Don't blame me, I voted for the other guy. (Politics General)

The Smiling Pony
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@kleptomage
It was over Montana.
You could drop a dozens tsar-bombas on random coordinates inside that state and still not kill anyone.

Whole thing is politics; China baiting / wanting to know how the US responds vs. US not wanting to give the impression that they’re bloodthirsty and/or scared for shooting down a “research balloon”.
Posted Report
BlitztheDragon
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Apologies for the change in subject, but I was reading an article making the case that we are seeing the latest backlash against women’s rights, citing a number of examples for both past backlashes and the one argued to be occurring now.
It led me to a 2022 poll conducted by the Southern Poverty Law Center that measured people’s attitudes primarily toward Great Replacement talking points, but also asked about feminism and trans rights. It was the breakdown of responses by age that caught my attention.




As you can see from the above, there is a significant gap between young Democratic men and older Democratic men. Young Democratic men (under 30) are much more likely to agree that “feminism has done more harm than good,” that “transgender people are a threat to children,” and that “gender ideology has corrupted American culture.”
I mean, I held some of those toxic attitudes from age 16-23 myself, and I’m thankful to have grown out of them as I actually met feminists and trans people and actually listened to what they were saying. But I’m legit surprised and disconcerted that the number is so high among guys in the ostensibly liberal party (so to speak). While I didn’t post the charts to avoid further clutter, young Democratic men AND women are also significantly more likely than their older counterparts to agree with the idea that America’s increasing racial diversity is due to the deliberate actions of “progressive and liberal leaders actively trying to leverage political power by replacing more conservative white voters.”
Is this something we can chalk up to the likes of Jordan Peterson, Andrew Tate, and other “anti-woke” influencers?
(As an aside, I know that the most common answer folks will supply is that “the older waves of feminism were good, but the current one is horrible.” I side-eye that one specifically because “Feminism used to be good but now it’s gone too far!” has been deployed as early as the turn of the 20th century against the Suffragettes, making it a tired and subjective argument.)
Violet Rose in The Rain
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young Democratic men AND women are also significantly more likely than their older counterparts to agree with the idea that America’s increasing racial diversity is due to the deliberate actions of “progressive and liberal leaders actively trying to leverage political power by replacing more conservative white voters.”
Great Replacement. This is literally Great Replacement bullshit.
Replacing conservative white voters? Not our damn fault most of them refused to mask up or vaccinate and then catch COVID. Or chug horse paste, for that matter.
Who the fuck are these young Democratic men anyway? Just conservative dudebros that want to smoke weed.
The Smiling Pony
Silly Pony - Celebrated the 13th anniversary of MLP:FIM, and 40 years of MLP!
Shimmering Smile - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of Equestria Girls!
Solar Hero - Went above and beyond for the Solar Deity, drawing from the power of the sun itself to bring balance to the fight against the Lunar Insurrection (April Fools 2023).
Roseluck - Had their OC in the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
Flower Trio - Helped others get their OC into the 2023 Derpibooru Collab.
King Sombra - Celebrated the 10th anniversary of The Crystal Empire!
A Lovely Nightmare Night - Celebrated the 12th anniversary of MLP:FIM!
Princess of Love - Extra special version for those who participated in the Canterlot Wedding 10th anniversary event by contributing art.
Tree of Harmony - Drew someone's OC for the 2022 Community Collab
Elements of Harmony - Had an OC in the 2022 Community Collab

( ͠° ͟ʖ ͡° )
@Anoncrsh
Because they aren’t actually worried about collateral. They just want an internal excuse for not shooting it down that’s palatable for most people.
There is no clear winning move for something like this;
US shoots it down
  • “America is aggressive, impulsive, thinks with violence only!”
  • “America is so scared! They shot down a weather balloon! They’re afraid of China, hahaha!”
US doesn’t shoot it down
  • “America is scared of pissing off china, pussies!”
  • “This just pushes the line further in, next it’ll be spy planes over California!”
And there aren’t really any positives from shooting it down… you’re not getting any useful salvage since whatever survives will be off the shelf crap transmitting to a satellite, and we’ve seen now that the thing wasn’t so “out of control” as China said given it’s changed direction. It’s not going to be sending any important data back that they couldn’t get in some other less obvious way, either.

My guess is China was really hoping the US would shoot it down so they could complain on the international stage that the US shot down an important scientific research project fighting against global warming (or whatever), and drum up patriotism to distract from all the covid and financial mismanagement fiascos by putting the target back on big bad America.
Dustcan
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Dogs
Biden and McCarthy met for the discussion on the impenetrable debt ceiling.
Footnotes are apparently that Biden was insistent on a clean bill and would not sign anything with cuts to social security get al, but still wanted McCarthy’s draft for possible negotiation anyway. McCarthy apparently just stumbled the whole way through. He was insistent that there would be cuts all over the place, but refused to name any or confess that there was any outline to begin with.
So yeah, Biden is being firm but open while McCarthy doesn’t know what he wants just that he wants something.
The Pentagon says that there’s a second Chinese “weather balloon” over Mexico.
China is playing a game of “I’m not touching you” with these things.
lonewolf
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U mad?
2nd spy balloon spotted over Latin America
And of course Pooh Bear is apologizing for the one over us, saying it was an accident by a weather balloon, but in a surprising show of backbone the US government is saying “bullshit”. And there was also reports of an explosion over Billings, Montana today with a video of a vapor trail and a “pop” heard appearing online. May have been a jet accidentally breaking the sound barrier but who knows.
Posted Report
Dustcan
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Dogs
A 6th officer has been fired in regard to the death of Tyre Nichols. He was not in the group that beat Nichols to death, but he was an officer who had tazed him earlier and stated that “I hope they stomp his ass” when other officers got to Nichols.
Posted Report
Background Pony #9B05
Do you ever feel like people online GREATLY overestimate how closely the average person follows politics?
Posted Report
Meanlucario
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Time to get spooky
@Dustcan
I hope they malfunction and it’s recorded that the USA had nothing to do with it, we just looked over the damaged “weather balloon” and find damning evidence on it.
Posted Report
Dustcan
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Dogs
I can believe the first part. Channers hate being asked to cite their sources. They just want to scream about (((The Jews))) and the N-word be treated like a rockstar for it.
As for the second part, oh no. How bad it must be to make more in a year than most people do in 10. She could’ve instead been making more in a year than most do in 15!
Republicans really don’t have any new ideas.
In simultaneous more “balloon” and “that’s enough Twitter for me today” news:
I believe it. They legit, no exaggeration made Trump their golden calf. Put the N-word on it and MAGA would 100% recreate the scene from 2001 Space Oddysey where the monkeys found the obelisk. Tucker Carlson would run nightly segments saying “If you are not pro-balloon, then you are not pro-America!”
At any rate the balloon has been shot down now that it went over the Atlantic. The Biden administration is recovering the wreckage.
Which, I know there are surveillance equipment attached under it, but I still prefer the image of American scientists closely examining it to reverse engineer balloon technology.
Posted Report
Zincy
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In Vino Veritas
Think I saw the jets that took down that balloon.
About 30 min before it was announced it was downed, a wing of about 5 jets flew over heading south.
I see jets overhead from time to time, live between to Air force bases. But never that many at once.
Posted Report
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