@dingax.bsky.social
Look, I'm happy Newsom has made it impossible for California to kill anyone currently on death row but he also killed Prop 40 and people are gonna die when MediCal gets cut so, uh, temper your praise and for the love of all that is holy do not vote for him in the 2028 primary.
THIS. Gerrymandering blocked Dems from gaining unified control over state government in GA, NC, TX, and maybe OH. Nearly 1 in 5 Americans live in those states. Many House races remain uncalled, but my very prelimiary estimate is gerrymandering cost Dems 2 dozen seats—only NC’s map fully fell apart
ElieNYC@elienyc.bsky.social · 3d agoI said this on @nativelandpod.bsky.social but I'll repeat it here: A dangerous narrative is going to be "the GOP gerrymandering didn't work." NO. It worked GREAT. We just OVERCAME it. But we'd have even MORE seats, and different candidates could have won those seats, without the gerryamndering.
Prosecuting email and phone scams and AI chatbot fuckups with massive fines would be both popular and lucrative, I’m just saying.
If you want to understand why this happened, this piece arguing that you should vote for Prop 40 also doubles as an accounting of all the people and institutions who were bought by billionaires to shill for them www.oaklandreviewofbooks.org/voting-guide...
This skeet will self destruct@pardoguerra.bsky.social · 3d agoFucking Californians
Last night, Americans made a clear call for accountability and affordability. A body politic cannot recover until its harms have been treated and its wounds have been healed. Crimes against our people and our Constitution must be answered for.
We must never forget that the price for this victory was paid in blood. Thousands of our neighbors were violently arrested, shipped around the country, imprisoned, and deported for no good reason. So many stood by them and were assaulted, gassed, stalked, and worse by the Feds. All of it is for them
madi mcvan@madisonmcvan.bsky.social · 3d agotwo more likely DFL flips in the state house. these are the reps in seeberger's senate district, and she's now leading in her race after the latest drop. not calling it now, but it's looking like a likely DFL trifecta.
Hot tip for all the dems newly elected (and the ones who were elected previously): you are not “looking forward to working with republicans across the aisle,” you are looking forward to working for the people who elected you and looking forward to shutting the GOP the fuck down.
For the last 21 months, the lower federal courts have been fighting a rearguard action against the lawlessness of the Trump administration—with no support from Congress and very little from #SCOTUS. One of tonight’s less visible consequences will be that we’ll have a Congress that has their backs.
The persistent truth of America is that our institutions are not aligned to our popular will. That is as true yesterday as it will be tomorrow. We have to grapple with that truth, define it, set the conditions for massive structural change in 2029.
It’s incredibly important to recognize that Democrats running up the score so high they exceeded the margins of fuckery is not a sign of democratic health. It is a time-limited reprieve to secure the government before we lose it. This was the failure of the Biden Era that cannot be repeated.
This would be my advice for Dems if they take back both houses tonight. Yes, lots of investigations to prepare criminal referrals, but also lots of straight clean bills sent to Trump’s desk to force vetos. Banning stock trades by members, reversing Medicare/Medicaid cuts, the John Lewis VRA, etc.
Neil O@neilomansky.bsky.social · 3d agoThey need to make it a completely clean bill and force Trump to veto it. They need to do that for every piece of legislation
By my count, there are 9 Senate races within 4 points in polling averages. That means there’s a very small distance between an amazing night for Democrats and a crushing disappointment for them. Calibrate your expectations accordingly.
Really afraid that we're going to see huge gains across the country and especially in red states, and in California we're going to write billionaire oligarchic austerity right into the Constitution
your periodic reminder that there was a sperm whale called Porphyrios who took offense at the Romans and singlehandedly decided to stop all Byzantian trade and sank so many ships over the next 50 years that Justinian declared him an official enemy of the empire and put a reward on his head
Kingfisher & Wombat@tkingfisher.com · 2mo agoI know I ask for this at least once a year, but can some nice historian reassure me that the world has ALWAYS been this stupid?
I’m very happy to say Ramaswamy is a piece of garbage. But it’s because all of MAGA is a pro-rape movement run by people who are garbage. Those people own their choices, and their leaders. Where South Asian voices, and votes, organize & resonate, you get Zohran and Nithya and Kamala.
Our communities absolutely have our deep issues and divides to root out, but when we have had the chance to nominate and vote for candidates, we vote overwhelmingly progressive, and have zero loyalty to MAGA’s tokens. White nationalists have always had their pets. It’s not because of us.
I keep seeing South Asian folks making grand gestures of disclaiming Ramaswamy, as with Haley or Jindal. The thing to understand is, NONE of these candidates have ever, in any race, won a majority of the South Asian vote in any jurisdiction where they were running. They are products of white voters.
Edith Wharton's turn of phrases in Mother's Recompense 👌. Between this, Stevenson in Jekyll and Hyde and Sense and Sensibility, been luxuriating in incredible use of words this week.
Also no on 45! It’s a data center scam written up like it helps housing. It helps speed up data centers! No on 45
since California ballots are now out: prop 40 is the billionaire tax, and you should vote yes to stick it to them but both props 41 and 42 are designed to retroactively cancel the billionaire tax because they’re afraid they can’t beat it at the ballot box yes on 40, no on 41 and 42
all of us just watched these university admins wield enormous power against palestinian student orgs, including unaffiliated ones, so these excuses land flatter than ever
NBC News@nbcnews.com · 3w agoThe university noted that fraternities are not “Recognized Student Organizations” at UChicago and therefore have no formal affiliation with the school. www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news...
They started on illegal immigrants, expanded it to legal immigrants, now are going after naturalized citizens. If you are not one of those groups, you are just somewhere further down the chain, but they will get to eliminating your rights eventually too.
Exactly this. And in fact, many models *have* been created this way, and decades of prior machine learning systems *were* created this way, consensually. These things are choices! People are STILL working this way! It’s not just that a better world is possible — it already EXISTS. We can nurture it.
John Scalzi@scalzi.com · last mo.This is your occasional reminder that generative "AI" in particular could have been developed on public domain materials and/or licensed and compensated works but the major players intentionally, methodically and systemically chose to steal labor from working creative folks instead
It's a sad truth that far-right authoritarianism & strongman leaders are very appealing to people all over the world, from tech billionaires to the poorest of the poor. That's nothing new. At all. In the same way, being racist and/or misogynist makes some people feel good. You can't wish it away.
Financial Times@financialtimes.com · last mo.The son of the jailed former far-right president Jair Bolsonaro will go into a run-off vote on October 25 against incumbent Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva who is standing for a fourth non-consecutive term. ft.trib.al/GrWZ65D
