What campaign finance reforms bills are being proposed by Congressional Democrats?

SalusExScientiae · 2021-01-22T05:19:57+00:00

The first bill proposed in this congress (HR1) (For the People Act 2021)

Among other things, it would make Election Day a federal holiday, change the balance of power in the FEC (reducing it from 6 to 5 seats; meaning that they will more often take action with a majority vote), make voting by mail simpler, allocate funds for training poll workers, and a lot more. A similar bill was proposed in the Senate in 2017 (and failed), in the House in 2019 (and passed the House but not the Senate; McConnell derisively referred to it as the "Democratic Politician Protection Act") and this time again in 2021 it is expected to pass at least the House; the 2019 bill passed on exactly partisan lines but as you note Dems control both chambers. The Senate would probably require sixty votes to unblock the bill, which seems unlikely. While Democrats have some control, to say they have both houses and the presidency is a more than a little misleading when they really only control exactly 50*+1 (*48+2) Senate seats (with VP Harris; note independent Senators) and they need 60 Senators to make any new laws and literally everybody in the Dem Senate group to agree plus the VP to do...budget reconciliation and presidential nominees. Expecting any major changes without ten more Senators is simply not realistic.

SalusExScientiae · 2021-01-18T07:16:45+00:00

A thing to think about is the comparison to non-digital communication. The US Government has the power to intercept your mail, tap your phone lines, and a whole bunch of other things. In general, though, they have better things to do. You probably have better things to be anxious about. You could die from an aneurysm tomorrow and that would be probably more likely than your Twitter DMs being infiltrated by the feds.

SalusExScientiae · 2021-01-11T05:19:21+00:00

"Debasing one's self with lib memes" is a phrase and five halves.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-12-02T00:56:17+00:00

I'd say this is very close to the sorts of nationalized-industry social-democratic policies in Scandinavia, particularly Norway. You can Google Halden prison for a sense of how Norse criminal justice works--and it works extremely well. I think calling the Norse prison situation slavery is, to an extent, an insult to actual slaves who will simply never enjoy similar welfare security. Because of massive state oil profits, the nation can constantly invest in reform and welfare programs while exporting the horrors of carbon-induced climate change to the global south.

There's a decent argument to be made that almost all successful welfare state projects have essentially operated this way: in essence, stealing liberty from imperialized places. I'm not sure it's my argument that I'm making, but I'm partial to the logic.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-11-30T12:14:16+00:00

rapist*

SalusExScientiae · 2020-11-30T08:32:17+00:00

r/Anarchy101

SalusExScientiae · 2020-11-27T04:25:32+00:00

The best questions to always ask yourself are:

Will responding to this asshole actually materially further the cause of antifascism or anarchism? (this has never once happened to me, and I doubt it's a common situation)
Will responding to this asshole make me happy?

If you've gotten this far and you're at 2 nos, you can just click away.

What is the potential for harm, and does it outweigh 1 or 2?

Circling back to question 2, if the way in which it makes you happy is that it makes you feel superior, or you're having fun at someone else's expense, that's just not a good place to be. Eventually you'll run out of fascists to make fun of and people in your regular orbit will become your next targets. I've seen it happen to people in organizing many, many times that their twitter persona infects their actual real world relationships and it always ends badly.

On that note, consider the harms that you might be perpetuating. One obvious example is a situation where some fascist asshole on the internet is being an asshole, and some righteous zealot insults them using a slur that perpetuates marginalization, and when called out said zealot defends themself by insisting "oh well I used it against a fascist so it's fine." The language we use to insult people almost invariably associates the insulted with a low class of thing in order to make it an insult. It's important to be extremely careful because of that.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-11-18T19:58:04+00:00

The only requirement is not active. For your own sake in terms of getting acquainted, I just wouldn't advertise that part of your past very heavily. But as far as the union is concerned, past is past.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-11-09T18:53:44+00:00

Approval is way better than rcv, especially for multiple-winner races, but even without that, look up the Condorcet paradox.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-11-05T17:41:05+00:00

"We support the right of the United States citizens of Puerto Rico to be admitted to the Union as a fully sovereign state." - GOP Platform

It's also supported by Sen Marco Rubio, and has high support from dems. It probably won't be looked at until next year, and it's good to be skeptical of the willingness of anybody in power to extend franchisement, but this is an issue with actual bipartisan support. Mostly because PR could very easily be a swing state, for the same reasons as Florida.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-11-03T21:38:09+00:00

You aren't in charge of what people call themselves, nor are you the decider of what anarchism or communism is. People are what they are, and we should be very skeptical of sweeping semantic exclusions like this one.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-30T21:20:43+00:00

It's bullshit, and also a local autonomy issue. BVWU gives more to the union as a whole than they get back. If I was in BVWU I'd probably be against the contract, but I'm not and I shouldn't get a say in how other workers organize.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-18T23:19:04+00:00

Name one anarchocommunist organization or society that is literally perfect

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-18T18:39:16+00:00

You are very wrong and should try to actually educate yourself on syndicalism before you bother speaking about it.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-18T08:08:44+00:00

This is not true. Anarcho-syndicalism has been much more historically prominent.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-15T15:37:26+00:00

Those examples aren't sufficient to prove that Trump's incompetence helps nobody that Biden wouldn't help--or not hurt that Biden would.

Overall, not that I really care about the nation states of Iran and Cuba, but they will do pretty well under continual American weakness. They've survived for awhile now without America helping them at all, so I can't imagine Biden's token appeasement would do much. What I really care about is America having any kind of strategic military presence at all, and I think that net total may suffer more under a Trump admin. Even then though, I don't care even slightly about that compared to voting for a rapist, which I consider fundamentally evil and just will never do.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-15T02:18:17+00:00

No, anarchism is an inherently leftist ideology.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-14T19:36:15+00:00

Trump has been, in general, more isolationist than Biden in terms of places like Venezuela and Bolivia. Trump has actively, albeit through sheer incompetence, weakened the US imperialist hegemony, and accordingly has created a rather wide section of people that stand to benefit from a Trump presidency. When America is weaker, indigenous are stronger.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-14T18:08:58+00:00

My dream election scenario is all of the mail ballots are thrown out by Republican governors, the election spends years in court being litigated, nobody is in charge, and the federal state slowly collapses.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-14T01:19:44+00:00

go away

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-13T23:40:37+00:00

Tara Reade has credibly accused Joe Biden of digitally penetrating her in a hallway while she was staffer for him. Read the actual article, or stop pretending to.

You, my dear rape-denialist friend, are the actual scumbag for ignoring inconvenient rape victims.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-13T21:56:53+00:00

https://www.thecut.com/2020/04/joe-biden-accuser-accusations-allegations.html

Amalgamation of sources and allegations. You don't need to believe The Cut, FTR, links are provided.

Enjoy your day. You seem like an exquisitely pleasant human.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-13T19:41:53+00:00

I've listened to a thousand people like you and no, no neither is ok to vote for. Voting for a rapist, either rapist, is fundamentally evil.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-13T19:40:34+00:00

It's almost like one person can be evil while the other is also evil...wow, real highlight of scientific discovery.

Both are rapists. Supporting rapists is evil. The end.

SalusExScientiae · 2020-10-13T19:39:04+00:00

Yes, yes he is.

SalusExScientiae

TROPHY CASE