Devising Digidelic Delight. Packing both pen and sword.
On Your Six
Joined March 2009
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Kevin Barrington retweeted
He haa a very reductionist definition of democracy. Democracy also means free and fair press, which you can hardly say about USA since the abandonment of the fairness doctrine. It involves respect for the rule of law, which has been shredded under Trump.
Kevin Barrington retweeted
Dear Jesus. Do billionaires exist in a completely different world to the rest of us? US political system has been crippled by the impact of oligarchic billions (Citizens United) & corruption hardly equalled anywhere else on earth.
Is this billionaire trying to suck up to Dems?
It seems to me that democracy has on the whole worked very well in America over the last decade, and perhaps better than in any other major country in the West. National outcomes have repeatedly been responsive to underlying voter preferences on meaningful questions, and significant changes in policy have ensued. I’ve been reading Democracy in America this past week, and it’s striking how much it still rhymes nearly two centuries later.
Kevin Barrington retweeted
I want to talk about Patrick Collison.
Let’s start with a simple acknowledgment: he is one of the most impressive philanthropists right now:
- When Covid hit, he and Tyler Cowen launched Fast Grants and got money to scientists within days.
- He helped launch the Arc Institute, so biologists could do science instead of drowning in paperwork for grants.
- And Stripe, under Collison’s leadership, built Frontier: a super ambitious pledge to guarantee a market for carbon removal tech.
This is all really awesome! Few billionaires have thought harder about how to do a lot of good with their money.
But now we have to talk about what the hell Patrick Collison is doing in California.
He has given $15 million to ‘Building a Better California’, one of the most cynical political campaigns I’ve seen in a long time. It's the main vehicle fighting Prop 40: a one-time 5% tax on the state's ~200 billionaires (to make up for federal cuts to healthcare for low-income Californians).
And look at how this group does it:
- It’s funding an extremely aggressive "No" campaign (opponents are outspending supporters roughly six to one).
- It also put two decoy measures on the same ballot. Prop 41 *seems* to be about good governance. Prop 42 is sold as ‘protecting your retirement savings’. But both contain a clause: if either gets more votes than the billionaire tax, the tax is cancelled.
- Meanwhile, the retirement story is total nonsense. Prop 40 already exempts pensions. CalMatters calls the deluge of ads misleading and the SF Chronicle calls Prop 41 a ‘cynical poison pill’.
- The sad reality is that all this misinformation is working though. Polls show small majorities backing the billionaire tax and the measures designed to kill it. You can vote yes on all three and cancel out your own vote. Most people don’t realize this.
Through all of it, Collison HASN'T SAID A WORD about why he's funding this slimy campaign.
This is a public intellectual who writes thoughtfully about progress. If he believes Prop 40 is bad policy, he should do the honorable thing and make the case! And tell us what he'd rather do about extreme concentrations of wealth and power, or explain why he thinks they aren't a problem for our democracy and civilization.
Instead we get silence + $15 million for a campaign built on misinformation and shady political tactics.
@patrickc, what are you doing?
Kevin Barrington retweeted
You just spent $33 million to defeat a democratic vote in California on a very mild and reasonable proposal to apply a one-off tax of 5% on billionaires who can well afford to pay it, given you all currently pay a far lower effective tax rate than the rest of us. You and your fellow ultra-rich between you spent $400 million on this campaign - the largest sum ever spent by one side in a US ballot initiative or midterm election.
What you and the other billionaires bought with that $400 million was 'an extraordinary array of schemes to manipulate the vote' as @gabriel_zucman puts it. As he describes in the thread below 👇🏼, what you and the other billionaires did to sabotage this puny 5% tax on wealth is 'staggering'.
So don't come to us the day after that proposal got voted down thanks to that $400 million campaign with whimsical musings about the health of US democracy.
You know as well as the rest of us do that to talk of healthy democracies in societies where extreme wealth buys extreme political power is fanciful.
It seems to me that democracy has on the whole worked very well in America over the last decade, and perhaps better than in any other major country in the West. National outcomes have repeatedly been responsive to underlying voter preferences on meaningful questions, and significant changes in policy have ensued. I’ve been reading Democracy in America this past week, and it’s striking how much it still rhymes nearly two centuries later.
Kevin Barrington retweeted
Oi @patrickc, if u have 30 million to spend you can afford the billionaire tax, you sociopathic freak!!
California set to reject billionaire wealth tax, a proposal Patrick Collison spent heavily to oppose jrnl.ie/7215533
Kevin Barrington retweeted
NOBODY does Halloween like Heidi Klum @heidiklum
Kevin Barrington retweeted
Trump’s administration is incoherent, but if you follow the paths of personal enrichment and good for Russia, you’ll be right almost every time.
So, Russia is working with the Houthis to target Saudi oil infrastructure and drive up world oil prices to help the Russian economy. And Trump is not helping the Saudis defend while also threatening to escalate his war--which also increases price of oil.
It all helps Russia--funny that.
understandingwar.org/researc…
Kevin Barrington retweeted
Kevin Barrington: A Disagreement With a #KhmerRouge Tank/Fear and Laughter on #Cambodias Route 10 : barringtonkevin.blogspot.com…
Kevin Barrington retweeted
Kevin Barrington: THAT RED DIRT SHOWER barringtonkevin.blogspot.com… #CAMBODIA #SiemReap #KhmerRouge
Kevin Barrington retweeted
This is easily THE most DEVASTATING clapback I have ever heard, by any candidate, from either party. trump said he wants metal detectors for El-Sayed.
El-Sayed says sure, but lie detectors for YOU.
First question: EPSTEIN.
He is SO good at this.🔥
Kevin Barrington retweeted
So Musk lied about his involvement? SHOCKER!
Fucking traitors, the lot of em!
Not excluding each and every one of you MAGA scabs who are defending Trump and peddling Kremlin propaganda.
You're all so mindlessly pro-Trump that you would take the side of a long-time foreign ADVERSARY rather than hold Trump responsible for the rising cost of gas (and everything else).
And now we know that the US Pentagon, likely at Elon Musk's behest, did the unconscionable by restricting Ukraine's access to its satellite internet network, crippling its air defenses.
This also suspiciously happened around the same time that Russia launched a massive attack on Ukraine's energy infrastructure; casting over half a million residents of Kyiv into darkness! And in the midst of Trump's "eNeRgY cEaSeFiRe" no less.
This is UNFORGIVABLE. It should be obvious by now that the Trump administration and its allies have chosen Russia's side in this war in an effort to bring Ukraine's energy system to the brink of collapse. All because Trump doesn't want to be accountable for higher prices. Insanity!
Yes, Trump is committed to reversing decades of foreign policy precedent by aligning his interests with Vladimir Putin's.
And by doing so, he is threatening the independence, safety and security of the Ukranian people and jeopardizing the lives of soldiers defending their country from a Russian aggressor.
Trump is propping up the Russian invasion and supplying aid to Russia while they are in dire financial need.
And don't forget that because Russia is also providing Iran with strategic and military resources, Trump is helping to sustain the war HE STARTED in the middle east that is KILLING Americans and destabilizing the US economy!
It's madness!
Trump could have actually ended the war in Ukraine by exerting pressure on Putin while Russia is facing major economic and strategic challenges.
Instead, he has chosen to shift the burden on Ukraine and sponsor Russia's invasion, which is also indirectly aiding the enemy in Iran.
Trump has single-handedly shattered the US's global reputation beyond repair.
And let's make something ABUNDANTLY clear:
If Russia were to lay down down its arms right now, the war would be over, but if Ukraine were to disarm, they would not only lose their independence and territory, but would also be inviting Putin to expand his land grabbing crusade into Eastern Europe.
Donald Trump is too dumb (with a "b") to realize that his bromance with Vladimir Putin is one-sided, and that any overtures from Putin are explicitly designed to weaken the United States; strain our western alliances; erode our strategic influence around the world and undermine our trustworthiness as a global partner.
Trump doesn't want "peace." He just wants a scapegoat, and he'll ally himself with the enemy and plunge the world into chaos to do it...
Also, Trump's treacherous decision to ease sanctions on Russian diesel imports is only helping to fund the Russian war machine and lend legitimacy to Putin's invasion.
Trump's "deal" with Putin won't release nearly enough diesel to bring down its cost in the US.
What it does do, however, is it emboldens Putin and gives him the confidence to step up his attacks on Ukraine's energy sites and civilians.
And let me get this straight.
Zelensky agreed to Trump's energy ceasefire, but only after the announcement because Trump didn't actually consult with him.
Putin didn't recognize it at all and continued bombing Ukraine.
These strikes cut power to 600,000 people in Kyiv, and also hit residential buildings, killing CHILDREN.
Ukraine resumed their attacks on Russia in response to Putin's escalation, and Zelensky is the monster?
Why? Because Trump needs someone to blame for high gas prices!?
I shouldn't have to explain this, but gas prices began surging when Trump attacked Iran and caused a global energy crisis unlike anything we've seen in modern history.
This ain't on Zelensky, it's on Trump.
Kevin Barrington retweeted
Abdul El-Sayed gives a BRILLIANT response to a guy asking him is he disavows the Muslim Brotherhood (he disavows them).
Why doesn't every Christian candidate get asked if they disavow the Proud Boys, or the KKK, or other Christian Nationalist terrorists?
Kevin Barrington retweeted
NEW: Ten years on, Prime Minister @andyburnham tells @campbellclaret & @RoryStewartUK that there was ‘clear’ Russian interference in the Brexit vote.
FINALLY after years of cover-ups & denials from the highest levels of the UK govt. That in itself deserves an inquiry.
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