[-] [email protected] 0 points 20 hours ago

They don't produce the weapons they buy from us. Eventually they could stand up domestic production, but it would absolutely impact the current war. Israelis themselves have said that. You're just making up excuses the actual people involved don't make.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 20 hours ago
  1. There's a world of policy positions between "give as many weapons as desired without condition" and "abandon Israel". AIPAC hasn't gone after Democrats that just express reservations and demand accountability and their effectiveness requires they actually have an argument that with a lot of ad money can sway meaningful numbers of voters.
  2. AIPAC's resources are not endless. They can drop big money in small races to influence them, but don't have the resources to veto a president. Those weren't crucial votes on Israel policy, they were members they thought were vulnerable. They couldn't oust Ilhan Omar and they're not even planning a challenge to Bernie Sanders despite his greater prominence and power. Learned helplessness however could give them everything they want without needing to have the actual power to force it.
  3. Finally, if you're trying to discourage antiwar opposition, saying she is effectively required to act in accordance with AIPAC's wishes is not going to sway anyone who's angry about Israel's genocide. If that were actually true then AIPAC supports genocide so, whether under duress or not, Democratic presidents will also be required to support genocide.
[-] [email protected] 1 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

They're fine, but they were explicitly founded as Never Trump conservatives, which is not the outfit you want to go to when trying to discredit challenges that are nominally based on the Democrats being too conservative.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

A license that requires source. And since then there have been many different licenses, all with the same requirement. Giving someone a binary for free and saying they're allowed to edit the hex codes and redistribute it doesn't mean it's open source. A license to use and modify is necessary but not sufficient for something to be open source. You need to provide the source.

[-] [email protected] 3 points 1 day ago

Israeli vs. Palestinian support isn't nearly so overwhelming that there is simply one side that guarantees loss. This is an excuse by you for them, not a truth of politics.

[-] [email protected] 13 points 1 day ago

Not just Trump will be worse as some sort of abstract moral statement. Their statement is that Uncommitted voters should actively vote against Donald Trump no matter how inadequate Harris's statements and commitments have been.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

"Open source" is not a license, it's a description. Things can be free with no license restrictions and still not be "open source".

[-] [email protected] 4 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Russia is bad and all, but she's much more directly a useful idiot for Republicans who are not only more directly focused on directly harming the people Stein's campaign is targeting, but have a significantly greater ability to actually accomplish it. No one needs to trust the US establishment that Russia is bad, they know Republicans and how they're bad.

Also, DNC, why are you making this news on The Bulwark? Way to undercut your message.

[-] [email protected] 7 points 1 day ago

This should be disqualifying even if you don't care about all the racism and sexism. Anyone who thinks commenting on a porn forum is a normal and good thing to do, especially talking about your personal life, is far too weird to be given power.

[-] [email protected] 8 points 1 day ago

As we know from the Terminator series, AI and time travel go hand in hand.

[-] [email protected] 10 points 1 day ago

They're angling for Congress to install Trump if no one reaches 270. The fallback method of selecting a president when there's no clear winner is a House vote where each state gets 1 vote, so since there are more red states than blue states that's effectively a sure-thing win for Republicans rather than leaving it to chance with the voters. Even if they're 75% sure Trump wins Georgia, 100% is still better.

[-] [email protected] 21 points 2 days ago

A freely available and unencumbered binary (e.g., the model weights) isn't the same thing as open-source. The source is the data. You can't rebuild the model without the data, nor can you verify that it wasn't intentionally biased or crippled.

112
submitted 2 weeks ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Vice President Kamala Harris proposed increasing the long-term capital gains tax rate to 28% for wealthy Americans during an economic speech in New Hampshire on Wednesday, breaking with the policy laid out by President Joe Biden in his 2025 budget by suggesting a lower rate.

The current long-term capital gains tax rate – 20%, plus an additional 3.8% tax on higher earners – is paid when an investment is sold, or gains are realized. The Biden budget proposes raising that rate to the top rate he wants to levy on ordinary income – 39.6% – for households with taxable income over $1 million. Harris, the people familiar with the matter say, believes 39.6% is too high.

While Harris still supports taxing the wealthiest individuals and corporations at higher rates – as Biden’s budget also calls for – she believes that a lower capital gains rate would incentivize investors to put more money into startups and small businesses. She has also proposed increasing the corporate tax rate to 28%, up from the current 21% rate set by Trump’s Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017.

644
submitted 2 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Progressive Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) announced Wednesday that there are currently enough votes in the Senate to suspend the filibuster to codify Roe v. Wade and abortion rights if Democrats win control of the House and keep the Senate and White House.

“We will suspend the filibuster. We have the votes for that on Roe v. Wade,” Warren said on ABC’s “The View.”

She said if Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress in 2025, “the first vote Democrats will take in the Senate, the first substantive vote, will be to make Roe v. Wade law of the land again in America.”

278
submitted 6 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

A new budget by a large and influential group of House Republicans calls for raising the Social Security retirement age for future retirees and restructuring Medicare.

For Social Security, the budget endorses "modest adjustments to the retirement age for future retirees to account for increases in life expectancy." It calls for lowering benefits for the highest-earning beneficiaries. And it emphasizes that those ideas are not designed to take effect immediately: "The RSC Budget does not cut or delay retirement benefits for any senior in or near retirement."

Biden has blasted Republican proposals for the retirement programs, promising that he will not cut benefits and instead proposing in his recent White House budget to cover the future shortfall by raising taxes on upper earners.

114
submitted 11 months ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

Harlan Crow (of the Clarence Thomas patronage scandals) donated the max individual donation ($3,300) to Cornel West's campaign, which invited obvious criticism.

Text of his response on Twitter:

As an independent candidate and a free Black man, I accept donations within the limits of no PACs or corporate interest groups that have strings attached. I am unbought and unbossed. Despite my deep political differences with brother Harlan Crow (who is an anti-Trump Republican), I’ve known him in a non-political setting for some years and I pray for his precious family. I find it hypocritical for those who highlight his $3300 donation to my campaign but can’t say a mumbling word about the PAC-driven billion dollars to support the genocidal attack in Gaza sponsored by their candidate! I’m fighting for Truth, Justice, and Love! Onward!

Frankly, the pleasant words make this look much worse than just saying "if some asshole wants to send me money, I'll keep it". Sounds like someone he wants to keep on the good side of, but y'know they're only political differences, not stuff that really matters.

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Zaktor

joined 1 year ago