Speculative questions/observations.

It seems obvious to me that as these trials go on that Republicans are going to use increasingly brazenly corrupt means to dodge/alter/fire D.A.s/pardon crimes.

Is this in conjunction with various state legislator shenanigans and districting bullshit i.e. how Alabama and Ohio (and also potentially Tennessee depending on an on-going lawsuit) are going to ignore re-draw orders to wait out the clock and use the psychotically gerrymandered maps for 2024 enough to get the U.S. to actual cool-zone balkanization discussions or are even things this openly corrupt and in plain sight not enough to get the ball rolling?

I know (well guess) that ultimately US balkanization rests on either capital deciding that the state of things are too untenable for its profit interests and/or the evangelical base in the states to start trying to express state-captured power openly, but I guess I’m asking do you think the continually escalating corruption is enough to get liberals to actually push back in some concrete, non-performative way.

I guess I’m wondering what level of overt corruption sparks these conversations in the mainstream (or even if that discourse is possible).

Copied the full post over as I imagine it gets buried under the news

Things to get out of the way:

• I know a U.S. president can’t pardon state level crimes
• I know the Georgia governor can’t pardon state crimes in Georgia

In Georgia a council, appointed by the governor, has the pardon power in the state after it was stripped from GA governors because of corruption in the past.

As far as I’m aware (per coverage of things tonight), that council is all Republican and only has loose self-imposed guidelines/norms about the process by which a person can apply for a pardon.

Why do liberals think this is a slam dunk when that council can seemingly at any time change these rules to the extent of even giving a preemptive pardon? The governor can’t replace these people instantly as they’re on some x year term scheme.

Is this just more hopeful “the walls are closing in” or am I missing something here?

Edit also the Georgia state republicans gave themselves the power to fire D.A.s in 2 weeks time. It’s obvious this is going to be used, no?

Can I get the dirty owl’s take on all this?

This is truly the death of the marketplace of ideas

“Let’s talk about the current genocide the CCP is carrying out”

“Here’s a source from western-aligned organizations disputing this”

“I’m not reading this”

Liberalism in a nutshell

Also just to corroborate your experience absolutely ignore the “no one respects Chinese degrees.”

At the university I attended for undergrad the plurality of grad students in my area had degrees from Chinese universities and my program had hired two full-time lecturers the year prior (and one of them was my favorite instructor in undergrad).

Just posted from jerboa. Maybe try clearing cache/reinstalling

If you do this could you try to provide updates that don’t identify you?

I’m hoping to do the same thing in a few years and have also had massive difficulty getting past the “gommunism chiner bad” research phase

I say at the end that we’d probably immediately use those powers to revert back to better working conditions (WFH).

I can’t see any scenario where this doesn’t happen immediately and was mostly just riffing at the absurdity of thinking companies would implement these things (outside of maybe free lunches) in order to empower labor (to the company’s shareholders’ detriment) willingly.

Some things that would make me consider it:

• Free high quality lunches every day
• Transportation compensation in the form of both work time (if the office is poorly located) and monetary compensation for transportation expenses
• Management improvement plan with actions they’re taking/implementing to reduce the time they’re wasting of laborers on a day-to-day basis
• Alteration of the company structure to force a large percentage (simple majority) of ownership to workers to push back against reactionary and profit-driven anti-labor whims of shareholders
• Services/compensation that complete tasks that previously I could do during downtime at home
• Yearly inflation-pegged CoL raises that apply to every laborer in the company before salary raises are made
• Massive investment in in-office employee training programs in the form of role-based training that is chosen by laborers in that particular role/function

If every single one of these things were implemented I would then still probably leave the place for another WFH job if we didn’t use our new ownership powers to revert back to WFH immediately.

The only thing that shines brighter than KBJ’s dissents is the institution that makes them possible.

Pod can’t Save America, but we can.

As a progressive, it disgusts me to see how many Bernie bros didn’t elevate Hillary in the Midwest.

Many people say campaigns are a marathon, not a sprint, but really it’s a relay race and we should have picked up the baton and brought her over the finish line there by knocking on every door in the region.

I think it’s critical for progressives to join DSA in order to organize and push back against tankies in their ranks.

The only way to defeat fascism is at the ballot box. Republicans won’t be able to sustain this long term, so long as we don’t push for radical progressive policies (like healthcare entitlements or climate reform) we won’t lose the critical white suburban voters who delivered us Joe Biden in 2020.

The most important thing we can do is to remind true-blooded Americans that no one slowed the rate of middle and lower class spending power decline as quickly as Joe Biden. (Sanity side note- if you’re ever in a position where you’re forced to use the second derivative of spending power as a talking point it’s already over)

It’s time to highlight leaders cut from the same cloth. It’s time to rally behind Buttigieg 2028.

Remember that it’s critical to criticize, but don’t call for reform of, the Supreme Court.

If we lose ourselves to radical positions like court expansion imagine if it’s ever used against us in the future.

This primary season it’s critical to ensure that any candidate you vote for is pro-NATO.

Some of the more tankie members of the progressive caucus may not be openly pro-NATO, so make sure you do your research in case you need to vote for a real American in these districts.