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Created
Fri, 28/02/2025 - 08:30
According to Philip Bump the data shows that this idea that a bunch of young, white Andrew Tate/ Joe Rogan dudes were the key to Trump’s victory in November is simply not correct. In a way, its something much more disturbing: YouGov has been tracking Trump’s favorability since early 2016 as part of the work it does for the Economist. The polling firm shared quarterly averages of the president’s numbers since then. What we see is that there has been an upward trend of support among younger U.S. citizens, while the views of older Americans have remained fairly flat. The increase since early 2021 has been higher among young men than women (18 points vs. 11 points) but that is again a function of race. White men under 30 have gotten three points more favorable to Trump than White women in that age range. Non-White men now view Trump 29 points more favorably, a jump that’s more than 20 points bigger than the increase among non-White women.
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Fri, 28/02/2025 - 07:48
Analogue-economy models may picture Galilean thought experiments or they may describe credible worlds. In either case we have a problem in taking lessons from the model to the world. The problem is the venerable one of unrealistic assumptions, exacerbated in economics by the fact that the paucity of economic principles with serious empirical content makes […]
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Fri, 28/02/2025 - 07:00
Even if one of his minions actually wrote that under his name, he knows about it because the media here and all over the world picked it up. It was incredibly provocative and caused a huge amount of consternation. His smug look says it all. It has apparently been decided that the toddler in chief has to be allowed to swing his very tiny hands around so they’ve come up with a framework for a”deal” that will put the revenue from the extracted rare earth minerals into some kind of an investment fund to be shared between the two countries. There are no details and it really adds up to nothing at least at the moment. Trump will say that he won’t offer any security guarantees and treat Zelensky like shit in the meeting if he wants to while loudly proclaiming that he’s the greatest deal maker the world has ever known. In the end it adds up to nothing new. We knew that when Trump won he would leave Ukraine out to dry and give Russia whatever it wanted and that’s basically what’s happening. But in order to keep him from making things even worse everyone has to pretend that he’s a genius and a God so here we are.
Created
Fri, 28/02/2025 - 05:30
Here's a video of Andrew Tate. The man Trump wants in the country with your family and girls.pic.twitter.com/A9Kg5um8E1 https://t.co/pGYxEmZDEe — Joshua Reed Eakle 🗽 (@JoshEakle) February 27, 2025 As they deport innocent children, they invite psychopaths back into the country: Self-proclaimed misogynist social media influencer Andrew Tate and his brother Tristan have been allowed to leave Romania on a private jet bound for the U.S. despite facing rape and human trafficking charges that are still pending, CBS News’ partner network BBC News and the French news agency AFP reported Thursday. Citing sources in Romania, the outlets said the Tates, who are dual U.S.-British nationals, were flying to Fort Lauderdale, Florida. Prosecutors in Romania have alleged for years that Andrew, 38, and his brother Tristan, 36, set up a criminal enterprise in the country and in Britain in 2021, along with two women, and used it to sexually exploit multiple people. As you can see by that video, Andrew Tate is a psychopath who has made his name as a violent misogynist.
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Fri, 28/02/2025 - 05:05

“[T]he University of North Texas administration recently censored the content of more than two hundred academic courses, including by mandating the removal of words such as race, gender, class, and equity from undergraduate and graduate course titles and descriptions. These actions were allegedly taken in response to state legislation banning certain diversity, equity, and inclusion programs and practices, even though the legislation specifically exempted academic course content.” — The American Association of University Professors

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Effectively immediately, race will no longer be considered as a factor in admissions decisions. In fact, to ensure we don’t promote equal access to education by accident, only applicants named “Bradford” will be admitted to the college.

We will also stop pretending to try to recruit a diverse faculty.

Created
Fri, 28/02/2025 - 05:01
Understanding the Core Goal Of Western Governments & Western Decline

I was talking with a friend the other day and he said the problem with democracies is that policy can swing 180 degrees with each election.

And in some ways that’s true: Trump’s switch on Ukraine is a good example.

But it’s not true when it comes to the core goals of western government since 1979 or so.

The ur-rule of neoliberalism is that the rich must always get richer.

Trump’s budget cuts 600 million from Medicaid and other health care in order to give tax cuts to the rich.

Trudeau’s big change from previous Prime Ministers was to massively increase immigration. The effect was to depress wages and increase rent and real-estate prices.

Created
Fri, 28/02/2025 - 04:59
I read the definition of antisemitism adopted by Australian universities and my first thought was “we need a list”, not of what is considered antisemitic, but of what is not considered antisemetic. Now it would be helpful to have a prescriptive list of what one can say about Israel without being smeared as an antisemite. Continue reading »
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Fri, 28/02/2025 - 04:54
You can tell a lot about a person by the way they boil an egg for breakfast. I’ve made a study of it. The conservatives wait till the water’s boiling before they put the egg in and hit the three-minute timer. I’m at the other end of the spectrum. My egg goes into the saucepan’s Continue reading »
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Fri, 28/02/2025 - 04:52
Environment Minister Tanya Plibersek has released an EPBC Act ‘Impact Assessment Report’ (IAR) to address the environmental impacts of constructing nuclear submarines at Osborne, Port Adelaide. A deluge of documents — the 200-page IAR with 750 pages of appendices — have been released for “public consultation” running till 17 March. However, the IAR fails to Continue reading »
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Fri, 28/02/2025 - 02:30
Coming soon to an election near you All Jefferson Griffin wants to do is this: he just wants to find 735 votes, which is one more than he needs because he won the state. Got it? The N.C. Supreme Court is playing a John Roberts hand in overturning the last unsettled election from 2024. The contest is for a seat on their own court. Incumbent Justice Allison Riggs (D) won reelection by 734 votes after multiple recounts. But since Republicans had an overturn strategy in their back pocket for use in case Donald Trump narrowly lost North Carolina, they deployed it instead to ask courts to overturn state Appeals Court Judge Jefferson Griffin’s (R) loss to Riggs. Citing the Help America Vote Act (HAVA) and the state constitution, they are challenging the validity of 65,000 early or absentee ballots already counted. The bulk of Griffin’s challenges are based on alleged incomplete voter registrations of voters, some of whom (like most of you) have voted for decades. This obscure race may seem unimportant to where you live.
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Fri, 28/02/2025 - 01:21

Donald Trump’s power has thrived on the economics, politics, and culture of war. The runaway militarism of the last quarter-century was a crucial factor in making President Trump possible, even if it goes virtually unmentioned in mainstream media and political discourse. That silence is particularly notable among Democratic leaders, who have routinely joined in bipartisan messaging to boost the warfare state that fueled the rise of Trumpism. Trump first ran for president nearly a decade and a half after the “Global War on Terror” began in the wake of the 9/11 attacks. The crusade’s allure had worn off. The national mood was markedly different than in the era when President George W. Bush insisted that “our responsibility” was to “rid... Read more

Created
Fri, 28/02/2025 - 01:00
Your mission, should you choose to accept it Tomorrow. “If they don’t listen we make the next blackout longer” made me snicker. * * * * * Have you fought the coup today?Choose DemocracyIndivisible: A Guide to Democracy on the Brink
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Thu, 27/02/2025 - 23:40

“Jeff Bezos, the owner of the Washington Post, announced a major shift to the newspaper’s opinion section on Wednesday, saying it would now advocate ‘personal liberties and free markets’ and not publish opposing viewpoints on those topics.” — New York Times

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For nearly 150 years, the Washington Post has been a pillar of the American media landscape. As one of the nation’s papers of record, it has always stayed true to its values. That’s why, a few years after I bought it, I, Jeff Bezos, proudly chose our slogan, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”

Created
Thu, 27/02/2025 - 23:06
By defending the UK’s draconian anti-protest laws, Labour is laying the ground for an authoritarian government. By George Monbiot, published in the Guardian 22nd February 2025 If the Trump project implodes, it might take with it the far-right European parties to which it is umbilically connected. Like all such parties, Reform UK poses as patriotic […]