That is correct. The Democrats need to get rid of the filibuster, since it's unlikely for them to get 60 seats. It is another mechanism in our government that perpetuates minority rule. Another reason why we need to vote Blue in record numbers.
It is not useful for Harris to call the genocide a genocide because it would hurt her chances of being elected. If Trump is elected instead of Harris, the genocide will continue until all Palestinians are dead.
Since we want the genocide to end before all Palestinians are dead it is not useful to demand that Harris calls the genocide a genocide because that hurts the chances of the genocide ending while Palestinians are still alive.
With Republican obstructionism, the only way for Democrats to get anything done is to control the House, the Senate, and presidency. Without all three, Democrats will have an ineffective government that is incapable of passing laws to solve problems.
Saying the genocide should end and that Israel has a right to defend itself aren't mutual exclusive statements. The fact Israel's government is committing genocide does not mean Israel's citizens, many of whom are Palestinian, deserve genocide. The fact Hamas kills civilians does not justify the IDF killing civilians. Two wrongs do not make a right. edit: typo
Turning back to the students, Harris acknowledged his claims, saying that “what he’s talking about, it’s real. That’s not the subject that I came to discuss today, but it’s real and I respect his voice.”
This is from the second source in your argument. She acknowledges what is happening even if she isn't in a position to call it a genocide politically. Your argument is splitting hairs about semantics.
Repeating her call for a ceasefire, she said that she hoped the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar would present an opportunity to end the war.
Another call for a ceasefire.
She’s also still repeating the debunked Oct 7th rape claims, and more.
Your argument is repeating debunked claims. There were some false claims, but those have been used to incorrectly dispute what happened at large.
In the context of the coordinated attack by Hamas and other armed groups against civilian and military targets throughout the Gaza periphery, the mission team found that there are reasonable grounds to believe that conflict-related sexual violence occurred in multiple locations during the 7 October attacks, including rape and gang-rape in at least three locations, namely: the Nova music festival site and its surroundings, Road 232, and Kibbutz Re’im. In most of these incidents, victims first subjected to rape were then killed, and at least two incidents relate to the rape of women’s corpses.
The U.N. team investigating sexual violence said it saw “credible circumstantial information which may be indicative of some forms of sexual violence, including genital mutilation, sexualized torture or cruel, inhuman and degrading treatment.”
The commission also found that Israeli forces in Gaza had committed sexualized and gender-based violence during their military campaign, targeting men and boys in particular.
Democrats want a ceasefire. Republicans want genocide. Despite attempts to conflate these two positions they could not be more different.
Do not let anyone tell you we have two fascists parties. We have a neoliberal party and a fascist party. The neoliberal party is terrible on this issue, but they do not want the genocide to continue. The Palestinians, along with everyone else, will be harmed by a second Trump term. Voting for Kamala is harm reduction. If you care about anyone please vote for Harris and Walz because doing so is useful for ending the genocide.
Faithless electors are not that common. Many states have laws against faithless electors which have been upheld by the Supreme Court. According to the ruling, states do not need a law to deal with faithless electors. They probably should still should make a law if they don't already have one.
The U.S. Supreme Court has unanimously upheld laws across the country that remove or punish rogue Electoral College delegates who refuse to cast their votes for the presidential candidate they were pledged to support.
Monday's Supreme Court decision, however, is so strong that it would seem to allow states to remove faithless electors even without a state law. Duke University School of Law professor Guy-Uriel Charles said that nonetheless, it would be prudent for states to pass laws to prevent electors from going rogue.
The problem with the Electoral College is that it favors minority rule. The votes each state gets are comprised of both House of Representatives and Senate seats from each state. The Senate and the House both favor low population states. The Senate because it gives each state two seats and the House because it's capped at 435. Take a look at both graphs from 538.
Republicans tend to do well in low population states, so the electoral college favors Republicans, who won the popular vote once in the last six elections. So it's not the illusion of a vote that's the issue. We really do have a vote in this system.
The issue is that some people's votes are more equal than others. Low populations state votes, when normalized for the electoral college, are worth more. A lot of people will say that only certain swing states matter, but that assumes everyone in non-swing states keeps voting at similar levels as before. If enough people in California who would vote Democrat decide that their votes don't count and then don't vote, then California turns red. So Democrats need more people to vote everywhere to compensate for this bias that Republicans benefit from.
The electoral college is why not voting or voting third party disproportionately effects the Democrats, they need more votes, because they tend to appeal to high population states whose votes are worth less.
Also, our first-past-the-post system mathematically results in a two-party system.
Oh, like you would jokingly expect it to be Canadians because Wisconsin is on the border with Canada, but the idea of a bunch of Canadians apologizing as they commit a physical tidal wave of crime is surprising?
There are people who are not plugged in to US politics that check in somewhere at the end of an election cycle. With so much information to consume and so little time it's easy for people to have missed something. For political junkies, this is a reminder, but for many people it is a warning.
I try to take a break from the news at least once a week. Even that one day away can put me behind with everything that happens.
It's like that Doctor Who episode with the spaceship next to the black hole. The closer we get to election day the more news that happens in a given day. It's like we're slowing down by the black hole and years of news are rocketing past us on the other end of the spaceship.
What a ride.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr5Q26E-Esw