• sirspate@lemmy.ca
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    4 hours ago

    It’s only a matter of time before DOGE proposes replacing the judicial branch, up to and including the supreme court, with Grok.

  • Kazumara@discuss.tchncs.de
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    1 day ago

    I heard a few times that there is this saying in English that the tree of democracy needs to be watered from time to time with the blood of tyrants or something like that. Isn’t it about time for that? They do seem to be tearing down democracy.

    • Transtronaut@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      That is from Thomas Jefferson:

      “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.” https://www.quotedb.com/quotes/2074

      Republicans do seem to be all about the founding fathers, so I guess they’re just trying to make it possible to follow his guidance by proactively providing some tyrants.

      • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        I would be more curious to see which liberal patriots are ready to open a vein.

        Lots of edgy onliners want to be the guy who gets to shoot a fascist. Much harder to find a liberal willing to stick their necks out and die from return fire.

        Meanwhile, you’ve got rank upon rank of Afghan/Iraq War veteran coming home broke and humiliated and steeped in blood, fully pilled on the MAGA message thanks to the brainrot coursing through military media. They’re filling up local police departments and spilling over into elected offices and bubbling up in all sorts of extractive industries. Few of them seem shy about killing or dying. All of them think they are the Patriots and its those liberal middle-managers who are the Tyrants.

        • tacobellhop@midwest.social
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          4 hours ago

          To do that would mean, not merely to be defeated, but to acknowledge defeat—and the difference between these two things is what keeps the world going.

          -upton sinclair

      • Cocopanda@futurology.today
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        9 hours ago

        They also seem to be all about supporting literal Nazi’s. And ya know how that worked out for them last time.

  • njm1314@lemmy.world
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    I mean I honestly don’t understand why Congressman even exist anymore. I mean they’ve ceded all over their Authority and power to the executive branch. Mike Johnson should resign and relieve the taxpayers of the burden of his salary.

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      8 hours ago

      I mean I honestly don’t understand why Congressman even exist anymore.

      To represent their local bourgeois landlords and business tyrants, as a means of coordinating graft across a country as large and diverse as the United States.

  • LupusBlackfur@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Yep…

    They’ve successfully gotten Congress’ balls in hand, next step is the Judiciary’s…

    I fear the US will not even closely resemble any level of democracy by the end of the next 2-4yrs.

    77M morons handed them the reins. They’re riding hell-for-leather over the cliff.

    🤦‍♀️ 🙄 🤡 🖕 🖕

    • Code.A@piefed.social
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      166M morons handed them the reins, not 77M. Over 89M proud Americans didn’t vote. They share the blame.

      In 10 years people will be saying I didn’t vote for Trump and using that phrase like a shield. Over half the US adult population made this happen.

      • Granbo's Holy Hotrod@lemmy.world
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        I know of one person who did not vote. She is 85. Cant get around by herself and recently moved in with her higly MAGA daughter. When she lived with me she would just tell me to fill out her ballot for her. I never did but would mail it for her if she did complete one herself. My mom would not have shown her the same respect. I also have a buddy who does some work with me every so often. He doesnt have cable, the internet or a smart phone. His wife and kids are medicaid eligable. I spoke with him several times. He has not time or energy outside of work, work, family, and a cold Tecate. I’m not sure of everyones story but we got here through manipulation from the merchants. This is a class war that most dont even realize we are in. Yeah there are a lot of straight up nazi’s, a ton of just stupid people…but for the most part people just wanna scrape by and have a little at the end of the day.

      • Hayduke@lemmy.world
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        2 days ago

        Exactly. I can count on conservatives being gullible morons and voting red no matter what, but we need to count on the other third of the country opening their goddamned ears and eyes. Apathy and disinterest had no place in this election.

        • halcyoncmdr@lemmy.world
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          That’s why they made sure they owned the media, that way they control the narrative. Conservatives learned after Watergate that the media has the actual power, so we got Fox News.

          No one gave a shit about Watergate until the media started reporting about it and educated the public instead of just glossing over the event. You don’t need to be competent or popular if the majority of the public never hears about your stupidity and shitty decisions.

      • orcrist@lemm.ee
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        2 days ago

        My friend, that’s not how the electoral college works. Most of those potential votes did not matter at all. Please don’t go around victim blaming carelessly. It’s not cool.

        • uienia@lemmy.world
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          The electoral college doesn’t work like you apparently think it works either. Those votes definitely did matter, don’t go around spreading apathetic fascism apologetics.

        • BussyCat@lemmy.world
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          Texas had a 61% voter turnout with Trump only winning with 56% of the vote meaning that of all eligible voters only 34% voted for trump. So yes, even the voters in Texas who said my vote doesn’t matter because the state is going red anyway were wrong it only went red because all of them stayed home

          • tree_frog@lemm.ee
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            1 day ago

            Yes, but they are also counting my sister in a deep blue state who chose to go to work instead of going to vote, as one of those millions of people who are to blame for this.

            • egidighsea@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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              Yes she is to blame, as are the other millions of people. Freedom has a price, they chose not to pay for it and bended the knee tacitly to this government.

              • tree_frog@lemm.ee
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                My sister going to vote would not have made a single difference. Like I said she’s in a deep blue state, she would have voted for Harris. Trump still would have won. If everyone in her state would have voted for Harris, Trump still would have won. That’s how the electoral college works.

                Maybe he would have lost the popular vote, but he would still be president.

    • IninewCrow@lemmy.ca
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      2 days ago

      When you’re born into this world, you’re given a ticket to the freak show. If you’re born in America you get a front row seat.

      George Carlin

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      If it makes you feel better, that’s the way it is in most countries. The US is actually the oddball letting unelected bureaucrats run a portion of the executive branch. In Canada for example, we don’t even vote for our prime minister, and they hold absolute executive power with only symbolic cheques and balances (whom they appoint and dismiss) which a federal judge just confirmed during a hearing on proroguing our parliament. So, as bad as it seems, it could be worse. We aren’t even allowed to share non canadian news unless the platform has an exclusive agreement with the news outlet to compensate them.

      Trump may sound like a dictator, but at least he actually CAN be removed and was voted in. Our last prime minister threw a tantrum and had to have people convince him to step down, because there was no other legal way to remove him, and anyone who tried he just kicked out of cabinet.

      The fact that you can see that things are messed up means you have more freedom than you may think. Most Canadians think things are fine here, while we have the highest number of Canadians ever going to food banks, and a billionaire just took over as PM without an election, and is currently polling to win the election he called because well he’s a billionaire in a poor country and can just buy the victory.

      The biggest argument so far against Trump “you voted for a billionaire and you thought he cared about you” is a valid one, and yet we’re doing it here like lemmings.

      All I can say is I hope the world changes fast.

      • dan1101@lemm.ee
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        Trump may sound like a dictator, but at least he actually CAN be removed and was voted in.

        Trump has spoken numerous times about elections not being fair, after all his stunts this year I don’t think we can possibly expect fair elections or even elections.

        • Bzdalderon@lemmy.ca
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          I think that applies everywhere tbh. I don’t think the people have power anymore at all.

          When billionaires are your leaders, you aren’t in control period.

      • Peppycito@sh.itjust.works
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        I started out thinking you were full of shit, but wasn’t sure until

        took over as PM without an election,

        Now tell me how much I don’t want proportional representation.

        • solrize@lemmy.world
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          Basically there’s no executive branch. Voters elect parliament and parliament elects government ministers (equivalent to the Cabinet) and the PM, similar to how the US Congress elects a speaker and committee chairs.

          • Peppycito@sh.itjust.works
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            Which is why that guy is full of shit. Trying to position Carney as being an unelected dictator totally overlooks our entire system of government. And indeed he was elected, as leader. He doesn’t have a seat in parliament but one of the first things he did was call an election which wasn’t officially required until October.

            In the Ontario provincial election that just happened the Liberal leader failed to win her seat and has so far regained the leadership while not being in parliament. It happens.

            • Bzdalderon@lemmy.ca
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              He is an unelected dictator, and the point is that our system is flawed. He was not voted in, he was elected by a select few Canadians to run a party that has avoided confidence votes for months meaning they’ve avoided accountability to Canadians which a Supreme Court justice confirmed as problematic.

              Like to say that he represents Canadians would be an absolute lie. He has absolute power, and yet has not faced a general election.

              The justice even confirmed that PMs have no accountability even internally, as we saw with the Wilson Raybould crisis, we scandal, green slush fund, etc.

              This guy bought himself the PM seat, and is now PM. How is that in anyway democratic?

              Also to bring up whataboutisms just proves you have no serious dispute.

              Also proportional representation is actually ridiculously stupid. What makes more sense is a ranked ballot first past the post.

              • CarnivorousCouch@lemmy.world
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                It sounds like you just don’t like parliamentary systems? If voters don’t like the party leader, they still have recourse to select other MPs in the upcoming election in a month, right?

                As a lifelong student of politics, I think there are trade-offs to presidential vs parliamentary systems. As an American experiencing political gridlock in the US Congress across decades, there have been times I have been envious of the notion of having a legislative and executive branch work together rather than in diametric opposition.

                Edit: Also, while I believe Carney is friends with billionaires, his net worth is around $7 million. For someone who spent so much time in investment banking, to my American eyes that doesn’t seem extravagant. Compare to former presidential candidates Mitt Romney, net worth of $186 million.

                • Bzdalderon@lemmy.ca
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                  I love the parliamentary system, but done properly, there is proper accountability. For example, the King serving for life means your check and balance has no need for political affiliation. Unlike the GG who holds that power in Canada who is appointed on the recommendation of the PM, which no recommendation has never been rejected by a monarch in modern history, ergo according to Canadian law means the PM selects their boss (confirmed by Justice Crampton). They choose and fire the AG and their recommendations are always approved by convention in Canada (confirmed by the investigation into the Wilson Raybould case), and they are able to escape accountability by proroguing parliament until other problems take precedent to not be held accountable in the house (currently what we’re seeing with the Trump nonsense overtaking the green slush fund debate that every single opposition party was working together to hold them accountable for for the first time in almost a decade or more, which started in the fall and is still unresolved half a year later).

                  In the UK, judges have ruled on PM decisions, there is a precedent there. The King holds actual power. The House of Lords are a functional upper house with actual authority.

                  It’s not like that here. Our systems are mostly superficial at best, and retirement plans for plutocrats at worst.

                  I do stand corrected on Carneys net worth, which also raises another question of, if he’s good with money and knows what he’s doing, why isn’t he more rich? If you only have that much money as an investment banker, and after leaving as CEO of one of the largest companies in Canada, you’re lying about your money, have it hidden somewhere else, or you owe a ton of money to people and are flat out broke. All of those should scare you as much as the concept of him being a multibillionaire, which there are no credible sources on, but I’d be more inclined to believe.

                  A good investment banker has no money, and their money is in, investments, in offshore accounts, that we would never know about.

                  My two cents. Totally all over the place on that one, sorry for the written spew.

    • cygnus@lemmy.ca
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      77M morons handed them the reins

      What does that make the other 270 million?

    • uienia@lemmy.world
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      That’s not it. The thing is that they refused acknowledging that partisanship would evolve. They preferred to hold on to the illusion that everybody involved in office would always be altruistic and solely work for the greater good, which was laughably naive even then (as many people pointed out to them).

      • FrostBlazer@lemm.ee
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        In retrospect, they should have not made First Past the Post voting our voting standard. That is primarily what has caused our partisanship to arise to the extent that it has.

        We can still change the voting system in each state individually to move away from First Past the Post, but that requires each individual state to have ballot initiative going that people can vote on for a new system such as Ranked Robin voting, STAR voting, Score voting, or even Ranked Choice voting.

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        That part is really up to the voters hence the federalist papers and the whole “masses are asses” thing…

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      The guy who came up with checks and balances really overlooked only giving one branch a military

      ?

      The United States didn’t start keeping a large standing Army until after WWII!

      Take a look at this from Statista for most of our history the US would build up the military for a war and then strip it back to almost nothing as soon as the fighting was over.

      The original guys didn’t fuck it up we allowed Congress to break it!

      • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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        Well, yeah…the military is actually a welfare/jobs program. It also served a key role in culling excess boomer population before they started needing to get jobs.

        • nomy@lemmy.zip
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          the military is actually a welfare/jobs program.

          And everything that implies aside, it’s a really good one. Coming out of the military with a decent MOS or G.I. Bill is one of the few paths to real class mobility left for a lot of people. That’s by design I’m sure.

          • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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            Coming out of the military with a decent MOS or G.I. Bill is one of the few paths to real class mobility left for a lot of people.

            For now. They have already screwed over a huge chunk of people who were enrolled in loan forgiveness for federal service and continually screw vets over with the intentionally horrible VA system. I’d not count on the GI Bill surviving Trump.

          • JasonDJ@lemmy.zip
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            Oh for sure, on all points. It’s a real good jobs program, it’s one of the few vessels for class mobility left, and it’s entirely that way by design.

            Can’t have everyone getting free college. Just the ones that work for us for a few years, breathe in one or more toxic chemicals, and come out the other side brainwashed by being spoonfed nationalist propaganda the whole time like they’re making jarhead foie gras. Assuming you didn’t start sucking that koolaid tit in highschool from the junior ROTC.

            I’ve got nothing but respect for our Marines. Someone has to be the dumbest motherfucker in the room, and they will proudly step into those shoes.

    • ILikeBoobies@lemmy.ca
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      It wasn’t intending on having an army at all, they thought a standing army would lead to tyranny so they came up with the 2nd amendment instead so a militia could be called as needed

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        Which tbh was really short sighted as well. Every nation needs an army to hold onto their self determination. And it needs to be well funded. Such has been proved repeatedly throughout history

  • frezik@midwest.social
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    2 days ago

    A security clusterfuck involving the Secretary of Defense, the VP, and a list of other high level executive branch personnel is spilling all over the news. Even conservative news outlets are calling for heads to roll.

    Mike Johnson thinks this is a good time to consider dismantling the Justice branch.

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    We have power of funding over the courts and all these other things,” Johnson told reporters on Tuesday. “But desperate times call for desperate measures, and Congress is going to act.”

    SCOTUS: “Overruled”

    Co-equal branches bitches

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        2 days ago

        Let me introduce you to the Marshall of the Supreme Court.

        They can, and will, deputize as many as they need.

        Unless, of course, this is all part of the plan and the Supreme Court is, in fact, complicit anyway.

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            Indeed. The persistent hope of average Americans that some superhero will ride in from stage left and fix all of this for them is… something. It won’t happen. You all need to work together on this. Everybody needs to act and fight.

      • The Quuuuuill@slrpnk.net
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        not even unprecedented in american politics. it’s a tried and tested way to commit a genocide as a populist dictator

      • PurpleSkull@lemm.ee
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        No. People like Johnson will get “advisory” positions after congress has been dissolved. They will lack for nothing. Why be a weak government official who has to do stupid shit like running for re-election, when you can be part of the nobility and the King’s court? Maybe Johnson or Taylor-Green will get their own little fiefdom where they can treat the peasants however they want? The power trip fantasies are truly endless in Trump’s wondrous America.

        …for about a 100 people give or take.

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          Nah, anyone who looks like they have a little power will die in our night of long knives. It’s not possible to be sycophantic enough, you need to look weak enough. And you need to have backed the right leader, but Trump’s not looking like he’s got a real grip on the reins and I don’t think they even know who will be.

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      Don’t Peter Thiel and all the other amphetamine tech bros want to make cyberpunk tech cities with no laws except those of the controlling corporations on Federal land so they can test out like mind control chips and shit?

      Like EPCOT but for real this time

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        thiel has his special compunds where he can live rest of his days with his so, and probably a harem of men in NZ.

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    America as a country is fucked beyond repair at this point. That’s OK. Now that the rest of the world sees the truth behind this fascist empire, no one’s going to give a Nazi salute fuck about them.

    The world will happily go on without Trump.

    Fuck Trumps America.

    • ricecake@sh.itjust.works
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      How’d that work out for Poland?

      It’s unfortunate, but an aggressive shitty neighbor is your problem, even if you don’t want to deal with them.

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      You’re from Canada I presume? Fascist countries only work via loot economies, since nothing else can stabilize their regime (true for Nazi Germany, true for Italy, true for the Roman Empire). To get loot, you need someone who has stuff to loot. Preferably close by for quick looting. Preferably weak.

      Can you think of any country that would make for an excellent fat cow ready to have its wealth and labor extracted?

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        I’m going to assume you’re referring to Ukraine as Trump wants 1/2 their mineral and raw materials?

        Oh no, wait, it’s Greenland right because he wants to continue to provide them security.

        Oh hold up. I think you’re referring to Gaza so he can make it the Israeli Mar a lardo.

        No wait wait wait, I think I’m still wrong. He wants to take Panama because they owe him.

        Shoot. So many countries. Are you referring to Mexico because: Fentanyl? No it must be Canada because we are also heavy into letting fentanyl in and that’s why he’s giving us tariffs right?

        And if you think their northern neighbour is going to let them roll over us on tanks and insulin to over throw us, I think you underestimate the hatred we have for the current ignorant regime.

        • PurpleSkull@lemm.ee
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          Well I see a lot of twitter outrage from Canadians, but not any trench digging and fortification building. I guess “elbows up” means “let’s just hope this all blows over”. Your hatred of the current US regime won’t stop Abrams tanks.