#governmental corruption

[theweeklyshowwithjonstewart]

Democracy Under Threat

Despite what cable news may have you believe, Fuckface von Clownstick is not the sole threat to our democracy. This week, we’re peeling back the rhetoric and taking a look at where the vulnerabilities in our institutions lie. In conversation with Jane Mayer, chief Washington correspondent for The New Yorker magazine and Noah Bookbinder, President of Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington, Jon explores the roots of our democratic dysfunction. From ever-multiplying dark money to shark tanking ideas for tax transparency, this episode has it all. Plus, hear from producers of the pod and get a taste for what you can expect in episodes to come! Fact Check: Jane Mayer mentions that Jon said the FEC is about as useless as male nipples. It was, in fact, Jordan Klepper who said this.

Jon Stewart on Who Writes Legislation and Passing the PACT Act

Jon Stewart recalls an experience where a bipartisan group of congresspeople agreed on his proposal to support veterans suffering from toxic exposures but asked him to write the legislation! This leads Jon, Jane Mayer, and Noah Bookbinder to dive into the vulnerabilities in our democracy.

[ahb-writes]

"Who is more the thief: the government that preys on its people, or those who must become thieves in order to survive?"

"Xiang" (A Clash of Steel: A Treasure Island Remix by C.B. Lee)

[nightswatchdisbandmentera]

I’m sorry but the best Jon Snow AUs are those where he is some sort of civil servant. I always see people headcannon him as ROTC/soldier or cop but I think they kind of miss the mark. GRRM has steadily been moving away from the traditional warrior archetype with Jon and more into the counts-pebbles ruler type. So the cannon compliant AUs are the ones where he ends up as some sort of government official. Maybe he could be a city hall manager or an ombudsman. He could be a state representative or maybe even a senator. Let me remind people that he’s the only elected leader in the series. AU!Jon Snow would totally be the extremely competent but also extremely depressed congressional representative from like, idk, Alaska.

[comehithercornking]

People are sometimes so quick to forgive historical figures with the argument of them being a “product of their times” and saying we know better now. So like. Where are the people who know better now? They certainly aren’t in our governments, because if we knew better Israel wouldn’t be committing genocide with the support of multiple world leaders. This is no different from the displacement and genocide of the Native American people, the Inuit, the Aboriginal Australians—I could literally go on and on. The only difference between us and our ancestors is that our weapons of mass destruction are more effective.

[solipseismic]

writing a whole book on How Bad this Specific Thing Is you would think i know a lot about how bad the thing is but then i look up one (1) news article about a specific event and i get to go Oh Wow. Yeah That's Very Bad? That's Very Bad. all over again

[stardustto-dust]

Shout out to my college for cancelling one of my modules, putting me in a module for a subject I don't do, and when my classmates and I complained about it, sending us an email saying "don't worry, we'll lie about it on your official record :)".

[eternallovers65]

Its amazing to me how some people in this website or twt are so far up their asses that they genuinely think that people calling out kelly piquet, and essentially max for once again being around these type of people (idk why yall still get surprised) it's all down to pure jealousy or being a sore loser. I sometimes genuinely think half of you have zero idea or care of what's actually going on in other countries and how serious the stuff she posted is.

To have someone who does not live on the country, never visits or doesn't even know how to speak portuguese that properly posting two stories showing her support to a guy who has been nothing but a complet useless president that doesn't care for his people is RIDICULOUS.

Do you wanna know why she supports him??? Because her daddy, her main income source, is owning a few millions of taxes to the government and our current president, Bolsonaro, is letting him go without any charges.

And you wanna know the cherry on top??? Kelly has declared herself as a feminist and a non racist person but yet she follows the guy who is a well know racist, misogynist, transphobic, corrupted, antivaxx and anti environmental piece of shit.

So yeah, self declared feminist, non racist and MONACO BASED Kelly Piquet supports this guy. I mean, the joke writes itself right???

[fated-normal-767]

definitely posted this before but. well I don’t care. #girl

[glimpseofsanity]

Que ridiculez de país.

[thisusernamewasntavailable]

Most, if not all politicians these days, as well as CEOs and big corporations are never ever acting in your best interest. They act on their integrity to one another. Not on the integrity they should feel towards the people they represent, that voted them. And to be frank...i am frustrated and feed up with those people not giving a flying fuck about our peoples future because money will always shine brighter to them

[terpia]

.

[arewelemmings]

Priority

Priority

I yearn to be someone's priority. But I don't see that as me being selfish. Why? Simple.

I'm not alone in this. I want myself and many others with me to be someone's priority. Who's priority? That doofus I voted for, along with many others voting for them, that won the election but still won't represent me and work on my behalf, or the behalf of all of us who cast ballots, thus granting them their distinguished positions.

It's not selfish to demand accountability of the people you elect to work for you in governmental positions. Or, did we forget that, once elected, they work for us, the voters.

Whether local govenrment, county, state or federal, there are many individuals who get voted into office and use their positions for reasons that have nothing to do with helping those who cast the votes to get them there. We can't just cast votes and forget about these people. We have to watch them to see if they keep their campaign promises, or if they go running off to do things quite different from the reasons why we elected them. If they're not working for us, we should vote them out, and replace them with new people in office, again and again until we get good people in office who will do as they say when they're stumping for our votes.

This is the power of the people in a democracy. A democracy is designed to allow the people this power and more. When the people we elect try to cancel this power of the people, they are attempting to destroy democracy from within. We can't let them get away with this.

Keep an eye on what your elected officials do, and how that affects the general population, how it affects you. Then, reevaluate who you're voting for and why. You should vote for those who will do their jobs in a way that makes you their priority. Vote smart.

[djcranberry]

If you write off MGRP as a madoka clone I’m stealing something from your house

[wilwheaton]

Republicans are not the victors of a tumultuous campaign week that saw President Joe Biden flub his first debate and former President Donald Trump win a landmark Supreme Court ruling — the oligarchy is, a new analysis contends. Slate writers Dahlia Lithwick and Mark Joseph Stern presented an alternative Wednesday to the predominant political narrative that Biden’s campaign is nosediving while a newly disciplined Trump reaps the benefit. Rather than look at the face of the political parties, they raise the specter of Supreme Court rulings they say demonstrate a cataclysmic governmental shift. “Make no mistake about it,” the pair write, “When a court that has been battered by near-weekly reports of undisclosed oligarch-funded vacations (and gifts and super yachts and tricked out RVs and secret conferences with high-paying Koch supporters getting access to justices) decides to make it easier to bribe public officials—as it did in Snyder v. U.S.—that’s a very public signal that the conservative supermajority does not care what you think.”

'Make no mistake about it': Op-ed warns an elite 'supermajority' has already won 2024

The thoroughly corrupt MAGA 6 must be impeached and removed from the court. Democrats must take off the gloves, and fight as dirty as the other side. Literally everything is at stake.

[honey-stick]

it has nothing to do with being aro 😭 it’s not as focused on romance as you thought it would be because the books are focused on familial love and the movies stripped that away. - another aro adult

i believe this ask is about this post (link) i made.

i will admit, i didn't phrase things super clearly in that post, my talk about katniss being aro is just my interpretation of a facet of her character, and not a definitive claim. i was sharing my interpretation of her and the reasoning about it, and im not right or wrong about this. every reader has their own interpretations of characters and stories, and with katniss's orientation never explicitly said in the books, the more i read the books, the more i read her as an aro character. my post was just talking about that interpretation, and isnt very serious at all.

i am well aware that isnt what Collins intended, and i know the books have nothing to do with being aro. the few things i knew about the series going in was that rue dies, katniss is good with a bow and arrow, there's a very corrupt government, and there's a love triangle. i did realize while reading it that romantic love is a minor thing in these books. i didnt know that the movies remove the familial and focus on romance, so thank you for telling me that! i was very confused about why there was so much talk online about the romance, and now i know :)

[germiyahu]

That "racism of low expectations" point can be applied to more than Westerners patting their little Jihad Meow Meows on the head by the way. I think it also applies to American Jews, usually assimilated, acting like Israel is this Entity and not a country made up of mostly Middle Eastern Jews, people. When they do acknowledge that Israelis are people who aren't just acting in the interests of an all powerful governmental animus, they act like all Israelis are bloodthirsty frat bro soldiers wreaking havoc in Gaza because they think it's fun.

Because what is this? This tweet was in response to the chaotic backlash against Jonathan Glazer, who espoused a nearly identical sentiment. That sentiment being: Israel is using our Jewishness for some nefarious political purpose. It's not fair! We didn't sign off on GENOCIDE! How dare they use us to do this!

Israeli Jews are seen too unenlightened, too religious, too much of an embarrassment, to much of Diaspora Jewry. And yet at the same time their Jewishness is not even considered to be part of the political calculus of Israel at all? These not in my name types truly think Israel is a shadowy cabal of like 20 old white men (ironic) getting off on destroying lives and using as shields these poor innocent Americans and Brits, famously two peoples who've never twisted or corrupted the legacy of the Holocaust before.

They obviously have very hurt feelings that Israeli Jews dare to be Jews, to invoke their own Jewishness, Jewish values, to justify military action. They're not even really doing that? They want the hostages back. That is the primary concern if you poll Israeli citizens right now. And that's been the case pretty much every day since the pogrom. That's it. That's why they're saying Never Again. If that offends you as a Jewish person really let that steep. Really sit with your emotional reaction to Jews having a trauma reaction to traumatizing events and relating other events of Jewish trauma throughout history to that event. Ask yourself if it's appropriate to insinuate that they're using their Jewishness, sorry just YOUR Jewishness apparently, to make you look bad?

Israeli politicians have invoked the Holocaust outright, as a comparison. Because clearly the country whose "white" population is mostly made up of the descendants of Holocaust refugees has no business doing that? That's an affront to your name and your values?Again, why do you think everything is about you? Why do you think everything Israel does is even in your name in the first place? Is it American Brainrot Disease again?

You think Israeli Jews are so incapable of rationality and of yearning for social justice (they just want their family members back) that you erase them from the conversation. Israeli leftists are not real and are not working with Palestinians as we speak, and certainly aren't advocating for a ceasefire more successfully than anyone on this continent! Israeli politicians who speak to their constituents and use the shared cultural language of being Jews are trying to brainwash and influence Americans, because they have no constituents. Israel is just a bunch of racist politicians and a mercenary army that's trained to kill children specifically.

Like this is getting so annoying. It's clear they wish they could just excommunicate all Israelis, because they're Bad Jews. They want to take away their Jewish card, because that's not what Real Judaism stands for! And then they get offended when non secular Jews around the world dare question their Jewish identities in response to this behavior. Which I'm not condoning for the record, but how about you practice what you preach for once?