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Biden Moves to Lift Restrictions on ALL U.S. Weapons to Israel (www.kenklippenstein.com)

submitted 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) by [email protected] to c/[email protected]

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Biden seeks to "allow for the transfer of all categories of defense articles," his request states

The White House has formally requested the removal of restrictions on all categories of weapons Israel is allowed to access from U.S. weapons stockpiles in the country, as I reported in detail for The Intercept today. So you know I’m not exaggerating, here’s a screenshot of the request:

The request would also remove nearly all other limits on Israel’s ability to access the U.S. weapons stockpiles — permanently —by doing the following:

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[+] [email protected] -9 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (1 children)

As I said, it doesn't matter who I vote for, the R candidate will get >60% of the vote and the D candidate will get 25-35%. Even if every third party vote went to the D candidate, they'd still be short by like 20%. If it was close at all (say, within 10%), I'd get your point, but that's just not happening in my state.

So no, I'm not falling for that "a vote for X is a vote for Y" nonsense. I voted for Biden once because Trump was that bad and disliked in my state, but he won by >20%, which just proves how useless it is. So I'll be voting third party again now that Biden has lost even my small, symbolic gesture.

gearing up to destroy...

I'm honestly okay with a bit of that, such as:

Dept of Education - complete nonsense, we should scale it way back; imo, Fed loans have just screwed people over and made education more expensive, and that's just one example of where they've overstepped
FDA - should probably be an independent org, not an agency, at least for verifying drugs; it seems big pharma and whatnot have clogged up the system to prevent competition; I think they should set standards, but some other org(s) should do the actual verification
education vouchers - I live charter schools and think we should reform our school system around school choice, but I draw the line at private schools; we should instead be improving transit so kids in working class families can attend the school of their choice

But I disagree with enough of it to matter:

abortion - should be legal and largely unrestricted during the first trimester as a privacy matter; I don't think women should be harassed during the time when miscarriage risk is high, so it should remain between her and her doctor; anything beyond that first trimester should be a state issue
LGBT people - I'm not really sure what actual policies LGBT people want, but I'm totally in favor of anti-discrimination laws similar to what we have for race and age, and I'm absolutely in favor of same sex marriage; however, I not willing to go as far as Democrats in establishing positive rights
EPA - I'm generally a fan of the EPA, at least as a research body; I think some of our standards are a little ridiculous though, with some being too strict and some not being strict enough; we should review its scope, but I don't see a point in dismantling it
IRS - I'm absolutely against cutting the IRS budget in any way, in fact, we should increase it; at the same time, we should be simplifying the tax code so enforcing it is easier; we should only cut it when enforcement stops being revenue positive (i.e. we've automated enough and simplified enough that tax fraud takes far fewer resources to detect)

Regardless, voting for Democrats won't solve any of that. My state will elect Republicans to every position that matters. That's a fact of life, and it's probably more likely for my state to flip to a third party than to flip Democrat. So voting Democrat only makes sense if the candidate is actually strong enough to pull Republicans voters, and Biden ain't it.

So no, I'm not voting Democrat because that's not going to solve anything. I'll vote Democrat if the candidate is good, otherwise I'll be voting third party to signal to my state that I'd rather throw my vote away than vote for either major party, maybe they'll actually care enough to pivot their platform a bit.

[–] acceptable_pumpkin 5 points 1 year ago (1 children)

lol. Ok bud. You’re not voting Democrat because you’re a right wing nut. Gone are the days of “everyone is entitled to their opinion” when one party literally tried to overthrow the government and wants to bring an end to democracy. Do I wish it was another candidate more liberal than Biden? Heck ya, but voting for Trump or 3rd party is basically voting against democracy.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 year ago

I don't want a more liberal candidate than Biden, I want a better candidate. Biden doesn't have the mental acuity to lead a country, and his VP doesn't have his back. They were literally my two least favorite candidates on the DNC ticket in 2016 (Harris was dead last), yet they're the ones who got nominated.

That said, Trump is decidedly worse. But that doesn't make Biden good by comparison, nor does it change who my state will vote for. Trump was last in the Republican primary in my state in 2016 (even Kasich beat him), and was challenged by an independent who got >20% of the vote, yet he still won by nearly 20% (I'm in Utah). In the perfect storm that was 2016, Trump could've lost my state if Dems voted for the independent, but there was no way those independent voters would've voted for Clinton (there was no mathematical way for McMullin to win since he wasn't on the ballot in most states). In 2020, Trump won with a typical >20% spread (usually it's ~30%, so his win was much narrower than usual). If 2024 is close, the R candidate will win by 10-20%. It literally doesn't matter who I vote for, the R candidate will win.

So no, Biden is not getting my vote because he hasn't earned it. Trump is worse, but there's no chance the R candidate is going to lose Utah, even if it is Trump, so I feel like the election won't be so close that voting the lesser of two evils will mean anything. So I'll probably vote third party again, but I'm not sure which party that'll be (it doesn't really matter, third parties get like 5% maximum combined). That said, my mind is never 100% made up until the election actually happens. If Biden gets meaningful immigration reform done (e.g. increased quotas, path to a visa for undocumented workers, etc), maybe he'll earn it, but I think he needs to change his running mate because Harris is awful.