American Politics: And Iran, Iran So Far Away...

[Emotional Support Crocodile]

The Colorado attacker was using a flame thrower. I wonder if it was one of Musk's.

[Port Carverton]

https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2025/democrats-are-deeply-pessimistic-about-the-future-of-their-party-an-ap-norc-poll-finds/

Democrats are very pessimistic about their party, with the article stating that it went from 3 in 5 having a positive outlook but this is now at 1 in 3

Can't imagine why.

"Post might have been deleted"

https://www.ap.org/news-highlights/spotlights/2025/democrats-are-deeply-pessimistic-about-the-future-of-their-party-an-ap-norc-poll-finds/

Democrats are very pessimistic about their party, with the article stating that it went from 3 in 5 having a positive outlook but this is now at 1 in 3

Because the donor class and the voter base are completely at odds with each other. The voters want left-wing populists, and the donors want center-right Clintonites (they're calling it "abundance liberalism" now :vomit:). The DNC thinks you can win elections with unpopular candidates by simply spending more money even though that didn't work in 2016. In the GOP, both groups can agree on cartoonishly evil policies. If you look at Congress, lobbyists spend 50% more on Democrats because Republicans don't need to be convinced to make the country an oligarchic shithole, and their voters don't care for the most part. They're too busy with mandatory genital inspections for school sports or whatever weird shit it is this week.

I've already said this like a million times, but the Democrats are the ones who won the 100k+ and 200k+ income tiers in the presidential election, the voter base and the donors have considerable overlap because of this. Idk where these fantasies of a working-class party come from or remain, because the New Deal coalition is long gone

[Haganham]

Idk where these fantasies of a working-class party come from or remain, because the New Deal coalition is long gone

It takes a LONG time for things to trickle down into public consciousness. Like we discovered Norse settlements in the Americas in the 1960's and were still teaching that Columbus discovered America well into the 21st century. I would not be surprised if people were still treating the dems as the working class party in 30 years, just out of habit.

[Umeria]

I've already said this like a million times, but the Democrats are the ones who won the 100k+ and 200k+ income tiers in the presidential election, the voter base and the donors have considerable overlap because of this. Idk where these fantasies of a working-class party come from or remain, because the New Deal coalition is long gone

Is everyone who voted for a certain party in the last election that party's "voter base"? I don't think so.

[Port Carverton]

I've already said this like a million times, but the Democrats are the ones who won the 100k+ and 200k+ income tiers in the presidential election, the voter base and the donors have considerable overlap because of this. Idk where these fantasies of a working-class party come from or remain, because the New Deal coalition is long gone

Is everyone who voted for a certain party in the last election that party's "voter base"? I don't think so.

Hmm yes, the voters of that party are not the voter base of that party.

On a more serious note, that doesn't really address what I said, and it wouldn’t explain why the rich voted for the Democrats instead of the Republicans this time around.

[Umeria]

Is everyone who voted for a certain party in the last election that party's "voter base"? I don't think so.

Hmm yes, the voters of that party are not the voter base of that party.

On a more serious note, that doesn't really address what I said, and it wouldn’t explain why the rich voted for the Democrats and the Republicans this time around.

Let's say I spend my entire campaign promising to tax the rich into the dirt, and a rich person votes for me because they like my good looks. Is that person part of my or my party's voter base? The phrase is kind of meaningless if so.

There's a pretty obvious explanation; there were several short-term problems like high prices and foreign conflicts, people trusted Trump to handle these problems better than Biden/Harris, and lower income people, for obvious reasons, care about high prices more than higher income people. It's not a very satisfying explanation for a lot of people because it doesn't let them claim that either party is the true voice of the unheard masses, but it makes sense.

[Welskerland]

Can't imagine why.

"Post might have been deleted"

Because the donor class and the voter base are completely at odds with each other. The voters want left-wing populists, and the donors want center-right Clintonites (they're calling it "abundance liberalism" now :vomit:). The DNC thinks you can win elections with unpopular candidates by simply spending more money even though that didn't work in 2016. In the GOP, both groups can agree on cartoonishly evil policies. If you look at Congress, lobbyists spend 50% more on Democrats because Republicans don't need to be convinced to make the country an oligarchic shithole, and their voters don't care for the most part. They're too busy with mandatory genital inspections for school sports or whatever weird shit it is this week.

I've already said this like a million times, but the Democrats are the ones who won the 100k+ and 200k+ income tiers in the presidential election, the voter base and the donors have considerable overlap because of this. Idk where these fantasies of a working-class party come from or remain, because the New Deal coalition is long gone

They went over to the GOP and became MAGA. The Democrats say they want to win back the working class but then chase out, with pitchforks, every Democrat that would appeal to them.

[Slembana]

Late Friday afternoon, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided a popular San Diego restaurant, Buona Forchetta, just before it was supposed to open in what immigration advocate Aaron Reichlin-Melnick identified as an attempt to get local governments to work with them.

J.W. August of the Times of San Diego reported that, according to the restaurant’s manager, twenty to twenty-five ICE officers “surrounded the building and then came inside,” pushed him against a wall and handcuffed him and the staff, many of whom are students. The agents looked at a computer and at employees and, apparently not finding what they were searching for, arrested two employees because “they didn’t have a physical ID.” When an angry crowd tried to stop them from taking the two workers, the officers threw two flash-bang grenades to push the crowd back.

Cool..

Link

Abolish ICE. It’s a terrorist organisation.

[Tmutarakhan]

Idk where these fantasies of a working-class party come from or remain

From Joe Biden walking picket lines and obtaining for the working classes the best gains since Clinton, while the Republicans continue to club the working class at every opportunity?

[The Lazarene Republic]

Can't imagine why.

"Post might have been deleted"

Because the donor class and the voter base are completely at odds with each other. The voters want left-wing populists, and the donors want center-right Clintonites (they're calling it "abundance liberalism" now :vomit:). The DNC thinks you can win elections with unpopular candidates by simply spending more money even though that didn't work in 2016. In the GOP, both groups can agree on cartoonishly evil policies. If you look at Congress, lobbyists spend 50% more on Democrats because Republicans don't need to be convinced to make the country an oligarchic shithole, and their voters don't care for the most part. They're too busy with mandatory genital inspections for school sports or whatever weird shit it is this week.

I've already said this like a million times, but the Democrats are the ones who won the 100k+ and 200k+ income tiers in the presidential election, the voter base and the donors have considerable overlap because of this. Idk where these fantasies of a working-class party come from or remain, because the New Deal coalition is long gone

They also won the lowest income brackets. And I'm not basing this off of vibes. As for the donors, just watch the MSM and look at what what party leadership is doing. To a somewhat lesser extent, there is a similar issue of the donors being fanatical Zionists and the voters opposing the genocide.

[San Lumen]

Idk where these fantasies of a working-class party come from or remain

From Joe Biden walking picket lines and obtaining for the working classes the best gains since Clinton, while the Republicans continue to club the working class at every opportunity?

The working class continues to vote Republican though. Biden helped save pensions and yet they voted Trump. It's as if they said you shouldn't have bothered. I think there was a lot of sexism too.

Many are willing to watch a woman president in fiction but won't vote for one in reality and will vote for a woman governor or mayor. that makes them hypocrites. Condemn me all you want but it's the truth.

[Port Carverton]

Hmm yes, the voters of that party are not the voter base of that party.

On a more serious note, that doesn't really address what I said, and it wouldn’t explain why the rich voted for the Democrats and the Republicans this time around.

Let's say I spend my entire campaign promising to tax the rich into the dirt, and a rich person votes for me because they like my good looks. Is that person part of my or my party's voter base? The phrase is kind of meaningless if so.

There's a pretty obvious explanation; there were several short-term problems like high prices and foreign conflicts, people trusted Trump to handle these problems better than Biden/Harris, and lower income people, for obvious reasons, care about high prices more than higher income people. It's not a very satisfying explanation for a lot of people because it doesn't let them claim that either party is the true voice of the unheard masses, but it makes sense.

Not quite, thought. It was a complete reversal of the income demographics, with the 100k-199k income group voting 57–41 for the Republicans in 2020, while in 2024 the Democrats won it by 51-46. Similarly in 2020 the 200k+ group was tied between Biden and Trump. The last election was a big shift in terms of voters.

Idk where these fantasies of a working-class party come from or remain

From Joe Biden walking picket lines and obtaining for the working classes the best gains since Clinton, while the Republicans continue to club the working class at every opportunity?

Funny that you mention unions, because generally since Reagan the elections was 60-40 in favor of the Democrats for Union households; in 2024 It was much closer at 53-45 for the Democrats. Say what you will but the workers have shifted away from the Dems

"Post might have been deleted"
I've already said this like a million times, but the Democrats are the ones who won the 100k+ and 200k+ income tiers in the presidential election, the voter base and the donors have considerable overlap because of this. Idk where these fantasies of a working-class party come from or remain, because the New Deal coalition is long gone

They also won the lowest income brackets. And I'm not basing this off of vibes. As for the donors, just watch the MSM and look at what what party leadership is doing. To a somewhat lesser extent, there is a similar issue of the donors being fanatical Zionists and the voters opposing the genocide.

I am aware... However, both the 100k+ and 200k+ income groups are larger than the 30k or less group by themselves, and combined they are roughly four times more than the 30k group. There's no way to spin it other than the rich went for the Democrats

[Greater Guantanamo]

From Joe Biden walking picket lines and obtaining for the working classes the best gains since Clinton, while the Republicans continue to club the working class at every opportunity?

The working class continues to vote Republican though. Biden helped save pensions and yet they voted Trump. It's as if they said you shouldn't have bothered. I think there was a lot of sexism too.

Many are willing to watch a woman president in fiction but won't vote for one in reality and will vote for a woman governor or mayor. that makes them hypocrites. Condemn me all you want but it's the truth.

Yes, because a fictional president is not real. Idk to which character you might be referring to, but presumably they had a much better personality than Kamala.

[The Black Forrest]

Every presidential election we seem to start writing obituaries for the party that lost.

I remember people saying after Trump lost in 20 that the Republican Party would be dissolved within ten years when they found out the MAGAists couldn't win anymore elections. They Murphey's Lawed us.

The republican party is gone. It’s now maga.

[Elwher]

From Joe Biden walking picket lines and obtaining for the working classes the best gains since Clinton, while the Republicans continue to club the working class at every opportunity?

The working class continues to vote Republican though. Biden helped save pensions and yet they voted Trump. It's as if they said you shouldn't have bothered. I think there was a lot of sexism too.

Many are willing to watch a woman president in fiction but won't vote for one in reality and will vote for a woman governor or mayor. that makes them hypocrites. Condemn me all you want but it's the truth.

Given that there have only been 2 major party female candidates for president, it is too small a sample size to conclude that people won't vote for a female. In my case, I disliked both of them for other reasons; there are female candidates I would vote for in a Presidential election, but they weren't them.

[The Black Forrest]

The working class continues to vote Republican though. Biden helped save pensions and yet they voted Trump. It's as if they said you shouldn't have bothered. I think there was a lot of sexism too.

Many are willing to watch a woman president in fiction but won't vote for one in reality and will vote for a woman governor or mayor. that makes them hypocrites. Condemn me all you want but it's the truth.

Given that there have only been 2 major party female candidates for president, it is too small a sample size to conclude that people won't vote for a female. In my case, I disliked both of them for other reasons; there are female candidates I would vote for in a Presidential election, but they weren't them.

*shrugs* There are some who won’t vote for them because they are female. They will just come up with excuses rather then admit it.

Like the trump voters. Around my way….nobody seems to have voted for trump…..

[Umeria]

Let's say I spend my entire campaign promising to tax the rich into the dirt, and a rich person votes for me because they like my good looks. Is that person part of my or my party's voter base? The phrase is kind of meaningless if so.

There's a pretty obvious explanation; there were several short-term problems like high prices and foreign conflicts, people trusted Trump to handle these problems better than Biden/Harris, and lower income people, for obvious reasons, care about high prices more than higher income people. It's not a very satisfying explanation for a lot of people because it doesn't let them claim that either party is the true voice of the unheard masses, but it makes sense.

Not quite, thought. It was a complete reversal of the income demographics, with the 100k-199k income group voting 57–41 for the Republicans in 2020, while in 2024 the Democrats won it by 51-46. Similarly in 2020 the 200k+ group was tied between Biden and Trump. The last election was a big shift in terms of voters.

Not quite what? This seems to be in line with what I said. Maybe they switched because of January 6th or Dobbs or any number of 2024-specific issues that weren't as top of mind among lower income people. None of this says anything about which party is the "party of" these demographics.

[San Lumen]

The working class continues to vote Republican though. Biden helped save pensions and yet they voted Trump. It's as if they said you shouldn't have bothered. I think there was a lot of sexism too.

Many are willing to watch a woman president in fiction but won't vote for one in reality and will vote for a woman governor or mayor. that makes them hypocrites. Condemn me all you want but it's the truth.

Given that there have only been 2 major party female candidates for president, it is too small a sample size to conclude that people won't vote for a female. In my case, I disliked both of them for other reasons; there are female candidates I would vote for in a Presidential election, but they weren't them.

I think the message is very clear. Trump was the worst possible candidate and each time the more qualified woman lost.

[Pale Dawn]

Given that there have only been 2 major party female candidates for president, it is too small a sample size to conclude that people won't vote for a female. In my case, I disliked both of them for other reasons; there are female candidates I would vote for in a Presidential election, but they weren't them.

*shrugs* There are some who won’t vote for them because they are female. They will just come up with excuses rather then admit it.

Like the trump voters. Around my way….nobody seems to have voted for trump…..

Haven't you openly talked about shunning and avoiding trump family members?

Seems like selection bias.

[Pheonixknight]

The Colorado attacker was using a flame thrower. I wonder if it was one of Musk's.

https://apnews.com/article/boulder-terr ... 20a9b6684c

It was a makeshift one.

[Tarsonis]

Late Friday afternoon, agents from Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) raided a popular San Diego restaurant, Buona Forchetta, just before it was supposed to open in what immigration advocate Aaron Reichlin-Melnick identified as an attempt to get local governments to work with them.

J.W. August of the Times of San Diego reported that, according to the restaurant’s manager, twenty to twenty-five ICE officers “surrounded the building and then came inside,” pushed him against a wall and handcuffed him and the staff, many of whom are students. The agents looked at a computer and at employees and, apparently not finding what they were searching for, arrested two employees because “they didn’t have a physical ID.” When an angry crowd tried to stop them from taking the two workers, the officers threw two flash-bang grenades to push the crowd back.

Cool..

Link

It really is just a matter of time before they start getting shot.

[Great Confederacy of Commonwealth States]

The Colorado attacker was using a flame thrower. I wonder if it was one of Musk's.

Very unlikely, if only because those are hardly flamethrowers. They are fancy zippo lighters.

[Lusitanic]

Trump might pardon p diddy

[Stellar Colonies]

Revisiting the proposed NASA budget:

NASA budget would cancel dozens of science missions, lay off thousands (Spacenews)
By Jeff Foust

REYKJAVÍK, Iceland — NASA released more information about its proposed fiscal year 2026 budget May 30, outlining new investments in exploration at the expense of canceling dozens of science missions and cutting thousands of jobs.

The documents provide greater detail about the top-level budget proposal from what the White House’s Office of Management and Budget (OMB) disclosed in its “skinny” budget released four weeks earlier. NASA published the budget documents on its website late on a Friday with no fanfare and without the traditional budget briefing by agency leadership.

That top-level budget of $18.8 billion would be a cut of about a quarter from the nearly $24.9 billion it received in fiscal year 2025. That is the sharpest year-over-year cut proposed for NASA and would bring the agency’s budget down to levels last seen in 1961 when corrected for inflation.

With the budget cuts will come jobs cuts at NASA. A table in the budget document notes that NASA has 17,391 direct-funded civil servants in fiscal year 2025, but that would drop to 11,853 under the fiscal year 2026 proposal, a cut of one-third.

The document does not go into detail about the cuts, with only passing references to “workforce impacts” and “workforce reshaping efforts.”

Dozens of canceled missions

The documents confirm steep cuts in NASA’s science programs. NASA is proposing $3.9 billion for all of NASA science in fiscal year 2026, a 47% cut from what the agency received in 2025.

Those reductions come in large part from canceling many science missions still in development or in extended operations after completing their primary missions. Casey Dreier, chief of space policy at The Planetary Society, said in an interview that more than 40 science projects, including standalone missions and contributions to other missions, were zeroed out in the budget.

“It’s generally pretty much what we expected,” he said, based on the figures previously released.

Those cuts include the Mars Sample Return (MSR) program, which the skinny budget highlighted for cancellation, and Landsat Next, a future Earth observation program that was the other science mission mentioned in the skinny budget. NASA will instead work to restructure Landsat Next in unspecified ways through a separate program, Sustainable Land Imaging.

In Earth science, the budget proposes to cancel missions in the Earth System Observatory line of missions recommended by the most recent decadal survey other than GRACE-Continuity, the latest in a series of missions to monitor the planet’s gravity field. Some extended missions would also be affected, such as the CYGNSS satellites used for studying tropical cyclones, and some smaller venture-class missions in developed would be terminated.

In addition to MSR, the budget proposes to end funding for the Mars Odyssey and MAVEN missions orbiting Mars. It would also cancel NASA’s support for the European Space Agency’s Rosalind Franklin Mars rover mission, where NASA agreed to provide thrusters, radioisotope heating units and a launch vehicle.

Other planetary science missions that the proposal seeks to cancel include DAVINCI and VERITAS, two Discovery-class missions to Venus selected four years ago. NASA would also terminate its participation in ESA’s EnVision mission to Venus. The budget terminates several planetary science missions in extended operations, including Juno, New Horizons and OSIRIS-APEX, the repurposed OSIRIS-REX spacecraft headed to the near Earth asteroid Apophis.

In astrophysics, NASA will continue development of the Nancy Grace Roman Space Telescope, contrary to a OMB “passback” budget document in April. However, it proposes $156.6 million for Roman, less than half the $376.5 mission that NASA projected spending on the mission in 2026 in its fiscal year 2025 budget request.

“NASA is actively evaluating cost-saving strategies and identifying schedule optimization opportunities to enable the mission to proceed with this reduced funding level,” the budget document said. The Planetary Society’s Dreier noted it’s not clear whether costs could be saved at this point, since the telescope is far along in its development and currently on track for a launch as soon as the fall of 2026.

The budget would terminate many ongoing astrophysics missions, including the Chandra X-Ray Observatory and Fermi. It would cancel the Astrophysics Probe program, which was studying concepts for a billion-dollar space telescope, as well as smaller Explorer-class missions in development such as the Compton Spectrometer and Imager as well as Ultraviolet Explorer.

The heliophysics budget proposal would also end funding for several ongoing missions, like Magnetospheric Multiscale, and reduce funding for others. NASA’s biological and physical sciences division would see its budget cut by more than two-thirds, from $87 million to $25 million, “to support higher priorities within the agency.”

Dreier said he was surprised some missions were included, like MAVEN, Juno and New Horizons, given their scientific performance and, in the case of MAVEN, providing communication services at Mars. He noted that the budget would effectively end production of plutonium-238 needed for missions in the outer solar system as well as heating units on other spacecraft.

New exploration initiatives

The steep cuts to NASA science, as well as in space operations, space technology and several other areas, contrast with new initiatives in exploration. As disclosed in the skinny budget, NASA seeks to cancel the lunar Gateway and end the Space Launch System and Orion after the Artemis 3 mission.

The budget instead includes $864 million for a new “Commercial Moon to Mars (M2M) Infrastructure and Transportation Program.” That would go towards developing a commercial system to replace SLS/Orion as well as early work on “a space suit appropriate for use by astronauts on the Martian surface.” The program will also fund lunar and Martian relay satellites and be the new home of the Commercial Lunar Payload Services program, currently hosted by NASA’s Science Mission Directorate.

The budget overall offers more than $1 billion for projects associated with human Mars exploration. That amount includes $200 million mission for “a near-term entry, descent, and landing demonstration for a human-class Mars lander” and another $200 million for commercial payload deliveries to Mars. The budget documents, though, provide few specifics about those new initiatives.

Reaction

Dreier said that The Planetary Society has seen a strong response to the proposed cuts in the skinny budget and expects the detailed budget to amplify those concerns.

“There’s definitely a lot of significant concern about what this does to the workforce,” he said.

That budget will go to Congress, where even Republican members are expected to push back against the cuts. Dreier said he has heard from even Republican offices on Capitol Hill that the budget is “dead on arrival.”

“No one is eager to cut NASA science. No one is out there openly defending and saying that this is a great idea,” he said.

The Aerospace Industries Association (AIA) also criticized the cuts in a statement late May 30. “The proposed budget falls short, making heavy-handed cuts to mission-critical programs that could jeopardize our space leadership,” said Eric Fanning, president and CEO of AIA.

The organization recommended that NASA be funded at an overall level of $25.6 billion or more in 2026.

Hopefully this dies in Congress and something saner comes through, although the time-tested tactic of “initially propose more than you want” ensures even that would be worse than before.

[Elwher]

Trump might pardon p diddy

Yet more evidence that we need to amend the Constitution to completely remove the power of pardon from anyone. No one should have the power to unilaterally overturn the verdict of a court.