Could also be a politically smart strategy. Basically, with no public court record or court reporters to share the prosecution’s case or present the evidence, you can always come back later and say “the crooked deep state made me plead guilty because they knew they didn’t have a case and they needed me out of their way!”

This was the craziest thing to me. I spent a large part of my childhood in Oklahoma, and all of that was either in Tulsa or its suburbs, or at least in Tulsa’s gravity well as the closest major metro. I didn’t learn about this until I was almost 30. It boggled my mind to know that something horrible like that happened just a few miles from where I lived and I never knew. I think there’s a museum now, but I can’t for the life of me recall having heard of it when I lived there, so I think it may be recent-ish.

Tl;Dr: Biden believed, and still does believe, that he could have beaten Trump.* If this article is to be believed, it sounds like Biden was convinced to step down through a combination of big donors putting on pressure by withholding money and endorsements, and democrats in other races telling Biden he was going to hurt their odds of winning their election. It paints the picture that he recognized that any possible victory would have been both hard won and pyrrhic.

*Imo, there’s very clear distinction between could (non-zero chance) and would. I maintained, and still do maintain, that Biden’s chances were dangerously narrow. Any possible path to victory depended purely on him being the Not Hitler candidate, and that’s IRL a far more dangerous wager to make than anyone would hope.

Looks like about four beats q2s (Beats Per 2 Seconds BP2s); (60s/min /2s) yields 30 2s blocks/min * 4 BP2S = 120 BPM. I wouldn’t have guessed a spider’s heart rate would be 120; I think I expected something much lower.

Authoritarians don’t feel shame about murder. Attempting to shame them over this is like thinking you could set Hitler straight with a few well executed snarky remarks, like a time travelling HuffPo reader. What they listen to is action, and as long as the Biden WH’s strategy remains “please, Benjamin, we’re begging you to go to the negotiation this time”, nothing will change.

Wow, migrants caused homelessness now? Wild. I would have thought it had something to do with not building enough affordable housing. I mean, people try to move to cities and New York has a lot of them, so it’s somewhat predictable that you’d need more housing if you’re a super duper ultra genius like me.

[points to Project 2025] the republicans want to murder people for “not fitting in”.

This has the same energy as the Musk/Zuck PPV fight from Musk’s side. Musk kept talking mad shit until someone pointed out that Dr. Soong also equipped Zuckerberg with MMA fighting action and an actually pretty serious drive to be in shape. Musk eventually “had to” call off the fight because his “mom said no”. I shit you not. Be on the lookout for some shit like that from Trump if he becomes convinced that Kamala is going to break him like a kit Kat bar.

I understand that we should stop funding and supporting the Israeli government, and I also think that this is, realistically, the best we’re going to get for the time being. No major policy battle is won overnight, especially in the US. It took marijuana reform decades and decades to go mainstream, and that happened because of efforts at the state and local levels forcing the federal government’s hand, and that’s still not totally won. It’s going to take decades of consistent effort to unfuck car centrism and bad urban policy, including housing. It’s going to take decades of consistent effort to get medicare for all and other desperately needed welfare reforms (not in the sense the republicans use it). It would be great if we could get a flaming radical who eats conservatives and shits effective policy, but the best, longest lasting, and hardest to erode results in the US are won by consistent, steady effort. Kamala winning would be a step in the right direction and a signal that speaking out for Palestine isn’t a radioactive snakebite for a presidential campaign. If this blows up on her, I expect the democrats to slam a lid on any talk of progressive policy for another 20 years.