#npr politics

[harriswalz4usabybr]

Harris-Walz Campaign Update!

When we set out on our campaign just 17 days ago, in Maine, it was communicated that we were making an investment in all Americans—regardless of their political creed. So far the campaign has been able to invest resources in 23 states and the district. We will continue investing until we have visited all 50 states and the territories. This is a commitment we are making to you, the American people.

We are happy to know that this strategy is also seeing positive results in polling numbers. NPR analysis has shown that we are putting more toss-up states on to the map and solidified our lead in some others. However, these positive results are not going to make us complacent. Do not be fooled, we are the underdogs in this election cycle and we will fight every day as such until November 5, 2024. We are fighting for you the American people, we are fighting to protect our great experiment, we are fighting to move forward because we are not going back!

Thank you for continuing to fight with us and we are excited to see what our campaign can accomplish.

~BR~

[curtwilde]

Welcome to the preparatory phase of Declared Fascist Hindu Rastra. Indian State has always been a Brahmanical Fascist State, now it is being declared to be one with implementing CAA-NRC-NPR in order to snatch the citizenship of Indian Muslims under the garb of "providing nationality to the persecuted minorities of neighbouring countries." We're in 2024 and today is 28th day of March. According to today's The Hindu this is the main headline. "Priest can give CAA eligibility certificate, says govt. helpline: It is mandatory certificate to be submitted along with other documents by the applicants on the portal; as per the rules, the certificate can be issued by a 'locally reputed community institution'. This is the final nail on the coffin of a rotten 'secular' democracy.

Link to the full artice

Caption source

Welcome to Hindu Rashtra where a fucking PRIEST can give or take your citizenship.

[triviallytrue]

Truly, conservative whining about "Republican representation" at traditionally liberal outlets is one of the more pathetic gambits out there, even more so when it works. If I could snap my fingers and remove every single republican from every position of influence in this country I would do it and we'd all be that much better off

[phoenixyfriend]

I would advise listening to this podcast all the way through:

There is a section where they talk about how, while pro-ceasefire progressives are loud, they are low in number. The two statistics given are an opinion poll in Pennsylvania about how a pro-Israel stance has actually benefited one of the Senators, and the New Hampshire democratic primary.

In the NH primary, Biden was not on the ballot, for complicated Democratic infighting reasons about which state gets to host the first primary. He nonetheless won the state with about 64%, because people wrote in with his name.

There was also a campaign, a loud one, to get people to write in "ceasefire." It got under 1,500 votes.

Biden got over 77,000. As a write-in candidate.

"But the primary didn't matter!"

Sure, in terms of actual impact on delegates, but look. People are using it as evidence that the people begging for a ceasefire are louder than they are numerous. Shouting, but only a handful.

Abstaining does nothing, even in the primaries.

Hopefully, Michigan will change that, but we cannot rely on one blue-wall state to make a case for all of us.

Do not just shout online. Even in-person protests won't do much when it's a small handful of people each time, because What If It's The Same Five People. That's only five votes, right?

But what if you vote, and tell them you disapprove?

What if you call in, tell your Senator and House Rep that you may not vote for them if this continues, and they match your name and address to a database and find that yes, you DO have a vote you can withhold?

I know I'm a broken record, but PLEASE call your reps.

I'll even help you figure out what to say.

[mysharona1987]

Gee, vengeful abusive men using the new anti abortion laws to continue to control and torment their exes. Who couldn’t have seen that coming? Oh, right. *Everyone*.

The law says he can’t go after her (which he almost certainly would have) so he’s going after her friends instead, knowing how bad it’ll make her feel.

And he totally stole her phone. How else could he have gotten the screenshots?

[captainjonnitkessler]

I think being on the internet has given a lot of leftists a drastically skewed view of how popular our beliefs are.

Most politicians support Israel because most Americans support Israel - only 8% of the population thinks the US should publicly criticize Israel.

Bernie didn't lose the primaries because the Democrats were just too scared of having a real progressive in office so they rigged the election, he lost because socialists are the least-electable people in America and because fewer people voted for him. That's how elections work. ( In b4 'but everyone else dropped out in a coordinated effort to concentrate votes behind biden!' - yeah, if your candidate can only win when the vote is split eight ways that's not a viable candidate. And I voted for Bernie!)

As of 2021 only about 15% of Americans support defunding the police, 47% would like to see increased police funding, and the number of people who think violent crime is a "very big" problem jumped 20 percentage points up to 61% in one year.

And it's just really frustrating to see internet leftists being super condescending as though everybody should already know everything and be on board with this stuff or else they're a Bad Person, driving people away from leftist ideology or making people too afraid to ask questions lest they be branded as a Centrist or worse, a Liberal, or refusing to engage in politics until they're being specifically catered to even though that would be political suicide (and would therefore not accomplish anything anyway.)

And like. It's fine to think that people who support Israel or more police funding are bad people, frankly I think a lot of them are. But I think even more are just misinformed or not really informed about alternatives at all. And not everyone is in the headspace to do education or outreach, but when you're only 10% of the population I think you need to make a choice about whether you want to feel good about being right on the internet or whether you want to be effective. It's frustrating to have to walk someone step-by-step through why genocide is bad, but it's a lot more likely to change minds than shouting at someone that they're obviously just a genocide-loving racist is.

[unforth]

Everything about this comic is gold.

[capricorn-0mnikorn]

Just so you know: I listen to the news with an ear toward what would interest my mutuals on Tumblr

This story has several intersections: the need for prison abolition, disablism (and ableism), systematic racism & "tough on Crime" legislation, the fact that our nation is growing older, and people tend to become disabled as they age (Every able-bodied person is only temporarily so).

[whatbigotspost]

Today in US fascism watch, we’ve reached holy fucking shit levels

Reenactment of me after listening

I’m not that same fool from 2015 who thought he’d honestly never be elected. Knowing what 45 would do as 47 makes me sick to my stomach.

[going2hell4everythingbutbeingbi]

my news sources:

[injustice-of-toren]

The TikTok ban is almost certainly going to pass, since it's tied to Ukraine and Israel aid now. And Biden has said he'll sign in.

Not sure what to tell you other than please call your senators (but be normal when calling; don't threaten homicide or suicide because last time people did that I was hearing about it on NPR).

Also, there will likely be first amendment lawsuits challenging it when it passes but I don't know enough about *gestures vaguely* the constitution to tell you whether that'll work.

[phoenixyfriend]

Suggested Listening

I've heard a few distinct takes on the UN vote and the comparison of the US and Israeli actions in light of it. I don't fully understand everything about the politics around this vote, because it's a complicated dance and trying to understand what people are thinking is close to impossible when we don't know what's going on behind the scenes and what's just political theater... but I think listening to multiple perspectives might get us closer to understanding than just listening to one.

I have provided approximate bias/political spectrum position for each, as well as giving my reasoning or summary of why I think it's a useful listen.

This post includes The NPR Politics Podcast, Democracy Now!, Al Jazeera: The Take, and the BBC Global News Podcast.

To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post.

The NPR Politics Podcast - March 27, 2024 - Left-leaning, though not as far as some of the others. This contextualizes the relationship between Netanyahu and Biden among the history between Netanyahu and multiple past presidents, including Trump, Obama, and Clinton. It focuses in part on the domestic political dynamics and ramifications that Biden is facing, the question of funding, and the apparent self-contradiction of the US government when it comes to the possibility of conditions, sanctions, or other reprisal if Israel continues to disregard US concerns about the ground invasion of Rafah.

Democracy Now! - Several parts of the March 26, 2024 episode were focused on the UN vote and results - This is a far-left radio broadcast show that gets repackaged for online video and podcast dissemination. This coverage is much more critical, without 'well, maybe they're trying to [action]' as we see in some others, of the United States and its handling of the UN vote and subsequent fallout. The interview with Craig Mokhiber gets into some nitty-gritty details of something called the "General Assembly under the Uniting for Peace," which I didn't really understand. I can't speak to supporting that we take that part at his word, because it's not something I understand enough to endorse. He also refers to the United States as not only Israel's principal sponsor, but also its co-belligerent.

Short section: U.N.-Commissioned Report Lays Out Evidence of Israeli Genocide in Gaza

Short section: UNSC Approves Its First Gaza Ceasefire Resolution Ater U.S. Abstains

Full story: Ex-U.N. Official Craig Mokhiber: Israel Must Be Held Accountable for Violating Ceasefire Resolution

Full story: Jeremy Corbyn Applauds U.N. Ceasefire Resolution, Says World Must Prevent “Another Nakba”

Al Jazeera - March 26/27, 2024 (timezone-dependent, it was the 26th for EST) - I hesitate to place Al Jazeera on the standard left-right scale since it's outside the Western framework, as an independent Qatari news organization with some degree of funding from the government of Qatar. What I will say is that Al Jazeera provides a vital non-Western lens, even if some of the reporters are Western, when viewing politics in the Middle East. In this particular case, it also appears that they had a reporter much closer to the action in the UN than the others, as Al Jazeera has an office in the UN headquarters in NYC.

They also address a few curious things about last-minute negotiations on the floor of the UN, the immediate consequences of the US ambassador referring to the resolution as 'non-binding,' and asserts that the US warned Israel that they would be abstaining this time, which is why the US is seemingly confused at how upset Israel is about it. I'm not sure how intentional it is, but the message I got is that Israel tried to call the US's bluff and was then upset when the US followed through, because the US... wasn't bluffing. And did in fact abstain.

BBC Global News Podcast - March 27, 2024 - Dead center, variably left or right depending on the issue - This is a twice-daily podcast and generally contains three or four separate stories. Their coverage of Netanyahu walking back the cancellation of his officials' trip to the US is first, however, and I'm not sure how much it adds to analysis of the vote, but it is the most recent and has the latest of the updates.

To support my blogging so I can move out of my parents’ house, I do have a ko-fi. Alternately, you can donate to one of the charities I list in this post.

[mysharona1987]

None of what he is saying makes any sense.

[bobcatmoran]

Just leaving this here:

[sunburnacoustic]

When people listen to ‘Will Of The People’, is it all right with you if they just go, ‘Well, that's a nice album!’? Or do you want to, I don't know, make them get up and do something?

“I think if some people just listen to it as purely fun music and don't even worry about what the lyrical elements are, I think that I'm totally, totally happy with that. But overall, if I had to put together a kind of ‘what is it I want Muse to do for people who do get deeply into the music?’ — there is a part of strength inside all of us that can actually help get through the most difficult, most challenging periods, you know? A lot of Muse songs kind of deal with that, and that's probably me just addressing it for myself and then sharing it with others and hoping that can help people feel like you're not alone with some of those thoughts that may be troubling you at night.”

— Matt Bellamy | Interview for Will Of The People on NPR, 27 Aug 2022