If you are unaware of the massive changes the department of labor has made under Biden, then you don’t care all that much about unions. Biden has been great on labor issues.

He has been forgiving student debt piecemeal to get around Republican obstruction, so far forgiving around 10%. It’s not what we want, but it’s also targeted to the people needing it most.

Biden isn’t the leftist firebrand I want him to be, but he’s been way better than I anticipated. He is easily the furthest left president since at least Carter, though that’s a low bar.

Unfortunately the most I can say on Palestine is that Trump would be a whole lot worse. Biden has been putting a lot more pressure on Netanyaho than he gets credit for, but that’s understandable given the rhetoric he uses publicly.

I think you might just be a time traveler from the 90s. Everyone expected Biden to run further to the center but he did the opposite. Here is a partial list of his left leaning promises.

• Free community college
• Universal Pre-K
• Student debt forgiveness
• Double Pell Grants
• Expand Social Security
• Increase refugee admissions
• Expand path to citizenship
• Raise taxes on the wealthy
• Raise corporate tax rate
• Strengthen unions
• Bring back manufacturing
• Expand broadband access
• Voting rights for felons
• Eliminate mandatory minimums
• Eliminate cash bail
• End private detention centers
• Decriminalize Marijuana
• Lower cost of prescription drugs
• $15 federal minimum wage
• 12 weeks paid medical leave
• 7 days paid vacation
• Rejoin Paris Agreement
• Green energy assistance for disadvantaged communities
• Block new fracking
• Offer a public option
• Create public health jobs corps
• Restore engagement with Cuba
• Constitutional amendment to eliminate private funding of elections
• Reverse transgender military ban

The thing is, that the left-right spectrum isn’t the only axis that voters use to evaluate politicians anymore. A mich more important axis is now pro/anti establishment. Americans almost universally despise the DC establishment. Hillary represented that establishment, while Trump mocked it. Trump was a message in the form of a molotov cocktail.

She did do some campaigning early in those states. It turned out that the more they saw of her, the less they liked her. Her campaign kept her out of those states because she was a liability to her own campaign. Trump ran on fighting for average Americans. (Bullshit of course). Hillary ran on scolding the candidate offering change.

Let’s try the more recent history again.

Obama ran on “hope” but, more importantly ,“change” and won in a landslide. Then he governed from the center as a status quo technocrat. He lost a Democratic super majority and almost the presidency to a slice of white bread.

Hillary Clinton was the most establishment centrist candidate the Democrats could have possibly run. Her campaign thought they could sweep the country by choosing a radical clown for the Republican opponent. They helped the Trump campaign get free media attention to win the primary, then they lost to the clown.

After 4 years of the clown, the country would have elected a ham sandwich. Even so, it was looking a bit close, so Biden did what most Democrats do in a close election and leaned left, almost sounding like Bernie lite at times. You can chart his popularity through his presidency and every uptick coincides with a move to the left, and every downtick with a move to the right.

Well gosh, I agree with almost every word of that, except for the part about the US subsidizing more than China does. You really seem to be making a whole lot of assumptions about me. Go touch grass.

Keeping my fingers crossed for that one.

See my other reply to a similar comment.

I assume the $6 billion refers to their recent stock buyback? Stock buybacks should be illegal, but I don’t see where that’s ripping off the government. It’s actually notable that the government took a massive ownership stake in GM in exchange for the COVID bailout.

I absolutely blame them for what they did to workers, particularly in manufacturing, Bill Clinton was especially bad, though later presidents did little to nothing to fix it. However US subsidies are far less than China’s, and the bulk of them work differently.

It’s relevant how the subsidies are applied. Most of the US subsidies for electric vehicles are applied to the price of purchase and, until recently, were as available to foreign manufacturers as domestic. That means those subsidies don’t apply to US manufactured vehicles being sold outside the US. China, applies far more subsidies directly to manufacturing than the US does, meaning they apply equally to vehicles sold both domestically and abroad.

It’s not a matter of which countries subsidize their industries and which do not. All countries subsidize their important industries to some extent. What China has done is far beyond accepted norms, and that provokes response.

That’s what happens when a government massively subsidizes manufacturing in an industry.

I remember them saying all the same exact things in the early 2000s after a slew of widespread disasters. Security will never be a higher priority than whatever cool new thing they want to sell.

Show of “force”.

Not that it changes things much, but pretty much that entire 163,000 TWh ends up as heat, not just the waste. Pretty much the only energy that doesn’t is light and other transmissions that get radiated into space.

Applicability of the 2nd amendment is highly selective. All it took for Reagan to push through gun control in California was the Black Panthers arming themselves.

It’s not about the money, it’s about the power it gives them over everyone else. There is no appreciable difference between the life of someone with a billion dollars and someone with ten billion. However, making entire nations bend to their will and give them even more money is a pleasure of it’s own. It makes their tiny little peckers stand up just a little bit straighter.

You are mistaken. This is a “Russia is pathetically weak” post.

I believe Jared Kushner plans a resort on top of the bones and rubble.

I read Chaim Potok’s The Chosen in highschool, so I know everything about Israel. I don’t need to do the tourist thing.

You’re a clown and I’m treating you like one. I don’t actually think the US will abandon Israel, and my actual claim was that support was cracking. We’ll keep supporting Israel in a general way, but it won’t be the unconditional kowtowing Israel has become used to.

I never said that Israel doesn’t provide anything, but tech moves way too fast for any country to be irreplaceable. Israel simply doesn’t have enough population to maintain it’s edge without US backing. There is nothing that Israel does that can’t be done elsewhere.

No country has to exist or has a right to exist. People have a right to exist. Ethno States are a bad idea, and Israel shows exactly why.

I thought you were done arguing with me!

I didn’t claim you can’t prove your claims, I just said your claims are bullshit. The truth is easy to find, so I leave that to those that are interested.

There is nothing worthwhile being done by Israeli companies that can’t be done elsewhere. We’re the US to abandon Israel, there would be a bit of pain in the transition, but it wouldn’t last long. In my long infosec career, I found Israeli tech companies to be far better at marketing than providing solid technology.

So I’m apparently antisemitic now? I guess I should be shocked and hurt by that accusation, except that Zionist apologists have made it into a bad joke. The hilarious thing is that it’s the antisemitics in the US backing Israel, and the majority of American Jews are supporting a ceasefire. The Evangelicals need the Jews to take back all of Israel then die in fire so Jesus can come back. That’s your base of “support” in the US. That and the politicians bribed by AIPAC.