold those views are both?

It's a common tactic some take to shut down dissent. When it comes to what you're criticizing many on this thread for, insulting and labeling someone so as to dismiss them as a person to avoid having to listen (let alone think of a counter) to their arguments, this is one of the all-time classics.

There's a long history of antisemitism in the Western world, but there are also very large problems with the way Israel handles its business including how they treat Palestinians, the land theft, and simultaneously promoting themselves as a democracy while functioning as an apartheid state. They're regularly criticized around the world for these and other legitimate reasons (though in some cases, no doubt, with a dash or more of antisemitism involved) but are shielded by their association with the US.

And as I criticize my own country without being anti-American or my Party of choice without being anti-Big-D-Democratic I can surely criticize a nation that clearly deserves criticism without fearing a label that I know doesn't apply to me. The same can be said of those who come to their criticisms legitimately, whatever the target.

[Gray Lensman]

Reading a lot of the takeaways from the primaries last night. It is somewhat comforting to see that these hardcore anti abortion measures are actively stoking turnout. Deep red Kansas now has to recalibrate these draconian measures. Even though gerrymandering alone will most likely help the GOP gain the House. The Senate outlook isn't as bleak as it was earlier in the year.

Even a lot of pro life voters might be having buyer's remorse after seeing the laws become so draconian that some even specify no carve out for endangerment to the mother's life. This is in addition to hospitals being so afraid of violating these laws that they are refusing to remove miscarriages from the mother until she starts going into shock.

[Gray Lensman]

And sadly a typical conservative response, a bit of snark and bluster but nothing really in the "challenge" department when it comes to arguments or facts. When presented with facts that run counter to their own narrative, they often reject them as being "biased" and then duck out of the thread for a few weeks before popping in again when they sense a weakness in the Democratic Party or Administration.



It's a common tactic some take to shut down dissent. When it comes to what you're criticizing many on this thread for, insulting and labeling someone so as to dismiss them as a person to avoid having to listen (let alone think of a counter) to their arguments, this is one of the all-time classics.

There's a long history of antisemitism in the Western world, but there are also very large problems with the way Israel handles its business including how they treat Palestinians, the land theft, and simultaneously promoting themselves as a democracy while functioning as an apartheid state. They're regularly criticized around the world for these and other legitimate reasons (though in some cases, no doubt, with a dash or more of antisemitism involved) but are shielded by their association with the US.

And as I criticize my own country without being anti-American or my Party of choice without being anti-Big-D-Democratic I can surely criticize a nation that clearly deserves criticism without fearing a label that I know doesn't apply to me. The same can be said of those who come to their criticisms legitimately, whatever the target.

There's a long history of Antisemitism in the democracies of Europe. France had the Dreyfus Affair, and is the origin of Great Replacement Theory (originally antisemitic rather than anti melanin like it is now). Further East, you have The Protocols of Zion.

[Username taken]

Kansas voters reject anti-abortion constitutional amendment



Bottom line, this shows that Republicans are on the wrong side and that this could mean more losses for Republicans in November.

I guess Kansas is a “far-left” state.

[hyped78]

And sadly a typical conservative response, a bit of snark and bluster but nothing really in the "challenge" department when it comes to arguments or facts. When presented with facts that run counter to their own narrative, they often reject them as being "biased" and then duck out of the thread for a few weeks before popping in again when they sense a weakness in the Democratic Party or Administration.


It's a common tactic some take to shut down dissent. When it comes to what you're criticizing many on this thread for, insulting and labeling someone so as to dismiss them as a person to avoid having to listen (let alone think of a counter) to their arguments, this is one of the all-time classics.

There's a long history of antisemitism in the Western world, but there are also very large problems with the way Israel handles its business including how they treat Palestinians, the land theft, and simultaneously promoting themselves as a democracy while functioning as an apartheid state. They're regularly criticized around the world for these and other legitimate reasons (though in some cases, no doubt, with a dash or more of antisemitism involved) but are shielded by their association with the US.

And as I criticize my own country without being anti-American or my Party of choice without being anti-Big-D-Democratic I can surely criticize a nation that clearly deserves criticism without fearing a label that I know doesn't apply to me. The same can be said of those who come to their criticisms legitimately, whatever the target.

On the first, how can someone "challenge" someone posting a photo calling someone a "troll"?

On the second, I know that not all people that criticize Israel and their politics is an anti-semite. But many are. Anti-zionism and anti-semitism often go hand in hand. Let me give you a couple of examples:
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/...ed-cars-london
https://www.thejc.com/news/uk/chanuk...ogans-1.523135

This is Jews in London being attacked and abused by folks who dislike Israel and Israel's policies. These are examples (and I could send you many, many more) where anti-zionism and anti-semitism become one and the same thing.

[worstblogever]

In 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” published profiles of Steve Pearce, the sitting U.S. House Representative from New Mexico’s 2nd Congressional District, Pearce is the guy who advised furloughed workers during the 2013 Government Shutdown to just take out payday loans until the whole thing blew over, has written musings about how wives need to remember the importance of “submitting to their husbands”, and actually submitted a bill to drug test welfare recipients on the federal level, in spite of how horribly those programs fail at the state level. As well as, y’know, a pretty consistently terrible voting record. Oh, and back in 2011, Pearce told a group of Republicans at a conference that he thought the idea of men descending from apes was crazy, and thought it much more likely that they were descended from sheep. Pearce won re-election in the 2016 elections with 62% of the vote against Democrat Merrie Soules, thanks in part to the +5 lean New Mexico’s second has in favor of Republicans. In January of 2017, there was a bit of an uproar after several members of the GOP were moving to take funding away from the Office of Congressional Ethics, because at this point, the Republican Party isn’t even giving the pretense that they have any. And one of the people leading that charge was Rep. Steve Pearce, who actually defended the move, insisting that his third (yes THIRD) attempt to take away the funding for the OCE would not “gut” the organization, as was being reported. Other, more Democratic members of Congress pointed out that it would actually “kill” the OCE, because they weren’t mincing words. In his final term in Congress. Pearce missed more votes than any other member of the New Mexico delegation in Congress by far. Steve Pearce decided not to run for re-election to Congress in 2018, and has opted to instead run to be the next Governor of New Mexico at the age of 72. What really didn’t help his cause? Someone unearthed video of Steve Pearce speaking at a Republican event back in 2008 where he railed against same-sex marriage, warning that it might lead to “polymorphism” (whatever that means) and that liberal politicians then “can marry everybody in California with AIDS”. If that doesn’t sound homophobic enough, Pearce continued grousing over the idea that healthcare funding might in any way go towards patients being treated for AIDS. Not surprisingly, he only pulled down 43% of the vote against Michelle Lujan-Grisham, and now has shunted off to be the ancient chair of the New Mexico GOP.



On this date in both 2020, as well as 2021, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” had its first profile Ronny Jackson, the former White House Physician and Navy rear admiral who was first elected as the U.S. House Representative from Texas’ 13th Congressional District in 2020. We feel the need to remind everyone that this would be the same Ronny Jackson who gave a glowing review of Donald Trump’s health after taking office, even though he is visibly overweight, refuses to walk anywhere that he can’t ride on a golf cart, allegedly snorts crushed up Adderall to focus, can’t hold up a glass of water with one hand, eats nothing but hamberders and KFC, and himself had a plan to trick Trump into eating cauliflower by the cooks at the White House who mix it in with mashed potatoes. To say nothing of his administration of a test of Trump’s mental faculties and coming out to act like he was the pinnacle of intelligence because he successfully identified a camel.

Ronny Jackson expects us to believe THAT guy is in perfect health, and not to believe our own lying eyes.

But then again, we’re talking about the same Ronny Jackson who throughout his tenure as White House Physician, who nicknamed “The Candyman” because of his willingness to sign off on any and all prescriptions for staffers, allegedly walking down the aisle of Air Force One at points to hand out pills to all the passengers. Oh, and he was also allegedly drunk. A lot. Per one account, he was so intoxicated on one occasion during the Obama administration that aides could not wake him, had at least one accident attributed to driving while drunk, and that he has an explosive temper that creates a toxic work environment for his subordinates.

These rumors… well, we can’t call them “rumors” anymore as a Pentagon investigation confirmed these things were actually happening… the obvious shortcomings in Ronny Jackson’s character are why it was believed that after Donald Trump decided to reward Jackson for speaking in such over-the-top glowing terms about his health with a nomination to run the Department of Veterans’ Affairs (even though Jackson has never worked in public health, whatsoever, and is highly unqualified), that Ronny Jackson backed off his own nomination. Which made sense, considering the votes to confirm him weren’t there.

And… think about that. The Senate confirmed Betsy DeVos to be Secretary of Education on a tiebreaker vote… but they didn’t think Ronny Jackson had a prayer of getting nominated and being able to do the job.

[worstblogever]

Anyway, Jackson still was willing to toady for Donald Trump, and rather than get a Cabinet post, instead opted to run for Congress in Texas’ 13th District, which the Cook Partisan Voting Index has listed as a +33 Republican lean on it. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cook_P...n_Voting_Index
After endorsing Donald Trump’s stupid idea for a border wall, he narrowly won the GOP nomination with 55% of the vote, https://ballotpedia.org/Ronny_Jackson
and coasted to victory to take his drunken, temperamental act to the Capitol, fitting in perfectly as a propagandist amateur drug dealer with a drinking problem among the GOP Caucus, as exhibited by his voting record already:

• January 6th, 2021: Ronny Jackson votes for the objection to the electoral college’s votes in the 2020 election, a failure to send any sort of message that he wasn’t intimidated or sympathetic to those who attacked the Capitol to attempt a violent coup.
• January 13th, 2021: Rep. Jackson votes against the second impeachment of Donald Trump, because the Republican Party no longer feels like they should be accountable for anything, including failed coups that result in the deaths of both their participants and police officers.
• February 4th, 2021: Ronny Jackson votes to keep Marjorie Taylor Greene’s committee assignments, because he wouldn’t want her to be accountable for all the bigoted remarkss and conspiracy theories she’s spread online (probably because she’s a kindred spirit).
• February 25th, 2021: Jackson votes against HR 5, the latest version of the Equality Act, that would provide workplace protections for LGBTQ Americans.
• March 2nd, 2021: A Pentagon report is released confirming allegations of alcohol abuse, sleeping pill abuse, over-medicating, bullying, and inappropriate sexual behavior by Ronny Jackson while he was serving has White House physician, including when he was on duty.
• March 3rd, 2021: Rep. Jackson votes against HR 1, a bill created to prevent the corruption of money in politics, and protect voter access to the ballot box.
• March 3rd, 2021: Ronny Jackson votes against the George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2021.
• March 10th, 2021: Jackson votes against the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021, because he feels people deserve to die in poverty during a pandemic.
• March 17th, 2021: Rep. Jackson votes against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 19th, 2021: Ronny Jackson votes against HR 3233, the creation of a commission to investigate the Capitol Attack.
• May 20th, 2021: Jackson is one of 63 Republicans who vote against the Covid-19 Hate Crimes Act.
• June 16th, 2021: Ronny Jackson is one of 14 Republicans who vote against celebrating Juneteenth as a federal holiday.
• June 29th, 2021: Jackson is one of 8 Republicans who travel to the U.S./Mexico border to do photo-ops to stir up anti-immigrant furor, but also appear on camera with Capitol insurrectionist Anthony Aguero, as if he wasn’t a part of an attack on Congress less than six months prior.
• November 5th, 2021: Ronny Jackson votes against HR 3684, the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act.
• March 31st, 2022: Jackson votes against HR 6833, the Affordable Insulin Now Act, which would limit the cost that drug companies could list insulin at to $35 and make sure no diabetic was priced out of surviving their condition. Ronny Jackson would rather they be gouged by pharmaceutical giants and/or die.
• May 18th, 2022: Ronny Jackson is one of 192 Republicans who vote against HR 7790, to create supplemental funding for infant formula (while claiming to be pro- life).
• May 18th, 2022: Rep. Jackson votes against HR 350, the Domestic Violence Prevention Act, because these days, a plank of the Republican Party is ostensibly domestic terror.
• May 19th, 2022: Jackson votes against HR 7688, a bill which would help prevent gas companies from gouging customers on prices.
• July 15th, 2022: Ronny Jackson votes against House Amendment 262, which would require the FBI, Department of Homeland Security, and Secretary of Defense to publish a report on the infiltration of American law enforcment by Neo-Nazis and white supremacists, offer measures to be taken to remove them from their ranks, and prevent further infiltration by others.
• July 19th, 2022: Rep. Jackson is one of 157 Republicans who vote against the “Respect for Marriage Act”, which would codify same sex marriage into law nationally.
• July 21st, 2022: Jackson is one of 195 Republicans who vote against the Right to Contraception Act, which codified the right of Americans to have access to birth control.

So it’s pretty telling to see what rare company much of the above shows Ronny Jackson finds himself in on a lot of these more extreme votes and moments… he’s becoming fast friends with some of the most rabid Trump supporters, and frankly, the white nationalist branch that’s taking over the GOP. Jackson has, predictably, taken his inebriated experience as former White House physician with him to the House, where now he’s diagnosing President Biden from afar, and claiming that he needs a cognitive test.

But our biggest update on Ronny Jackson isn’t just that utter lack of medical ethics (that seems to be his calling card). No, perhaps the bigger concern was a detail that dropped in April of 2022… during the attack on the Capitol on January 6th, 2021, the “tip of the spear” during the attack were domestic terrorists from the Proud Boys, and the Oath Keepers. And as the press have covered the trials of those charged with seditious conspiracy, they’ve been meticulously detailing what evidence about the attacks drips out in court documents. It’s… really interesting that in the midst of the attack, while the Oath Keepers were busy trying to push past all the barriers, to break all the windows to get in the building… they were oddly also discussing providing “protection” to Jackson.

“Ronnie Jackson (TX) office inside Capitol - he needs OK help. Anyone inside?” texted an unidentified person at 3 p.m., presumably referring to the Oath Keepers as “OK.”

“Hopefully they can help. Dr. Jackson.”

“Dr. Ronnie Jackson - on the move. Needs protection. If anyone inside cover him,” a person texted at 3:08 p.m. and included a photo that could not be seen from the court documents.
“He has critical data to protect,” the person added.
At 3:10, Stewart Rhodes, the founder and leader of the Oath Keepers, responded to the text citing Jackson and instructed a person to “Give him my cell.”

So while Texas’ 13th Congressional District has a +26 Republican lean and Ronny Jackson is virtually guaranteed re-election after getting out of the GOP Primary… we hope that his Democratic opponent, Kathleen Brown, positively drags him in the press regarding why he was such a high priority for the Oath Keepers mid-coup, and what the “critical data” he was trying to get to domestic terrorists was.

Or, y’know, if the Department of Justice should decide to ask him about it, that would be great, too.

[Mister Mets]

I suppose it all depends on definition of “far left”.

But in my mind to qualify as far left, a posting would effectively need to be advocating force and/or terrorism to bring about a fundamental change in society. On that definition I can’t remember a single far left posting on these boards.

This is a good example of how people may have different definitions of far-left, and end up talking past one another.

I would instinctively define far-left as preferring policy outcomes to the left of 80+% of the population. Ideally, descriptive terms should be neutral, so that someone would have no problem admitting they are far-left, because they believe that the most progressive policies would have the best outcomes.

There is likely much overlap between those people and the people who want to advocate for force (which should be defined as more than the government typically applies to avoid defining typical government behavior as far-left or far-right) or terrorism, although it's not always the case.

I am also hesitant on discussing further on this topic - and this has been a very sensitive topic here in the UK, has led to several politicians being kicked out/ suspended from the Labour party (left wing), as the party has been plagued by anti-semitism.

But would you agree that, for many people, being anti-zionist and anti-semitic is basically the same and that many/ most people who hold those views are both?

Ideally, antisemitism and antizionism should be seen as different things.

There will be some situations where people pissed off about Israel will indiscriminately target American (or European; wherever the person happens to be) Jews.

Sorry, I thought you were asking for the link again, you wrote "So if you want to talk about the maths books being proof of CRT fine post that link again" ???

Communism killed ~100 million people. That should never be "easier to understand" than other dictators/ mass murderers.

I hate communism, and what it has done.

But someone downplaying communism is not far left.

The two main definitions we've got of far left would be to the left of a large majority of the population, or a willingness to use great force/ terrorism to achieve left-wing aims. Neither is the case if someone is ignorant of history, or misled by quasi-propaganda.

Defending, advocating for more state intervention, for increased weight of a state in an economy is left-wing (Keynesianism or any other brands of that), as is bailing out businesses, extreme quantitative easing etc. Notice that I said "left-wing", not "far left". However, being oblivious/ not worrying about inflation in the context of macroeconomic expansionary policies is the trademark of far-left economists.



OK, some examples:
"We're right in the middle of the pack and blaming the government doing stuff for inflation is just GOP propaganda, especially since they (and Joe Manchin) stop the government from exerting any deflationary pressures" - Page 3229
"Complete nonsense" (replying to "they basically stopped the government from printing more money and creating even more inflation") - Page 3230
"I have not seen one math book that talks about race." - Page 3230
"'Woke' doesn't exist. It never existed" - Page 3233
"Anti-Zionism is not anti-semitism" (this is a very typical sentence to mask anti-semitism) - Page 3236
"There is no debate, go hear what doctors have to say about the capabilities of transgender athletes" - Page 3242
"That the UK has a huge media issue with transphobia isn't up for debate" - Page
"The Nazis stand out from any other not by the numbers, but for the reasons. Or lack thereof, really. Stalin and Mao killed more, but people can wrap thier heads around it because it was about staying in power. With Hitler, and to a lesser degree Pol Pot, the murders weren't a means to an end, but the end goal in and of themselves. It horrifies people to an even larger degree than other mass murders because of the lack of reason behind it." - Page 3250

I was trying to find the post about the war on terror supporting torture but couldn't find it (it was posted by worstblogever, he probably remembers that) - that's one of my favorites.

And I'll stop it there, too many pages to go through.

Someone saying they haven't seen math books talk about race is anecdotal evidence rather than anything far-left or far-right. Far-left would be if they were in complete agreement with the most controversial insertions of social issues to math textbooks.

An understanding why people respond differently to Mao than to Hitler is not far-left. It's analysis. Far-left would be someone's opinion that Mao and Stalin were justified.

Some positions on late-term abortion and trans issues can fall into the categories of far-left.

On economics, it gets messy. Writer Matthew Yglesias suggests that what distinguishes the far-left is a refusal to compromise or prioritize, and that seems to be another decent working definition.



He writes about it a bit differently in a non-paywalled article, writing about the aspirations of the green new deal, and how it may be counterproductive to focus on.

https://www.slowboring.com/p/how-the...eal-became-the

The most distinctive idea associated with the Green New Deal was the notion that an ambitious push on climate change should be intimately linked to a large expansion of the welfare state.

In its canonical maximalist form, this meant yoking the transformation of the energy sector to a total transformation of the American economy. In Kate Aronoff’s look ahead to 2043 written in 2018, she describes the life of a young woman named Gina in the world the Green New Deal built:

Gina attended free preschool and free college in addition to her free K-12 education and indeed was able to graduate entirely debt-free.

She received Medicare benefits as a recent college graduate.

Gina “isn’t extraordinarily wealthy, so she can live in public, rent-controlled housing — not in the underfunded, neglected units we’re accustomed to seeing in the United States, but in one of any number of buildings that the country’s top architects have competed for the privilege to design, featuring lush green spaces, child care centers, and even bars and restaurants.”

Broadband, water, and electricity are all provided for free by publicly owned utilities.

There is also a national employment guarantee where “at any number of American Job Centers around the country, she can walk in and work with a counselor to find a well-paid position on projects that help make her city better able to deal with rising tides and more severe storms, or oral history projects, or switch careers altogether and receive training toward a union job in the booming clean energy sector.”

Now obviously this all goes quite a bit further than anything Joe Biden ever proposed.

But the Biden administration’s original $3.4 trillion Build Back Better proposal is clearly a copy of a copy of a copy of Aronoff’s story. I spent a lot of time during the first 18 months of Biden’s term in office complaining about Democrats’ failure to set priorities. And the core idea of the Green New Deal really was on some level that prioritization isn’t necessary — this sweeping vision of eco-socialism would save the planet.

This idea always struck me as borderline insane (for a more polite criticism, read Jerry Taylor writing back in 2019 for the Niskanen Center) because it takes reducing greenhouse gas emissions, something the public supports but doesn’t think is very important, and pairs it with multiple unrelated and highly controversial social changes as if deliberately trying to maximize political backlash. Why?

I have never heard a convincing defense of this concept on the merits. But a Democratic Party graybeard who encouraged major funders to support the Sunrise Movement did once tell me that he thought I was missing the big picture.

In his view, the Sanders 2016 campaign and the massive backlash to ACA repeal in 2017 created a huge danger for the climate movement — namely that Democrats would win in 2020 and then spend 2021 prioritizing another round of health care reform. According to this graybeard, telling young leftists that it was all one big struggle would make it possible to knock health care out of pole position in the prioritization game and get climate to the front of the line.

This struck me as such an unbelievably weird bank-shot theory of change that I mostly believed the guy was just BSing to get me to stop complaining. But the fact is, that’s almost exactly what happened, so it’s possible this guy is the Kwisatz Haderach and everything went according to plan.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Even a lot of pro life voters might be having buyer's remorse after seeing the laws become so draconian that some even specify no carve out for endangerment to the mother's life. This is in addition to hospitals being so afraid of violating these laws that they are refusing to remove miscarriages from the mother until she starts going into shock.

It certainly doesn’t help that some right wing firebrands advocate doctors being arrested and jailed for performing abortions. What happens when the same threat applies to healthcare professionals providing contraceptive care?

[hyped78]

This is a good example of how people may have different definitions of far-left, and end up talking past one another.

That's a long post, I won't quote it all to save space!

"I would instinctively define far-left as preferring policy outcomes to the left of 80+% of the population" - but isn't this, in a way, highly theoretical? It doesn't exactly say much in practical terms.

"or a willingness to use great force/ terrorism to achieve left-wing aims" - I don't agree with this. There are many Communist Party leaders in Europe (e.g. KKE in Greece) and elsewhere that do not defend the use of force/ terror to implement their agenda. The far left have completely updated/ reinvented themselves.

"But someone downplaying communism is not far left" - I meant downplaying the negative effects of Communism, while focusing only on the 'good' aspects

"Someone saying they haven't seen math books talk about race..." - the problem isn't seeing/ not seeing it, the problem is rather completely dismissing that it exists (far left) or making a huge deal out of it (far right)

"Far-left would be someone's opinion that Mao and Stalin were justified" - I don't agree with that. In 2022, only fringe radicals would have that opinion. Again, my definition of Far Left is Bernie Sanders, Jeremy Corbyn, Pablo Iglesias, Jean-Luc Melenchon. None of these people call for the use of force/ terror (that I'm aware of) and none of these people defend Mao, Stalin, etc. (that I'm aware of).

Economically, I consider "far left" as people who call for larger state presence and intervention (weight of the public sector on a country's GDP, for example), state subsidies, universal income/ guaranteed income, nationalization of certain sectors, more public sector jobs, higher budget deficits and overall public debt levels, etc.
Also, I have nothing against Bernie/ Corbyn/ Melenchon/ Iglesias, they're all important political figures in their countries and democracies. That doesn't mean I would vote for them.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Some good news here in my home state:

Pennsylvania’s Supreme Court upheld the state’s mail voting law after a long legal fight

This law, which Qpublicans were perfectly fine with in 2019 suddenly became a contentious issue AFTER Trump started whining about unsubstantiated voter fraud a year later. Speaking for myself, I only started voting by mail during the 2020 campaign when COVID was still running rampant, a vaccine was months away for the public, and I wasn’t comfortable being in an often crowded polling place in my district. I’m sure I wasn’t the only person who shared similar concerns. Mail voting was safer, then it became easier, more convenient, and I’ve been doing it that way ever since. I’m pleased to have this choice at my disposal, and I wouldn’t want it taken away because the GQP got their panties in a bunch about it.

[babyblob]

Boy the GOP waking up pretty shocked right now. After that big speech By Mitch on the floor of the Senate on how America over whelmingly wanted Roe V Wade over turned a red state votes to protect it and keep womans rights. They have to be thinking What the Hell and maybe are a little more worried about the midterms now.

I didnt see how all the Trump backed nuts did last night so I have to loom and see if it is still Trumps party.