theiconoclast

Let's add; obliterate corporate money in politics & levy confiscatory taxes on the wealthy. Elevate employee & consumer interests to the same level as shareholders &index minimum wage to the cost of living. Subject monopolies to break-up or nationalization. Restore separation of church and state

If they win, Democrats will have to use their newfound authority to rethink, even dismantle, agencies like U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement and U.S. Customs and Border Protection. They may need to walk back the Bush-era decision to consolidate those agencies and others under a single department, given the wild abuses perpetrated under this administration and its predecessors. It will need to give serious thought to major political and social reform, including D.C. statehood, a federal ban on partisan gerrymandering, a new voting rights act and federal protections for reproductive rights and bodily autonomy, including the rights of gender and sexual minorities. Democrats will also need to embrace the legislature’s constitutional authority to structure the executive branch and the judiciary, up to and including Supreme Court reform. If they win next year, Democrats will need to treat the next Congress not as a return to the status quo ante but as the beginning of a new era in which the principal task is to roll back the president’s effort to create and consolidate a personalist dictatorship. They’ll need to fortify the American political system against future attempts to play dictator and lay out a project of genuine democratic renewal. None of this is possible without a willingness to use power rather than just hold it. What we’ve seen this week is that there are still too many Democrats whose instinct is to retreat to normalcy rather than face the conflict at hand.

Jamelle was cooking.

Gift link: www.nytimes.com/2025/11/12/o...

Anecdotally, as I get older I find that simple behavioral patterns become more and more desirable. I used to be a butterfly. Now I am becoming an ant.

Fucking disgrace.

It puzzles me that are legislative systems have been so aggressive in looking after the well-being of teenagers engagement with social media while turning a completely blind eye to the damage done by Fox News across the entire population

Screenshot of a tweet from Joyce Carol Oates posted on Sunday, November 9th that reads "so curious that such a wealthy man never posts anything that indicates that he enjoys or is even aware of what virtually everyone appreciates--scenes from nature, pet dog or cat, praise for a movie, music, a book (but doubt that he reads); pride in a friend's or relative's accomplishment; condolences for someone who has died; pleasure in sports, acclaim for a favorite team; references to history. in fact he seems totally uneducated, uncultured. the poorest persons on Twitter may have access to more beauty & meaning in life than the "most wealthy person in the world."

Found the tweet that Joyce Carol Oates bodied Elon Musk with and it's so beautiful in its eloquent, simple take down. So much so he's crashing out trying to prove he reads books now. Put this in the Louvre.

Tisch is Mamdani's bullet proof vest.
Public safety is the first and preferred line of attack by a conservative oligarchy. By retaining her, he insulates his administration against attacks on his administration of public safety affairs.

Simple Truth:
Insurance and financing's purpose is to mask imbalances in wealth distribution.

Sustaining them amplifies wealth concentration because capital earns returns faster than wages grow, while those without capital pay premiums and interest that sustain the system.

Simple Truth:
Insurance and financing's purpose is to mask imbalances in wealth distribution.

Sustaining them amplifies wealth concentration because capital earns returns faster than wages grow, while those without capital pay premiums and interest that sustain the system.

How many thousands of passenger flights were canceled today in order to reduce Air traffic control volume?

We mere mortals are so vulnerable to subterfuge. Programs such as home equity loans, student loans, even the promotion of women's right to work as a way to normalize the two earner household are nothing more than modern forms of indentured servitude designed to obscure that withholding of fair wages

Why would you assign these behavioral characteristics to a designated gender?

Maybe Don’t Talk to the New York Times About Zohran Mamdani It’s remarkable, the people you’ll hear from. Teach for even a little while at an expensive institution—the term they tend to prefer is “elite”—and odds are that eventually someone who was a studen…

I havent read such a banger of an essay in a very long time. This is so well-written!

To all the folks who worry about teen's consumption of social media; don't you think adult consumption of Fox News is a far greater concern?

“In science there are no ‘depths’; there is surface everywhere” The Vienna Circle was by all accounts a motley crew. As their manifesto states, “not one of the members [is] a so-called ‘pure’ philosopher; all of them have done work in a special field of science”. ...

The Vienna Circle was not that coherent politically, but its one consistent theme is hostility to populism: "While positivism was ultimately unsuccessful as an antidote against metaphysics, it remains valuable as an antidote against anti-scientific politics." www.oxonianreview.com/articles/in-...

The guy with the $1T comp package doesn't understand the most fundamental aspect of human evolution:

The ability to cooperate at scale is without question the unique human capacity that most clearly distinguishes us from the rest of the animal world.

YouTube video by Inside Edition 8-Year-Old Saves Classmate's Life With Heimlich

Compare the actions of the leader of the Free world to the second grader
youtu.be/q6HfcNxAeVo?...

First, I hope the Novo guy is okay.
Second, this was a basic everyday test of leadership, Fourth graders exhibit more presence of mind and initiative than what we see here.

This level of failure is heart stopping.
This is supposed to be the leader of the free world.

I wish this were true.....

A short list of deceptions to make wage earners ignore the loss of buying power:

Home equity loans
College loans
Two earner households
7 year auto loans
Two earner households
....

Think about these contrasting storylines of the last week:

Zohran Mandani is the face and future of young Dems

Nick Fuentes is the face and future of young Republicans

Great opportunity for someone like MacKenzie Scott or Melinda Gates to jump in, grab a great group of journalists, and fund a new media group.

Great opportunity for someone like MacKenzie Scott or Melinda Gates to jump in, grab a great group of journalists, and fund a new media group.

Great opportunity for someone like MacKenzie Scott or Melinda Gates to jump in, grab a great group of journalists, and fund a new media group.

Great opportunity for someone like MacKenzie Scott or Melinda Gates to jump in, grab a great group of journalists, and fund a new media group.

Third Way is the oligarchs spare key to Congress

This graph shows the death rates for non-Hispanic Whites aged 20-54 broken down by party the state the dead lived in has regularly voted for. The data used to make the dots are below.this text. The last year of data is dominated by the the deaths caused by COVID during the first year. In the United States we have conducted a natural experiment by turning over payment for health care for the middle aged to capitalist health insurance and payment for health care for the elderly to socialist medicare and the capitalist clone of it to Medicaid. Now the populations covered by Medicare and Medicaid or not identified in mortality data so the only comparison our data makes available are between middle aid health care that is regulated by state government and the elderly care which has socialist care for a big portion of our elderly with a growing portion covered by the capitalist clone. In general the middle aged Non-Hispanic Whites in Republican voting states have generally doubled the amount that their death rates are higher than their peers in Democratic voting states. At the same time, the mixed party states moved from essentially being tied with the Democratic voting states to very close to half way between the Democratic and Republican voting states. Here are the data: Year Dem Rep Mixed 1999 190.8 227.3 190.3 2000 192.6 234.5 196.9 2001 204 241.9 201.2 2002 203.1 250 206.5 2003 202.9 256 207.3 2004 202 255.5 207.8 2005 203 262.6 214.5 2006 204.7. 266.7 215 2007 201.5 264.4 213.5 2008 198.9 267.8 216.6 2009 200.8 270 218.4 2010 192.3 268.4 216.5 2011 194.8 270.2 221.5 2012 193 267.1 216.7 2013 193 264.4 220.6 2014 194.7 268.8 219.5 2015 196.3 273.8 227.8 2016 203.1 282.5 239.7 2017 201.8 281.1 243.4 2018 197.8 275.3 231.3 2019 195.5 270.7 225.9 2020 221.4 313 256.8

This graph displays the age 65-84 deaths per 100,000 by states grouped by the party they vote for. I am posting it to show how our elderly death rates have gone down by all three party groups. The most noticeable thing is that party differences barely existed when this graph starts but grew in a slight imitation of the middle aged pattern shown in the first graph. The important thing is these changes show declining death rates while the middle age only shows changes that are increases. The best the middle age does is the Democratic voting states almost holding on to earlier death rates. The two graphs clearly show that capitalist health care KILLS. The question is: What is causing the elderly in non-Democratic states to increasingly show higher and higher death rates? I have some ideas about how it could be going on but I haven't found any way to test any of them. I consider the one that suggests this is simply a result of the denied care during middle age. I believe it is caused by damages caused by lack of health care during the middle age years to leave their bodies weakened and more likely to be killed by later health problems. But again I can't figure out how to find data to test that hypothesis. Anyway, here is the same kind of data for the elderly that the first one presented for age 20-54. I have found that Bluesky does not let you copy data, If you would like a copy to play with, just email me at pecanjim@bellsouth.net and I will send a copy to the email address requesting it. Year Dem Rep Mixed 1999 3732 3783 3806 2000 3675 3770 3767 2001 3629 3722 3708 2002 3606 3709 3693 2003 3538 3647 3621 2004 3405 3515 3510 2005 3363 3507 3489 2006 3269 3389 3358 2007 3165 3295 3259 2008 3092 3297 3243 2009 2952 3162 3092 2010 2889 3159 3070 2011 2855 3115 3035 2012 2723 3035 2925 2013 2680 3025 2880 2014 2610 2977 2839 2015 2608 2971 2837 2016 2556 2925 2768 2017 2540 2949 2774 2018 2499 2932 2750 2019 2466 2904 2723 2020 2784 3259 3062

Here are two graphs showing the changes in death rates by party state votes for in presidential elections for non-Hispanic Whites aged 20-54 and 65-84. See text for descriptions and explanations. I wonder who Everyone hits?🧪💡☠️ #Sociology #Population #Think #News #Everyone

Its safe to assume that the oligarchy class has gamed out a number of variables concerning their future well-being. And its probably not unrealistic to assume that includes some sort of World War III scenario. If it showed them coming out better off, well you figure it out...

JD Vance claims that diversity weakens unions, as people end up distrusting each other and not organizing.

Let me tell you two menswear stories related to this claim. 🧵

Seems like killing DEI could be thought of in religious terms as functionally equivalent to killing God.