@A_Philosopher@TheCinesthetic You're right. The original Indiana Jones trilogy was famously seen as baby food. No one liked it. It proved he couldn't put together a decent action movie.
Trump announces reparations for white people. He says he will ask the Justice Department to penalize colleges that consider diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and fine them so he can pay “restitution” to white people who he considers the real victims of racial discrimination.
Sounds crazy, but I am not 100% confident that Project 2025 era Republican party with control of all branches would take any moral or ethical high road to solve a birth rate crisis, perceived or actual.
What's scary is this isn't Idiocracy, but Handmaid's Tale. Political party makes choices about women's bodies, plunges the nation into economic decline. Women choose to be with supporters of the party considerably less and birth rates overall hit critical lows. Solve for X.
Lots of reasons why things went how they did, but here's a big one. His old ass should have never been on that debate stage. The Democrats spent 0 time giving a better option time to present itself. Democrats need to seriously change or we need a new party.
Who remembers when around 500 votes changed the course of history? I do. I get wanting to vote for an independent, but the work to actually make that happen starts the day after an election, not in the months leading up to it. Don't throw votes away. They matter.
I have a confession and a plea to folks who are flirting with voting Jill Stein.
When I was a 20 year old college student in 2000, I voted for Ralph Nader instead of Al Gore. I loved the progressive message Nader offered, and Bush and Gore seemed kinda the same to someone who was paying peripheral attention.
I've regretted that vote for my entire adult life.
Ultimately, George Bush won by a margin of 500+ votes in the state of Florida over Gore. And that was the ballgame. Ralph Nader peeled 97,000+ votes away from Gore. If only 600 of those 90,000 had voted for the major party candidate that more aligned with their values, things would have been very different.
When I was in my senior year of college, 9/11 happened. The country and western world rallied around Bush's resolute response to the traumatizing terror attacks. I was in NY at the time, and it was a terrifying moment for the nation.
But the consequences of Bush being in office at that moment were immense.
Bush's disdain for his dad's nemesis, Iraqi President Saddam Hussein, led him to invent a rationale to invade a country that literally had nothing to do with 9/11. End result? He killed hundreds of thousands of Iraqi people, thousands of American troops, and spent over a trillion dollars of taxpayer money in the process.
Beyond the completely immoral and indefensible Iraq War, Bush was a complete disaster as a president. His "No Child Left Behind" effort turned public schools into standardized testing centers. He tripled down on fossil fuels and ignored climate change. His tax cuts for the rich helped contribute to the 2008 economic downturn that led to the Great Recession.
He was a terrible president.
In an alternate reality, Al Gore would have been president in 2001 when terrorists attacked America. Would he have gone into Iraq? Absolutely not. Would he have ignored global warming? 100% no! Gore was perhaps the preeminent proponent of fighting climate change at that time. Would he have passed massive tax cuts for the wealthy? No way.
This is a sliding doors scenario. What would have happened? We can't be sure. But one thing is for sure: those votes for Ralph Nader (in Florida in particular) were EXCEPTIONALLY consequential for the lives of millions around the world. Gore would have offered a more forward-facing, environmentally conscious & peaceful presidency that wasn't so rooted in grievance and privilege.
My point is:
Either Kamala Harris or Donald Trump will win the election. That is a fact. You might feel the need to submit a "protest vote" as I did in 2000.
Just be ready to wear it when Donald Trump wins, strips away reproductive rights from all Americans, implements an economy-destroying tariff, dismantles the entire federal government, eliminates the Department of Education, prosecutes his perceived enemies, and devolves America into chaos.
There are no perfect choices. But rest assured, there are only two.
Trust me - I've been wearing my vote for a quarter century.
I'd say it'd be hard to top how awkward it must be to have to state, in court, that you weren't doing the scam you're accused of because you were, in fact, doing a worse scam that confirms you were duping idiots from the outset but then pictures like this exist. Impressive, Elon.
We're on hour three of the Elon Musk super PAC lottery lawsuit in a court in Philadelphia.
Larry Krasner has been testifying that the entire premise of the Musk lottery was a "scam" and a "grift" and "disingenuous."
The Musk team has been arguing that this was not a "lottery" because its $1 million winners were actually pre-selected based on whom would be the best spokespeople for the super PAC. Team Musk says their winners were not "random."
Trump appears to be unraveling
“If I don't win this thing after all this talk, I’m in trouble. Will you please go vote? I came here, whatever the hell time it is, who the hell knows. I’m giving you the full bore. You wouldn’t let me leave in half an hour. I would have been home sleeping right now”
Some of the most difficult 16 seconds of content I've ever watched in my life. You can't tell me that the main successes of this man's companies are because of him. You just can't.