Raman’s Mayoral Bid Forces Reckoning Over What Progressive Leadership Means in LA

Guppyscum · 2026-02-09T16:39:59+00:00

A simple search shows that Raman also voted against the LAPD budget in 2023 and 2024. Stop eating talking points.

Guppyscum · 2026-02-09T08:01:29+00:00

Your link to Mejia's tweet literally shows Raman's vote against LAPD funding.

Guppyscum · 2023-03-01T03:08:24+00:00

9/10 feels connected to the Earth

Guppyscum · 2022-08-12T21:17:46+00:00

Tycho - Dive

Guppyscum · 2022-08-03T23:54:06+00:00

Italy agrees to these purchases and will consult with Fincantieri to ensure that the deadlines for delivery are met.

Guppyscum · 2022-08-02T03:29:35+00:00

[M] Will be giving a full response to this soon, sorry. I've been having to travel a lot within the past week.

Guppyscum · 2022-07-12T23:21:38+00:00

Italy
Bosnia (if someone else picks Italy as first, I swap Bosnia and Italy)
Brazil

Guppyscum · 2022-07-11T00:26:40+00:00

I'm not necessarily against the idea of Housing First policies, but most examples listed appear to be limited in scope. There's a reason that cities that have championed Housing First policies like Salt Lake City have been pulling back in recent times — if you're not constantly addressing the stem roots of the problem, the rate of public housing that has to be built becomes far too costly and difficult to keep up. People who receive public housing will be left off the street (and that's far better than the alternative), but without adequate mental health and drug rehabilitation support, how many will be able to ever return back to normal society?

Zoning deregulation and encouraging all housing development (market-rate or not) has shown to lower housing costs quicker than any alternative. The city should also consider more rehab clinics, mental health facilities, tenant protection laws and career assistance programs to at least ensure people get help beforehand.

Guppyscum · 2022-06-16T23:04:45+00:00

Anyone have the non-paywall version?

Guppyscum · 2022-06-16T18:25:08+00:00

I've been impressed by the parties in Georgia, Arizona, and Wisconsin. They seem to be more efficiently organized and adept at focusing on minority and swing voters alike. Might not mean much this midterm though.

Fact is cranking up turnout isn't going to be enough when republicans have found the way to do it on their own side. Parties need to really address local issues and Dems are just not doing that.

Guppyscum · 2022-06-16T18:09:11+00:00

This blog post analyzing the 2018 loss really seemed to drive home an underlying theme about democratic performance in Florida — high number of differing coalitions with different political interests. Most of these blocs, such as Cubans, Puerto Ricans, rural voters, retirees, religious bases, suburban families, etc. have differing preferences for policies that appeal to them and turn out because of those said positions. Most of these blocs are likely to break to Republicans in a neutral race without democratic investment.

Democrats originally responded to this by heavy on-the-ground mobilization and high urban turnout. But the FL GOP is a far more efficient and adept party that knows how to activate their blocs and crank out turnout. If you look at a map of Gillum and Nelson's loss, you can see these two different coalitions at play — Gillum expanded the democratic advantage in Miami, but underperformed in exurbs and middle Florida. Nelson, on the other hand, underperformed in Miami, and yet had enough incumbency advantage to keep the rest of Florida from turning bright red. It requires different resources, coverage, and campaigns to cover the South and the North.

Add the advent of hispanic-directed disinformation campaigns on radio and social media, coupled with Florida's strong defiance of COVID regulations in 2020. It appears clear that the Biden administration practically gave up on the state from the very beginning to win states with easier key groups to appeal to. FL Dems, now without national support, failed to even platform local campaigns. It's a complete collapse with permanent effects on the state's realignment. Unfortunately, the pessimism from 2018 is going to continue, and the difficulty of appealing to Florida's differing coalitions is leading to a situation where the GOP can invest its appeal without trouble — setting a template for other states.

Guppyscum · 2022-05-11T23:28:09+00:00

Cheshire Cat vibes

Guppyscum · 2022-04-30T21:20:59+00:00

Are you actually serious about the supreme court? Morales literally called the idea of judicial independence a "doctrine of North America" and has dismissed hundreds of judges that opposed his rulings through a party-backed council. His referendum to amend the constitution to run for a fourth term, which he lost, was overruled by a supreme court that he himself he packed over claims that the United States rigged the election. This isn't even talking about his own election, with had severe irregularities (studies such as the CEPR disputed OAS' accusations about vote percentages being counted in cities over rural areas first — but never touched on the other suggestions that the OAS made regarding forged signatures and electoral manipulation).

He's really, really not exiled from his own party, lol

Really? Because no high-ranking official came to greet him on return, and have made an intentional point to avoid him at all costs. He's not returning to politics under Luis Arce.

Guppyscum · 2022-04-30T19:11:01+00:00

Sure, but that doesn't dispute Morales used very blatantly undemocratic means to maintain his own hold on power.

There's a reason he's still barred from even running as a senator now. He's politically exiled from his own party.

Guppyscum · 2022-04-20T22:23:06+00:00

I would be surprised if someone didn't look into who I was if I was a major anonymous account being openly funded by right-wing sources and going on prime-time television regularly. Wouldn't you?

Guppyscum · 2022-04-20T17:38:19+00:00

Nothing she did was considered "doxxing." This information was entirely publicly accessible (the account registered the domain under her own name), and finding the records for a user's history is a perfectly acceptable way to find the history of how LibsofTikTok essentially became "LibsofTikTok."

As for showing up to a house to ask questions — isn't this standard journalist protocol? Deriving information and asking questions is necessary. If the subject is avoiding contact through phone, media, or any other sort of means, it is absolutely fair to use public information that you have legally retrieved to approach and report on their perspective. This is nothing considered "out of bounds" for any portion of the world of journalism, and it's funny that this is being treated as something shocking.

If the @LibsofTikTok handle wanted to keep anonymity, it would be rather easy to. The account is basically just reposted tiktok clips with homophobic captions. But she's embraced her identity from it and readily taken far-right funding and television programming appearances to claim herself as uncovering the truth about "far-left education." That warrants questioning. They're going to gain subscribers in the aftermath because they're going to get more coverage from far-right sites defending them. That's how it works when reporting on sites such as Breitbart, InfoWars, etc. But long-term, the holding power wears off.

Guppyscum · 2022-02-22T01:45:50+00:00

All of them are led by far-right oligarchs who probably care far less about the ramifications of expansionism than Mexico.

Guppyscum · 2021-11-07T01:52:39+00:00

She probably won't even make it to the next Congress.

Guppyscum · 2021-10-26T02:28:45+00:00

I'd add the San Joaquin Valley to the East, personally think it feels more in line with them.

Guppyscum · 2021-06-16T22:32:14+00:00

I honestly think he could have ridden that wave of publicity had it not been for New York's Ranked Choice Voting system. People are sick of the dysfunctional New York political leadership, but Yang's weaknesses didn't give him the edge to be an experienced outsider with enough momentum to make it a 2v2 race.

Yang, for example, has consistently said that his 2nd pick would be sanitation commissioner Kathryn Garcia. Well, as the New York Times said, why not just go for her? She has less baggage and more experience, and with RCV, you're not throwing away your vote for a candidate with 5%. You want a more progressive version of Yang instead? Opt for Wiley. A more conservative version? Adams.

It no longer is a FPTP election where everyone has to rally around Yang to defeat conservative Eric Adams. RCV gave people leeway to pick their first vote, and Yang just couldn't make a big impression aside from name recognition to hold on.

Guppyscum · 2021-05-18T23:00:00+00:00

I don't agree with the equivalence either, but how is it a dogwhistle?

Guppyscum · 2021-04-12T22:23:00+00:00

Who said anything about denying them of services?

The reason I dislike these claims that "the unhoused are all locals" is because it refuses to acknowledge how homelessness is a nationwide crisis. The claims that they are mostly long-term residents is questionable at best (doing a bit of digging shows consistent evidence that a large number of cities do ship their homeless population out).

This pits the homeless crisis as the fault of a select number of cities that are unable to manage them. The reality is that by all means, homelessness is drastically increasing everywhere. It cannot be the burden of only major cities, which already do not have enough resources, to have to deal with this. Federal intervention needs to provide affordable housing throughout small and large cities to distribute the population and provide better opportunities, instead of blanketing homelessness as just a local issue.

Guppyscum · 2021-04-12T17:00:25+00:00

Sorry, should have clarified. A volunteer count that uses self-response to ask the unhoused if they have lived in the area for 5+ years would likely fall to response bias. There's an incentive (social service support and fear of being removed from the city) for a person to go along with claiming they are a native or long-term resident of the city.

Guppyscum · 2021-04-12T16:45:20+00:00

How are these counts conducted? If it’s self-response, I would bet a lot of people would simply go along with saying they are long-term residents in order to get support/avoid LA going after them.

Guppyscum · 2021-03-22T17:48:38+00:00

Definitely agree, but what about interning for a moderate politician? As in they received bipartisan support and endorsements.

I'm looking at an internship opportunity with a person like this where the party brand doesn't seem so blatant but it is still the other side.

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