The Politics Thread

[DramatistDreamer]

The aspect that befuddles and intrigues me is that Putin threatened to put down the rebellion to openly crush it, without naming Progozhin, yet all of a sudden lackey Lukashenko has negotiated a compromise? Yeah…right. I do agree with Gessen that this does make Putin look like he is operating from a weakened position despite the stagecraft. He accused Prigozhin of treason, those are not normally grounds for poisoning, those usually are grounds for execution. Putin had really been over-reliant on the Wagner group in Ukraine as that mercenary group made most of the recent military gains in the war.

Games people play. 

Onto other topics, recent surveys show a very pronounced public shift in how many people in the U.S. now regard abortion a year after Roe v. Wade was struck down.

https://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation/how-a-year-without-roe-shifted-american-views-on-abortion/

Edited June 25, 2023 by DramatistDreamer

[Vee]

Threads (not the BBC miniseries):

 

[Vee]

Meanwhile:

 

[Vee]

Meanwhile:

 

[Khan]

First, it was the "p*ssy tape;" then, it was the (alleged) "pee tape;" and now, it's THIS tape.  When will that man learn to check for bugs and wires, lol?

[I Am A Swede]

Hopefully never!  

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[Vee]

 

[DramatistDreamer]

ICYMI:

[Vee]

Giveth and taketh.

 

 

 

[DRW50]

 

[sivad40]

https://apnews.com/article/supreme-court-gay-rights-website-designer-aa529361bc939c837ec2ece216b296d5

 

SCOTUS rolling right along.

Edited June 30, 2023 by sivad40

[Juliajms2]

What a mess.  One bad decision after the next.  I do feel sorry for younger people drowning in debt, but these other decisions seem so much worse and harder to fix.

[DramatistDreamer]

Striking down Affirmative Action based on race isn’t going to change the admissions process because it doesn’t deal with the other types of Affirmative Action such as legacy admissions, and the students who have connections or the students who can get admitted through some “extracurricular” activity like being on a private school’s rowing team for a semester. It will just result in those who have the means to game the system burrowing deeper in order to find creative ways to bend the system to their advantage. The same people who are complaining might see some marginal gains, while the numbers will decrease for Black and Hispanic students at elite colleges and universities. Maybe they will find another scapegoat now.

Many colleges and universities are already said to be changing their admissions policies by downgrading standardized tests as a factor in admissions in favor of essays and personal experiences. 

As for Student Loan Debt Forgiveness, I don’t have any verification on that but I am already hearing that Biden is working on a Plan B. At the very least, the dummies who have been saying that Biden can grant student loan debt forgiveness with the mere stroke of a pen, should now realize that this was never the case and may just get to work on helping get enough Democrats elected to e able to actually get these initiatives passed through Congress.

It’s bad to say, but I think there will be a whole lot of defaults coming up. I also suspect that there will be a noticeable drop in consumer spending. On the one hand, that could help drop interest rates but it will be at cost to other aspects of the economy, like to any industry that relies on the sale of goods and services to earn a profit.

[Khan]

I agree, @DramatistDreamer.  In a way, this country needed these rude awakenings from SCOTUS.  For too long, we had been complacent, or lazy, expecting our government to fix our problems for us, without any effort on our part, and not once ever realizing that there might come a day when our government couldn't or wouldn't fix things for us any longer.  More than ever, we learned this week that we can no longer rely on our elected leaders to save us.  If we want real, lasting change to happen in this country, then we are simply gonna have to get up from the couch and save ourselves.

[DramatistDreamer]

I see what you mean but these are some severe rude awakenings though. There is is a disturbing element to the aspect of voting, particularly for the midterm elections. There are actually people who still believe that having a divided Congress is somehow keeping the democratic process in balance by keeping the Executive Branch in check. Why does it seem like this only matters when a Democratic president is in office though? 
I agree with your sentiment about we the people oftentimes needing to save ourselves. It was weird to hear some actual members of Congress claim that Biden alone could do student loan debt forgiveness on his own (I’m looking at you, Elizabeth Warren) without any specific details on how he accomplish this. Unfortunately media never had any follow up questions when she made these statements in interviews, buts that’s media these days.