I imagine interstellar coalition governments probably function a lot more like the EU than a single country. Individual planets/solar systems would probably function under a somewhat independent governorship that is still subject to the overall laws of the federation/republic.

It’s sort of like asking “how big can a city get?” before states and nation-states existed, when in reality at some point a higher tier governance inevitably takes over. An interstellar or galactic scale government is necessarily going to be massively stratified with many levels of hierarchy in between. I think this is why many sci-fi governments at this scale are also described as bloated, unintelligible bureaucracies.

A USA today article seems to dispute this slightly. It’s a minor tweak but in the sake of fairness it completely changes the interpretation.

“The job of the U.S. armed forces is not to host drag shows, to transform foreign cultures (and) spread democracy to everybody around the world at the point of a gun,” he said. “The military’s job is to dominate any foe and annihilate any threat to America, anywhere, anytime and any place.”

Does anyone know whether he said “but spread democracy…” or “and spread democracy…”?

If the former like this post suggests, then it is indeed another notch in Trump’s belt of horrific quotes that would get any other politician at any other time in American history vilified. If the latter like USA Today is reporting then he seems to be arguing that the US military’s role is not to “spread democracy at the point of a gun.”

Even more disturbing is that if we have evidence of one Signal chat that must mean they regularly use non-official communications channels to discuss things like this. That means no formal record retention, no safeguards against export control and protection of classified information, and no pathway for transparency. These communications are entirely FOIA proof such that the American people have no way to even attempt to obtain information through legal channels from government officials.

The main point is to take advantage of Trump’s reckless misunderstanding of how the modern global financial system works to deliberately drive the United States into a recession so that American oligarchs can buy up all the collapsed pieces and force ordinary people into permanent rental of all essential services. My perspective is that RFK is a eugenicist with respect to vaccines in a, “if you die when you get sick you weren’t strong enough to be worth keeping alive anyway” sort of way. And of course there are the Curtis Yarvins of the world who want to turn the “mentally unfit” into biodiesel. Combine that with the recent own the libs joke bills about making so-called “Trump Derangement Syndrome” a classifiable mental illness and you can see where the writing on the wall is. The broader goal is to make it so any disagreement with Trump and Republicans is either a deportable offense or a mental illness.

Just a friendly reminder too that a 2015 report from the ATF found that 71% of the guns the cartels use are bought in the United States and carried south across the border. The United States is just as complicit in the rise of cartel related crime as the cartels themselves!

My wife and I had the realization this past week that we have both been in a near constant state of seething anger since the election. We decided that we both need to pump the brakes on reading news for our collective mental health. That doesn’t mean we’re ignoring things, but it does mean we plan to remind each other to take a breather when we’re caught doomscrolling.

We cannot afford to become complacent or ignore things, but we have found that redirecting our anger to productive activities has been helpful. Every time we read a negative article it is a reminder to reach out to our friends who are parts of communities which are currently under attack to see what we can do to help or offer companionship. We also regularly look for local opportunities to connect with marginalized communities in our area, volunteer, and generally make a show of our support.

A tie in the Electoral College is an extremely remote chance, less than 1%. Widespread interference in our electoral process as part of a broader scheme to put enough doubt in the vote totals to force the issue to SCOTUS or Congress is literally the plan being executed by Trump and the GOP right now. The best chance we have is overwhelming voter turnout to make those “close” states as decisive as possible.

Right so let’s allow the serial adulterer, racist, sexist, convicted felon who has no respect for rule of law or democracy win. And then when he proves too senile to serve (or dies) we’ll be treated with a President Vance who is ready to open the portcullis for Heritage Foundation and Project 2025 fascist goons into the castle.

Harris might not be your favorite candidate. She may not currently be campaigning on issues that are the most important for you. But the alternative is unconscionable.

Your suggestion is wrong. Eliminating the Electoral College is advocated for by everyone who supports Democracy. It is also not a coincidence that the Electoral College disproportionately benefits one party over the other. And to cement that advantage they employ anti-Democratic measures in an attempt at voter suppression.

https://lemmy.world/c/upliftingnews is a good community to add to your subscriptions if you’d like a regular dose of good news! Good news is out there, it’s just much harder to find than bad news these days.

Yes there seem to be a lot of people of the position that having retirement investments = hoarding wealth…but the majority of us don’t get pensions and not having retirement accounts of any kind under those circumstances is horrible financial strategy if you want to do anything other than subsist after retiring.

Totally fair point! I think that’s why accompanying the reports with the ability to listen in while I actually play through a session would improve the “spectator” experience. But this is definitely a passion project and not something I anticipate building a large audience for. Thanks for stopping by! :)

Zip is my home instance so that’s why I created it there, but that’s a great point…I’m still getting the hang of the Fediverse.

Other notable additions from Wikipedia:

“Walz received a 100% rating from Planned Parenthood in 2012, from the American Civil Liberties Union in 2011, from the American Immigration Lawyers Association in 2009–2010, from the AFL-CIO in 2010, from the International Brotherhood of Teamsters in 2009–2010, and from the National Organization for Women in 2007.”

And:

“Walz was ranked the 7th-most bipartisan House member during the 114th Congress (and the most bipartisan member from Minnesota) in the Bipartisan Index created by The Lugar Center and the McCourt School of Public Policy, which ranks members of Congress by measuring how often their bills attract co-sponsors from the opposite party and how often they co-sponsor bills by members of the opposite party.”

In other words, Walz seems to be a champion of progressive ideals while also being more than willing to work with those across the aisle. This is a great thing for swaying independent voters.

Understood and completely agreed with your sentiment. Obviously any time of sweetened drink is going to be less healthy than water. It is also undeniable that our corporate funded research papers have frequently resulted in and continue to result in biased and often completely non-credible conclusions.

I still assert that “safe” is a relative term, and one issue I have is the lack of nuance associated with certain headlines. For example, the IARC Group B classification that the WHO cites is the same risk for cancer as “engine exhaust or occupational exposure as a hairdresser.” So yes, excessive aspartame consumption is definitely objectively bad for you compared to drinking water, but the cancer risk is not extensive compared to many other things we are exposed to on a regular basis.

“JECFA concluded that the data evaluated indicated no sufficient reason to change the previously established acceptable daily intake (ADI) of 0–40 mg/kg body weight for aspartame. The committee therefore reaffirmed that it is safe for a person to consume within this limit per day. For example, with a can of diet soft drink containing 200 or 300 mg of aspartame, an adult weighing 70kg would need to consume more than 9–14 cans per day to exceed the acceptable daily intake, assuming no other intake from other food sources.”

Also I very much appreciate the great discussion on this!

Don’t know that I agree with your spin that this news is negative in any regard. Also, aspartame is one of the most studied food additives of all time and has been repeatedly proven safe.

Your claim that it “can have an event worse effect on blood sugar than sugar can” has also been proven false. See “Metabolic effects of aspartame in adulthood: A systematic review and meta-analysis of randomized clinical trials” by Santos et al from 2017.

Among other conclusions, the study found that “aspartame consumption was not associated with alterations on blood glucose levels compared to control or to sucrose and on insulin levels compared to control or to sucrose.”

If you’re referring to “Rule of Law,” then yes, it is amazing and worth praising. Unfortunately the US is in an accelerating downhill backslide away from Rule of Law back to Rule of Men. And we will all be worse off for it. There is no copium involved in appreciating adherence to Rule of Law because the alternative is tyranny.

At this point I am having to hold out hope telling myself that we are probably in for a couple decades of horror until the old guard dies off and the pendulum swings back to liberalism and progressivism. I love the idea of America but I don’t love America right now, which is painful to acknowledge.

That’s actually the alt code for an en dash. Em dash is Alt+0151!

It is almost a certainty that Trump will lose the popular vote. It is highly likely the election will be extremely close still because of the electoral college. In a country of hundreds of millions, it only takes hundreds of thousands of voters in swing states to change the outcome, regardless of the majority.