***Official Political Discussion Thread***

[rexanglorum]

I know it’s only February but I can confidently declare that this year’s award for being a crank goes to…

 

[Belgium]

 

[dwalk31]

 

[dreamer23]

cool...

 

[Nike Jordan]

How Portugal is tackling their housing crisis.

 

[Nike Jordan]

"People don't want an agenda shoved down their throats."

Says the guy shoving his agenda down everyone else's throats.

 

[dreamer23]

Every US President as a pixar character


LOL @ dubya...

 

[Based Jesus]

THIS WOMAN IS ON THE HOMELAND SECURITY COMMITTEE

 

[IATT]

 

[IATT]

 

[Based Jesus]

Fun Fact: The screaming girl directly behind her actually became her friend. I think they wrote a book about it.

 

[Nike Jordan]

 

[dwalk31]

 

[gry60]

Love the smell of deregulation in the afternoon.

 

[Methodical Management]

Fun Fact: The screaming girl directly behind her actually became her friend. I think they wrote a book about it.

Not So Fun Fact: that’s not how the story ends.

Conservatives would have us compose history the way that they construct their résumés.

This is hardly the first time someone tried to put a positive spin on Arkansas' massive resistance campaign. Forty years after the Little Rock Nine were barred entry to Central High School by the Arkansas National Guard, Will Counts, who photographed the above image, captured Elizabeth Eckford and Hazel Bryan Massery - the enraged White woman behind her - smiling together in front of their old school. Feelgood stories blithely promoted the pair's unlikely friendship. Posters produced from the photo, presumptuously entitled "Reconciliation", even went on sale in the Little Rock visitors' center.

Contemporary coverage of "the civil rights movement" is the story of premature celebration. No sooner had the ink dried than the pair experienced a falling-out.
Unsurprisingly, it appears that Bryan Massery, who ferociously resisted integration, would bitterly resist accountability for her own behavior.

Subsequently, "reconciliation" came with a caveat: a gold sticker that read, "True reconciliation can occur only when we honestly acknowledge our painful, but shared, past” was placed on each poster, at Elizabeth Eckford’s request.

https://www.history.com/news/the-story-behind-the-famous-little-rock-nine-scream-image
There can be no reconciliation without truth, accountability, and restitution.

Altering Section 230 would pose a greater threat to right-friendly sites than anyone else - if enforced evenhandedly.

Conservatives had a lot more zeal for "regulating big tech" back when they 1) assumed all tech companies were owned by California liberals instead of fascism-curious libertarian edgelords and 2) said "reforms" entailed ending the content moderation practices that "censored conservatives," (e.g. removed hate speech).

I've long argued that we ought to treat Facebook, Youtube, and other platforms that algorithmically promote content more like publishers. I have a hard time believing that conservative jurists want the same thing.

As such, you won't see me sweating over the possibility that Section 230 will be eliminated or amended such that companies may be held liable for their UGC.
If you risk legal exposure for hosting UGC that incites violence, that would necessarily encompass all of the White Nationalist terrorism that comprises the ideological through-line of the American right.
If that extends to misinformation that could cause physical/reputational damage, that also covers the entire conspiracy ecosystem - "scamdemic," Big Lie, Q Anon, blood libel, Pizzagate, etc.
This would, in theory, annihilate the likes of Truth Social, and further imperil an already destabilized Twitter that's about two months away from placing the letter 'e' behind a paywall.

Of course, red states with the sorts of "conservative judges" you support would inevitably attempt to weaponize this against content that "makes people ashamed to be White/American" (e.g. facts), but does anyone seriously believe that Clarence Thomas will act to increase corporate responsibility for any site that publishes Ginni Thomas rants?

Such a ruling would intensify, not alleviate, the censorship of “conservative views,” subjecting online speech to greater scrutiny and restriction than ever before.

Somehow, I doubt that’s what the “my friend’s cousin said that there’s a high school in their county that has litterboxes in the bathrooms” crowd wants.

 

[IATT]

Your man

 

[kdawg]

Your man

 

[IATT]

This from the man who has yet to actually face the consequences of his actions

 

[osh kosh bosh]

How Portugal is tackling their housing crisis.

This is an often repeated fantasy by people ignorant of the dynamics of the housing crisis.


It's based on this fantasy that there are millions of "vacant" homes that people can be living in.
It's stupid and will do next to nothing.


unfortunately It's untrue, the vast vast majority of the "vacant" homes in these statistics, are

- in rural ghost towns nobody wants to live in
- homes momentarily vacant before they are sold or rented.

So telling a person who needs to live in NYC for work
that there's cheap public housing in tiny rural town 4 hours outside of Buffalo

is not a solution to anything.


Im beggin you, don't fall for these "one weird trick" housing crises memes.
sure it would be nice to have more public housing, sure there are things on the margins that can help.


but anyone who doesn't stress supply supply supply is often ignorant or lying.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

im guessing the same is true in portugal,

telling a person struggling to pay rent in Lisbon that there's a 100 year old house in rural portugal
is totally useless fake radicalism.

pretending to help people so you can ignore the real issues.

 

[biggie62]

im guessing the same is true in portugal,

telling a person struggling to pay rent in Lisbon that there's a 100 year old house in rural portugal
is totally useless fake radicalism.

pretending to help people so you can ignore the real issues.

Yep it’s like when I hear people say we’ll move to so and so. But then I tell them, but then I’d be living in so and so. People don’t understand that people want to live in vibrant areas. Those that want seclusion and such can move there but for a majority of us we want options, activities, and life in the area we reside it.

 

[RustyShackleford]

I read the article and one of the supporting articles it links to, and I am kinda confused by the response in here.

Seems like In Portugal you have to register tourist apartments. After COVID tourism exploded which caused a lot of landlord to convert residential units to tourist units. This lowered the amount of units available to rent to locals, and this policy is meant to reverse that.

While I will always support increasing supply through building as a main thing to do, I don't have a strong reaction to this because it is trying to increase supply. And it goes against the "housing as an investment" mentality that negatively affects housing politics.

I can see some pitfalls to this, but I'll wait and see how it shakes out.

Seems like Portugal has a special feature of it's housing market that doesn't exist (maybe it does but is not common) in North America.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

I read the article and one of the supporting articles it links to, and I am kinda confused by the response in here. I am wondering if people actually read the article.

Seems like In Portugal you have to register tourist apartments. After COVID tourism exploded which caused a lot of landlord to convert residential units to tourist units. This lowered the amount of units available to rent to locals, and this policy is meant to reverse that.

While I will always support increasing supply through building as a main thing to do, I don't have a strong reaction to this because it is trying to increase supply. And it goes against the "housing as an investment" mentality that negatively affects housing politics.

I can see some pitfalls to this, but I'll wait and see how it shakes out.

Seems like Portugal has a special feature of it's housing market that doesn't exist (maybe it does but is not common) in North America.

im not so much commenting on the specifics of portugal

I think this tweet was posted here in an american context to suggest that this is what should happen here
and maybe im too enmeshed in housing politics, debates but I see this "we just need to confiscate all the vacant homes" meme brought up constantly.

and I've seen it brought up in this thread, by a couple people.
I seems like a lot of people are genuinely misinformed about these vacant home stats and really think this would be a good way to tackle the housing crisis in North america.

 

[biggie62]

I mean one of the biggest issues with home ownership in the US is the he amount of homes owned by hedge funds, REITe, and other similar investment strategies. Cnbc reporting today thwt 40% of all single family homes will be owned by Wall Street by 2030…. That’s a big big issue.

I understand why we allowed them to buy out inventory post 2008 recession. But now they should force them to curb that.

 

[osh kosh bosh]

I mean one of the biggest issues with home ownership in the US is the he amount of homes owned by hedge funds, REITe, and other similar investment strategies. Cnbc reporting today thwt 40% of all single family homes will be owned by Wall Street by 2030…. That’s a big big issue.

I understand why we allowed them to buy out inventory post 2008 recession. But now they should force them to curb that.

People constantly tell me this is a "huge issue".

But I don't get why I should care.

Owned by a hedge fund or owned by an empty nest boomer what does it matter to me? I can't afford it either way.