Reddit data show a massive decline in activity on some subs since the attack on Russian data centres. The Irish politics sub was down as much as 80% from one center.

Is this the dead internet theory ?

https://www.reddit.com/r/theydidthemath/comments/1x3q43a/offsite_comparing_reddit_activity_around_three/

And on the other end: how moderate would a liberal candidate have to be before you consider them when against a right wing candidate?

To elaborate, at what point on the political spectrum would candidates have to be for you to seriously consider the candidate of the opposing party and/or factor in non/political factors into your vote (ie. Personality, experience etc.)?

saw this question on X and thought it would be interesting to hear the opinions of those in the sub, particularly, if it had changed any of your political viewpoints

Recently ran across this video that I already watched a few months back. Re-watched it again and it made me think that clesrly companies shouldn't be allowed to do thinks like shown in the video. However also wanted to get the opinion of those who believe in the free market and not letting governments regulate companies. What do you think aboht cases like the one in the video below (Walmart and Pepsi price fixing)

https://youtu.be/odhVF_xLIQA

So Trump declared that there was an energy ceasefire between Ukraine and Russia today. A ceasefire that Zelensky has since denounced because the US had never talked to Ukraine about it.

Is this just a weird scheme to blame Ukraine the next time they bomb a Russian refinery because they "broke" the ceasefire first? If so, did Trump think declaring a unilateral ceasefire on behalf of another nation something the world wouldn't notice is kinda BS?

What i mean by this:

Since the passing of the Chief Financial Officers Act of 1990, all federal agencies are required to pass a complete financial audit.

in 2018 the DoD officially started their auditing actions and have since failed to pass one ever since. There was also a bill for forth called Audit the Pentagon Act of 2017/2018.

Now sub agencies inside the DoD have passed their audits.

So what I want to know:

Would you support something like the 2018 bill that would fund the parts of the military that do pass the audit to incentivize other parts to pass, or continue until 2028 and hope that they can pass by then? Or implement something after 2028?

Edit:

Additional Clarification

If they can pass an audit they can request more money for the next years budget. If they don't they are stuck at the level they had the last year, until they can pass an audit.

So for those still on Twitter there have been claims that Talarico was in a mental health facility in Ohio the past 10 or so days. This included a phone call claiming he was a patient. The hospital in question has confirmed Talarico has never been a patient. So should all the social media accounts claiming it was confirmed he was a patient publicly issue a retraction and apologize to James Talarico?

And if Yandex's bot traffic just fell off a cliff overnight, how much of the political screaming on your timeline was ever real people? Kinda makes you wonder who you've actually been arguing with all this time. Do you think this will have a tangible effect on our midterms or will this just be isolated to that region and there’s no overlap. I personally think Russians bots are all on X and other socials but curious how conservatives see it.

And does anyone still get the day off?

Supreme Court is hearing case right now, where state tried to seize his $95,000 worth airplane after a passenger brought a six-pack of beer on a flight bound for a dry village where drinking is illegal:

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/alaska-seize-pilots-plane-6-pack-beer-supreme-court-jouppi-rcna588498

Pilot, who owns plane, broke law, but he argues that taking his plane he depends on for living is an excessive fine, in violation of the 8th amnedment, as applied to the states through the 14th Amendment. What do you think? Most recnet case was in 90s where corut struck down federal fine on this ground, with Thomas, joined by liberals, in mayority, other conservatives in dissent:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_v._Bajakajian

I just browsed a post in r/politics and there seems to be a lot of fear our elections have already been rigged by Trump and co. I don't really think that...but I do think he will at least claim they are rigged and possibly attempt to overturn results if Democrats do very well. Then again, he may not care as much about this one since it's not him being voted out of office.

I had a conversation with a redditer yesterday on a separate subreddit regarding the investigation of child sex abuse. The redditer believed terms like those above are extremely overused by political actors and government agencies to justify state violence. the redditer believed that "It's been proven time and again a very small, miniscule number of people are responsible for the vast majority of it"

What are your thoughts on this question?

crossposted to r/AskALiberal

What is the opinion of the Conservatives on the following:

According to Steve Bannon, "The core belief of the MAGA movement is we won the 2020 election."

I refer you to this web page affirming that he said this: https://www.cbsnews.com/news/steve-bannon-on-the-gop-and-the-midterms-we-cant-afford-to-lose/

Also, do you agree that the core belief of the MAGA movement is that Trump won the 2020 election?

How do conservatives reconcile the views on criticism on Susan Dell and Michelle Obama’s appearances?

As you all probably know by now, there has been a lot of comments, etc. about Susan Dell appearance last week in regard to her family contributions to the Trump accounts. I am seeing a lot of pearl clutching by various conservative social media and traditional media personalities stating that it’s awful people are criticizing her appearance, etc.

How does that work when any time Michelle Obama is brought up, people say she’s a man, she’s a gorilla, etc.? How can people say it’s bad to criticize Susan Dell’s looks while not lambasting someone who called Michelle Obama a man on national television?

I’ve asked this on various platforms and have yet to see a compelling response.

I don’t think we should criticize anyone’s looks at all. Attack the position not the person.

Hi all,

I'm not American, and I would say I have pretty nuanced and pragmatic views on abortion. But I have been interested in the debate over this topic in the US because it seems to be taken to the extreme in your country.

I recently posted questions about this in several "AskAmericans" type subreddits to very limited success. I was interested to hear people's opinions on the extreme end of permissive abortion law. What I got back was, at least in my opinion, very politicized "automatic" responses/rhetoric and disregard along the lines of "even if it's possible, it doesn't really happen".

So, knowing Reddit skews left, I wanted to ask a more conservative group of people:

1. Is it true that some states (my research into this identified Oregon and Colorado) allow abortions at any stage of pregnancy, including for "personal reasons", meaning not health-related issues?
2. If this is indeed true, does this mean that completely elective, non-medically necessary, late-stage abortions actually occur? Or, as some claim, no one is aborting babies due to relationship issues or economic reasons?
3. If this is actually happening, do you know the scale of this phenomenon?
4. If this is happening, and if it is even somewhat common, what logical justification is behind it? I assume most people aren't just insane or evil. So why would laws exist allowing something so extreme and, honestly, immoral?

Thank you!

I’ve seen this stated in this thread very frequently when it comes to posts about the cost of health care and health insurance; conservatives generally say the free market would basically fix the cost of things because competition would drive costs down.

But most people get health insurance from their jobs, and those jobs are probably looking for the cheapest option and not the “best” option. So yeah it could be cheap, but it wouldn’t really be “good” insurance/health care.

Additionally, insurance companies already use tactics to try and cut costs by forcing doctors and patients to jump through several hoops of authorization before medication or treatment can be administered. So would privatization only enhance the problem?

Lastly, more of a generally observation that I’m hoping someone can address, health care is slightly different than other businesses. If you can afford certain clothes or food, then go for the cheaper options, and there are food banks people can go to. But for health care, if you need specific medication or treatment to live a pain free life or even live at all, there really isn’t an alternative except live in pain and/or die. So how can the free market be expected to solve issues with health care when the goods and services being provided hold more importance?

Progressives love to push huge govt welfare programs, using European nations as a sustainable model.

Despite the US having its own debt problems you have several European countries (ie France, Italy, the UK) that all look like they're each facing fairly imminent financial catastrophe

Ie Frances public spending is close to 60% of their GDP.

If these countries hit the financial cliff in the next handful of years, and have to significantly slash welfare/healthcare/pensions.

Does this just end all progressive socialist pipe dreams just leaving them with only social issues?

Rubio recently have a speech in which he said,

"The word ‘nationalism’ became a dirty word. And so we tore down our monuments; we condemned our own history. And in too many places, we taught our children to be ashamed of the countries they would inherit.”

What are your thoughts, have we became too scared of nationalism to the extent that we teach our children to be ashamed of their countries, and if so, how do you embrace elements of nationalism without the obvious associated risk of bigotry, isolation and authoritarianism?

After seeing the latest news about the Yemen rebels bombing Saudi airports, it seems all of our attacks against Iran and its terrorist allies has had little impact. I don’t see a potential timeline where peace is possible. Either we buy Iran off and kick the can down the road, or push for regime change. Are those realistically our two options? I’m not a Donald Trump fan, far from it, but I was hopeful he would help push for the collapse of the Iranian regime. In my opinion, he has been somewhat successful, but do we need to go all in? I spent 23 years in the military, and probably 6-7 years of that deployed to less than desirable places. I don’t know if US military presence did any good in places like Iraq or Afghanistan, but I’m definitely on board for building a coalition against Iran. I’m hopeful that allies will eventually get on board—the cost of gas is just unbelievable right now and I think countries won’t continue to stand for it. What are the thoughts of everyone here? Should we go all in, I.e., boots on ground? Keep pushing for a coalition and allied support? Keep bombing sporadically? Abandon the Middle East altogether? What say you?

There are good, sober reasons for executions to be public. If one supports capital punishment, it's good to watch justice be served and to not shelter yourself from what you support. So I'm not objecting to public executions in principle.

Historically, executions also served as entertainment. England's hanging days at Tyburn were de-facto holidays. Enormous grandstands were built around the gallows, with eye-watering ticket prices for the best seats. There was a festival atmosphere, and the crowd was quite drunk, having pub-crawled their way to the spectacle. "Game" deaths dressed finely and refused to repent, acting much like the heels of pro wrestling.

How should this entertainment be discouraged? Or should it be discouraged at all?

https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9vgregzk6gro

Tl;dr context: Trump tried to ban a bunch of media outlets including CNN who are part of the TV press pool. The other TV pool networks (ABC, CBS, NBC, and FoxNews) announced they would not provide any Whitehouse coverage until CNN was reinstated. The courts stepped in and CNN was reinstated. Normal coverage resumed. Now the DoJ is investigating whether the TV pool engaged in uncompetitive/monopolistic practices.

Do you think there is a case to answer?

How do you think the networks will respond to this?

My dad's definition of socialism and the one on the news don't overlap anymore. Third generation on the same ground, and the fights I grew up around were about water, who takes how much out of the ditch and who decides. You learn two things from a ditch fight. Everybody's a free-market guy until he's upstream, and the rules end up written by whoever could afford the lawyer.

So I've been watching this fight over the word with that in mind. The way I was taught it, socialism is the state owning pieces of the economy and deciding who gets what. The government took ownership stakes in actual companies this year, and the people who use the word the loudest either cheered or went quiet, so it can't mean what I was taught it means. Maybe my dad's definition was always wrong, that's entirely possible.

But the direction of the money bothers me more than the word. There's talk of five thousand dollar checks if the midterms break the right way, while the food programs for kids got squeezed to pay for breaks at the top. My ditch rule says follow who's upstream. The narrowest margin in this country is a family deciding which bill skips a month, and the money keeps moving away from them toward the widest margins, and if you point at that you get the label. If redistribution is the sin then it's being committed, just upward.

I'm not against markets and I'm not for the state running the co-op, but I'd like the word to mean something again. Now that the government owns stakes in companies, what actually counts and what doesn't?