she didn’t throw trans people under the bus and she thinks republicans are the scum of the earth and that’s good enough for me

I was initially not the biggest fan of Spanberger but it turns out she has the heart of a world class hater and that is 100% the kind of energy we need right now

agree with this (hah) but also think a particular mistake the left made for a long time online, and still makes to an extent, is failing to understand that the person whose mind you may actually change is the one reading the argument you're having, not the one you're arguing with

The 4th Amendment isn't a suggestion

It is, in fact, a huge myth, particularly derived in the 19th & 20th Cs. 'Pagan Britain' by Ronald Hutton, for example, provides a fascinating history of the reality of paganism in the British Isles, such as it is - tl;dr, the historical record is incredibly sparse, there was never 'one paganism'

she is also essentially restating the US position w/re to strategic ambiguity here. it is not an uninformed stance. they know that.

Unfortunately, given he remains one of the more popular figures in Trump's cabinet, there is a non-zero chance he runs for President in 2028.

I think this website would be weirdly more civil if you were allowed to just not like somebody. As it is now, you’ve got to fabricate a casus belli. Prevents the ordinary banal kind of minor but endurable dislike which keeps society afloat.

Maybe this article should've mentioned the DHS IG was recommended for termination by the IG oversight board and found guilty of “substantial misconduct”. He also survived Trumps IG purge bc he’s under Noem’s thumb and totally ineffective. All relevant to whether a shutdown will “imperil oversight”.

that is indeed option 4, though it's pretty much option B/C with more steps bsky.app/profile/will...

so do we think he's going to switch parties, announce he won't run for re-election, or get pasted in the primary?

yes and no; this is neglect but it's also more pandering to a certain section of the right for whom foreign aid is the ultimate bugbear and drives them mad in comment sections; "why are we helping forrins when there's Brits at home" etc etc. This is both budget cutting AND pleasing the unpleasable.

Lol, they're gonna *really* miss bipartisanship now that they've worked so hard to convince folks that it's a partisan issue.

the counterfactual for where the Democratic party could have gone on trans rights after 2024 is on display in the UK

i'd say some dumb sports bans is pretty good relative to the competition

feels like every week i hear about another instance of ICE doing some shit that would get your entire village incinerated by a vengeful god in ancient time

these are moral boundaries that have probably existed since before written language

The truth is that any person unwilling to vote for [insert Democrat here, including Gavin Newsom] against [insert Republican here] cares less about stopping right-wing bigots than someone who votes blue no matter who does

Moxon is a fucking moron and his popularity will never fail to astound me. Great I’ll just get to the council of democrats who make these decisions and tell them to nix Newsom and also send you a box of chocolates and a card calling you the most handsome boy.

> Promise to release the Epstein Files
> Release less than 2% of the files
> What is seen is some incredibly horrific shit
> Tell everyone there will be no more releases
> [You Are Here]
> The pedophile cabal gets nuked from orbit when someone releases the files unredacted

Incredible to me that the current US administration has looked at the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and concluded that the real problem with the US military is that its officers weren't good enough at killing stuff but knew too much history, anthropology, theology and international relations.

What America did through ideology, the UK does in order to get a budget projection that we don't even really care about

It's easy to be concerned about vaccines when you stop being concerned about viruses. You can only stop being concerned about viruses in a world with vaccines.

it actually has not helped the admin. that like, the Department of Labor posts AI-generated slop for white nationalists. the fact that they are in government & doing it does not mean it is in any way effective.

what some of the responses to this (correct) thread seem to ignore is that the admin’s constant, vulgar neo-Nazi posting isn’t actually very effective/popular.

If the goal is effective communication to the public, unfortunately I think just going with press releases isn't going to be enough. Making govt boring again failed under Biden, I'm not sure it's really the best approach going forward.

Unfortunately the lesson from 2024 + Mamdani is that Dem governments need to be doing a *lot more comms* - probably not through the agencies though.

Taking them off would be a bit much. As noted elsewhere, they can and do provide up to date details, info, and responses in crises, help to release statements, and can be a place to interact with if necessary.

Some laws around posting of propaganda would be helpful though. Keep them dull via force.

and while that may be a justifiable risk with other aspects of gov that we need, social media accounts feel like they have insufficient upside to justify leaving them around

bsky.app/profile/scie...

unfortunately we are going to have to think going forwards about “we hand over government to another nutter after the public forgets and borgar too expensive” as a real possibility

watching agency social media accounts be turned into vehicles for personalism and/or outright white supremacy makes me simply want to take them off social media for good in january 2029

COVID ripping through ICE detention facilities seems overdetermined