Politics Thread!

[F-ZeroOne]

Trump declares World War Woke!:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24200d7y9o

So, presumably, under this new policy countries where the population is not predominately white, straight Christians can now discriminate against them as much as they like without violating this new US human rights "policy"? Good to know!

[Harlequin]

Trump declares World War Woke!:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24200d7y9o

So, presumably, under this new policy countries where the population is not predominately white, straight Christians can now discriminate against them as much as they like without violating this new US human rights "policy"? Good to know!

I presume an exception is being made for South Africa, despite the accusations of Smelly and Fart Musk and Trump.

Hmm... I cannot help but compare

Other policies by foreign governments which US embassies will be told to categorise as human rights infringements include:
…
● Arrests or "official investigations or warnings for speech" …

with

President Donald Trump demanded the arrest and trial of several "seditious" Democratic lawmakers over a video in which they appealed directly to serving military and intelligence personnel to "refuse illegal orders"—and said their actions were "punishable by DEATH!" He also shared a social media post calling to "hang" the Democrats.

[tufty]

Yesterday he had a meeting with Mamdani. They're super bros now. Trump is all fawning over him.

Mamdani was asked about calling Trump a fascist, and whether he stood by that statement. Mamdani started talking, and as with previous similar questions, was about to answer without either explicitly saying yes, or walking back anything he's said. But Trump interjected and said to him "that's okay, you can just say yes". So Mamdani said "yes".

In other news, Steven Miller has given birth to 5 kittens.

[PFVA]

Trump declares World War Woke!:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cx24200d7y9o

So, presumably, under this new policy countries where the population is not predominately white, straight Christians can now discriminate against them as much as they like without violating this new US human rights "policy"? Good to know!

This man again.
Mind his own business.
He was elected President of the USA
not of every country in the world.

[KlaxonCow]

Republicans are so desperate for escalation from the left, to provide a justifying pretext for their increasingly fascist policies, they've taken to staging attacks on themselves. But, unfortunately for them, they're incompetent idiots who left a trail of evidence and the police do know how to investigate crimes.



It's quite mad, though, the lengths they went to, as Greene arranged for an artist to cut her up, two days prior, so that she'd have appropriate wounds for their fake attack. But, again, though committed to this "false flag", they're idiots, as doctors can tell if a cut is fresh or has had 2 days of healing beforehand.

So, even if the police had not almost immediately discovered their deceit by searching their car and finding the same zip ties that she was bound in, and a roll of duct tape - proving that they did this themselves and it was not an external attack at all - then it wouldn't have passed cursory medical checks anyway.

But there is still much to be worried about, if members of the MAGA cult are so desperate to give their Orange King the pretext he needs to send in the military and declare Martial Law, that they would happily cut themselves up and pretend to be attacked by "leftists" to do so.

Indeed, calling MAGA "a cult" was a joking reference to the devotion of these idiots to the Great Idiot. But, no, it might be quite literally true that it's genuinely a cult, if this is now ordinary behaviour in their defence and devotion to Trump that they'd actually get themselves cut up in ideological sacrifice to him.

[F-ZeroOne]

Well, Candace Owens - that’s the one who thinks (is obsessed with the idea, is more accurate) Brigette Macron is a man - now thinks the French government are going to assassinate her for “knowing the truth”.

There are cults that are less crazy…

[F-ZeroOne]

We're at the point where Grandpa is saying the inside thoughts out loud:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c208x9v68w3o

[zip accident]

I think this is interesting:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cvg87j86xg3o

Young people are getting a 'raw deal', and that's good news for the Greens and Reform

...

The polls show Nigel Farage's party and the Greens are tying on 20% with young men - behind Labour's 30%. But Reform is leading the pack among young men who don't have degrees.

...

A youth charity boss suggests: "It's like a guilty secret, the country knows that young people are getting a raw deal but nobody is doing anything about it."

They have some very nice graphs.

Going by the graphs, the young people without degrees pretty much hate the Lib-dems.

[tufty]

That's no surprise. Young uneducated males are one of the core support groups of populists everywhere, and always have been.

[zip accident]

A strange thing is that by the graphs, the educated outnumber the uneducated.

[zip accident]

This one's a doozy:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cqlke33rzplo

Young people to lose benefits if they decline work, says minister

...

McFadden added: "This is an offer on one hand, but it's an expectation on the other. Because the future we don't want for young people is to be sitting at home on benefits, when there are other options out there."

It's "beat the unemployed until morale improves". You can understand the Tories being upset, labour has nicked their stick again. If there isn't a lot more carrot, there's going to be trouble. A Green-Reform alliance probably isn't on, but they seem to agree on benefits.

[Mat]

There's something that doesn't get talked about when it comes to the pandemic.
Hell, it might just be me that feels this way; but I suspect a lot of young people hit upon this truth too.

We're always being told that the pandemic was bad for the mental health of the nation, but I think the exact opposite is true.

For me, the pandemic was great for my mental and physical health, even after being made redundant after the first round of furlough.
I had more time to spend on me, so I started bettering myself. I had time to get fit, time away from the stresses of daily 3 hour commutes and 9 hour days where maybe 2 of them actually consisted of meaningful work.
I was eating better and starting to explore creativity again. Things that the pressures of the working day make it very hard to maintain.

In short, I began to realise how the privileged few existed.

They don't exist for anyone else but themselves.
And I think a lot of us got a taste of that.

Of course, you're never going to hear that uttered anywhere else, as we can't have the average Joe or Josephine realising that 90% of modern work is bullshit, and probably the reason the NHS is overloaded thanks to work-related illnesses.
Work-related illnesses?
What do I mean by that?
That most illness suffered by the general population wouldn't happen if they weren't under stress and had more time to themselves.
That a lot would be avoided if people had their own homes that they didn't have to pay rent for, and that weren't riddled with black mould.
That cramming people onto public transport at the same hour of day every day ensures illnesses that could otherwise be beaten, continue to spread amongst the working classes.

I know that since moving to London for work, I have had more serious illnesses than in the entirety of my life beforehand; some caused by external factors (I got sarcoidosis in 2012, probably from some of that black mold mentioned earlier thanks to having to live in overpriced, under-maintained rental property); some by stress related to work (living alone and over-eating for comfort and to ward off depression, eventually leading to type-2 diabetes, which in turn results in more frequent mood swings, and therefore more depression); and a lot due to those previous things resulting in a weakened immune system.

Now I'm not saying that I or others like me shouldn't have to work (although ultimately, I think that's what we should be pursuing); but we could certainly do with lowering the number of days we work a week, giving us more free-time to work on maintaining a healthier lifestyle, thereby reducing the stress on the NHS.

And I also realised something sickening recently (excuse the pun).
If someone has "just" £1M in the bank, let alone tens or hundreds of millions, the amount they make in interest is around the national average wage, at around £30-40,000 a year.
Yes, such a person would have to pay tax on that interest, but only as if they'd had to work for it.
That's right: A millionaire pays the same amount of tax as someone earning the national average, without having to lift a finger.

That on it's own is bad enough, but despite it not being the case for the vast majority of the population, £1M is peanuts to the wealthy ruling classes in this country.

And these rich cunts run the businesses we end up working for.

Pitchforks and guillotines are looking increasingly attractive.

[tufty]

A millionaire pays the same amount of tax as someone earning the national average, without having to lift a finger.

That would be nice if it were true. Unfortunately, having a million puts you into the bracket where not only do your investments make far more money than you or I if we put our money in the bank, but also it puts you in the bracket where tax on that income can be very easily evaded no avoided no "optimised away".

And mere millionaires are nothing. Billionaires pay far less.

[Mat]

Sorry, I should have clarified that that's without any attempt to avoid paying tax.

[rowan]

Bank interest doesn't "make money" though - you'll need more than the interest just to keep up with inflation, so it'll gradually be losing worth the longer you keep it there.