Tweet by “Secretary of War” Pete Hegseth: “The War Department is once again restoring freedom to our Joint Force. We are discarding the mandatory flu vaccine requirement, effective immediately.” Below there is a video of the announcement for his many, many illiterate fans

Behind Hegseth’s big stupid face, a painting can be seen.

The painting is of George Washington crossing the Delaware. It is by Emanuel Leutze.

An article from the National Parks Service: Smallpox, Inoculation, and the Revolutionary War Boston National Historical Park During the 1700s, smallpox raged through the American colonies and the Continental Army. Smallpox impacted the Continental Army severely during the Revolutionary War, so much so that George Washington mandated inoculation for all Continental soldiers in 1777. Just fifty-six years earlier, in 1721, Bostonian doctors and clergy introduced the procedure to the American colonies. Without the vision and determination of these early Bostonians in normalizing inoculation, Washington may not have made the decision to mandate inoculation for the Continental Army. Though it was a controversial action, many historians credit the medical mandate with the colonists' victory in the Revolutionary War and the creation of the United States of America.

Ah, so the SPLC violated the How Dare You Be Mean To Nazis Law

Look at this chart.

Tax cuts for the rich are a policy choice. Cutting the social safety net in exchange for them is a policy choice.

States like New York have an opportunity to help undo this trickle down nonsense by raising taxes on the rich (who will still be rich).

I hope Gov. Hochul does.

Yes, there are a lot of polls. They tend to be younger and left-leaning... But it's also been consistently hard to get young people to vote, even when you have a candidate who they love. There were a lot of huge Bernie fans who never voted for him in a primary.

That number is much larger than the number of gettable left-leaning non-voters. About to half of non-voters in 2024 preferred Trump. Of the left-leaning voters, a lot of them are just lazy and apathetic and won't turn out for any candidate. No Jill Stein type candidate will get them to turn out.

The upcoming primaries are probably going to drive the Democratic party further left than it's ever been. If that's not good enough for left-leaning non-voters, I wouldn't count on a glorified rebranding to fix things. And don't take for granted the 75+ million people who voted for Biden and Harris

It's not the worst thing he's done, but fucking up my oil call is certainly something I'll hold against Trump

The worst human beings in the country should not be running the country.

Second... If you're only talking about Western Europe, the Democratic party is broadly comparable to a center-right party with regards to economic policy specifically. But if you consider things like immigration or LGBTQ issues, Democrats are well to the left of most left parties

First, the duopoly is a natural consequence of the US system of government. Those other countries with many functional parties have a parliamentary system. We don't. Splitting the left into multiple parties would essentially guarantee Republican victories EVERY. SINGLE. ELECTION.

Can't tell if Republican plant or just basic

The Biden admin was vastly better on worker and union rights, progressive taxes, student loans, trans issues, take your pick, in spite of only having a Senate majority with the help of a Conservative. He dropped the ball on holding Trump accountable, but on everything else there's no comparison

"it's just different people I guess" that implies something roughly equivalent, which isn't the case. USAID being sabotaged is something no Democrat would have done, and it will have a body count an order of magnitude higher than the entire 50+ year Israeli Palestinian conflict

It is a tactic that can work sometimes. But you know what another potentially good tactic is? Becoming a reliable voting base for the Democrats, so they rely on you and see you as part of the coalition. The latter tactic requires voting for Democrats, which has the advantage of making them win

Holding a big rally isn't a substitute for durable support. The Democratic party is an institution, and that has a lot of advantages that are worth whatever problems the branding comes with. And you can believe that Republicans would be quick to smear any new left wing party!

Both of the major parties have completely reinvented themselves multiple times, for better and worse. It's much easier, and smarter, to change the party through primaries. Creating a new left party means splitting the vote and helping Republicans win.

we all know I have no life, so:

The AI bubble is like the dotcom bubble: It’s not that the Internet was some useless passing fad; it’s that a lot of money got poured into absolute horseshit before people started figuring out where the actual value was.

I think the "you need to use this or get left behind" messaging is imported from crypto where it was based on crypto being hyper deflationary so early adopters are rewarded. GenAI is fundamentally a technology that gets easier to use as time goes on, if the value prop doesn't appeal don't use it.

arbitrage, from trueslazac

Principled anti-imperialist Hasan Piker

LET HASAN PIKER'S WORDS SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES What do you call Crimea? "I call it a part of Russian territory bitch. That's what| call Crimea. I call it cry me a river. A Russian river" Twitch, Feb. 2022

Which Democratic candidates campaigning with Hasan Piker have this as their position on Ukraine?

Sometimes the world spontaneously generates a political cartoon and we just need to run with it

They could open doors and put on handcuffs without needing a human to assist. Human legs might make them less stable but arms and hands are very versatile.

I took this reply as a gotcha implying that private aid isn't sufficient. If that's not what you meant, I'm not sure why you felt the need to reply in the first place

If you want to kill people with robots, it probably makes a lot more sense to either use quadcopter drones or some kind of gun turret on tank treads setup. But I can see humanoid robots being used by authoritarians for other purposes... Detaining people, intimidation, etc

You're downplaying the efforts of organized charity groups, in spite of the fact that they've braved dangerous conditions to bring Palestinians aid for the vast majority of the conflict.

Not that they shouldn't do more, but the main constraint on progress hasn't been moderation, it's been the number of seats they have. We've only had a few years this Millinneum where Democrats controlled the executive and legislative branches, and most of that time they had under 50 Senate votes

He was talking about ending segregation. The moral and practical calculus is very different if you're talking about something like totally changing major systems. Moving carelessly can make things worse for everyone and the backlash can destroy the whole political movement.

Or even on economic issues. The vast majority of Democrats don't want to end capitalism or overthrow the economic order, but plenty are in favor of policies that would push us towards becoming more of a social Democracy. The problem with Hasan is he expects it to be sudden and cathartic, not gradual