Rep. Jamie Raskin, D-Md., on Sunday acknowledged that there are “very honest, and serious and rigorous conversations taking place” in the Democratic Party following President Joe Biden’s dismal performance at the presidential debate on Thursday.

Raskin’s remarks are a break from what most top Democrats have said publicly in their defense of the president as they acknowledge Biden had a “bad” debate but argue it doesn’t disqualify him from running for president.

“We’re having a serious conversation about what to do,” Raskin said in an interview with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi on Sunday morning, adding: “One thing I can tell you is that regardless of what President Biden decides, our party is going to be unified, and our party also needs him at the very center of our deliberations in our campaign, and so whether he’s the candidate or someone else is the candidate.”

Well, now it looks like we actually have someone's name instead of just an "anonymous source."

A dramatic new era began in France on Sunday June 30th when Marine Le Pen’s hard-right party took a massive lead in first-round voting for the lower house of parliament. Her National Rally (rn) has never been so close to governing France. Early results suggested that the party had secured 34% of the vote, according to Ipsos, a polling group. Ahead of a final run-off vote on July 7th, this puts it on course to win 230-280 seats in the 577-seat National Assembly, up from 88, and become easily the biggest group in parliament. A result at the upper end of that range would put them in touching distance of an overall majority of 289.

The poll was marked by the highest first-round turnout since 1997. Candidates from the rn came top in hundreds of constituencies across the country: in its old geographical heartlands of the north-eastern rustbelt and the south of France, as well as places with little history of support, such as Brittany. In her own constituency around Hénin-Beaumont, in the mining basin of northern France, Ms Le Pen was elected outright in the first round.

This is not good. The center does not appear to be holding, and the French Far Right appears to be surging.

It’s the Economist, so it has a paywall. See the archive link.

@[email protected] I know. It’s really disappointing. I still like kbin but its development has stalled. It being down so much has also been frustrating.

Ernest has been having health issues and said he was going to hand the instance over to someone else three weeks ago. I am not sure when that is going to happen, but until then m/[email protected] is out of commission.

Personally, Lemmy.world wasn’t my first choice but the site admins seem to be pretty chill here. Also, Lemmygrad.ml is defederated, and calls for violence are against the instance terms of service, so tankie posting isn’t tolerated.

It is nice to have an app though - Kbin only really had the web app.

Also, kbin.social has been down for a few weeks now. Personally, I’ve been posting over at c/[email protected] and the lemmy.world admins were kind enough to grant me mod status over there.

Ernest is having some health issues, but has stated he plans to turn the instance over to someone else in the future. I am not sure when exactly that will happen, but until then I am guessing kbin.social (and m/[email protected]) will continue to be inaccessible and not federating.

This exact poll had me very worried before last night’s debate.

Now, I am concerned it’ll get even worse.

Well, that wasn’t good. It wasn’t good at all.

The worst part? As expected, Trump lied the whole night, and for people in the middle who don’t pay too much attention (whose votes we need) he probably looked reasonable. He is an expert at lying with confidence.

Biden spent his time trying to (1) present a narrative, (2) explain what he did, and (3) fact check Trump. He wasn’t able to do all three.

Some parts I found enlightening (emphasis is mine):

The Post was at one point reportedly on track to lose about $100 million in 2023; after more than 200 staff buyouts and other drastic cost-cutting measures, it ended the year with a $77 million loss. This year, a loss of roughly $50 million has been forecast,

[…]

Shortly before Bezos bought the Post, traffic to the paper’s website was hovering at about 20 million unique visitors a month. But in September 2015, after Donald Trump had upended the Republican primary race for president, the Post scored nearly 60 million unique visitors, and in September 2016, more than 80 million. At the end of 2016, Ryan announced that the publication would “finish this year as a profitable and growing company.”

[…]

But looking back, it’s clear that while the Times used that heady period to build out a business structure that would enable it to thrive after the “Trump bump” ended, the Post … didn’t, at least not to the degree that was needed.

[…]

During the trump years, “on the surface, there was no problem,” a former senior editor told me. “But there was a problem. Our growth was based on politics” in a historically fraught political period. Whenever normalcy returned, it all risked a sudden collapse.

Well, this is certainly a case against profit-based news media.

I’ve seen it argued that news organizations loved the Trump era because they suddenly became extremely profitable. With Biden being relatively boring, they’re now struggling.

The Atlantic has a paywall, so see the archive link for article content.

It’s the Economist, so there is a paywall. See the archive link for article content.

Meanwhile, the ruling Conservative Party, which won 365 seats in 2019, is set to collapse to a mere 76, the fewest in its history.

Let’s fucking goooo!

It’s the Economist, so there is a paywall. Here is the archive link.

“I’ve always put democracy and our Constitution above of all us. It’s because of my unwavering support for democracy that today, as a proud conservative, I’m endorsing Joe Biden for reelection,” Kinzinger said, adding that he never thought he would be endorsing a Democrat for president.

Rejecting Trump on principle.

Kinzinger also said he felt Trump was a threat to American values.

Given that he is a conservative republican, I do not agree with Kinzinger on many issues. However, he does strike me as someone I could actually talk to about policy and have a constructive conversation with - something that is not possible with conspiratorial MAGAs.

I think it was always pretty clear it was unconstitutional.

The real question (IMO) is whether or not the court would uphold it, especially given the way conservative judges have been bending interpretations lately.

That makes two of us lol

Personally, I am quite disappointed to find that we have not heard the last of Lauren Boebert; Colorado’s 4th Congressional District is ridiculously conservative and there is no way a democrat is going to win there.

Separation of church and state for the win!

Oklahoma’s Charter School Board has been ordered to rescind the contract with St. Isidore  of Seville Catholic Virtual School.

[…]

The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s 6-2 decision is a resounding victory for the integrity of public education,” said Eric Paisner, acting CEO for the group.

[…]

“All charter schools are public schools. The National Alliance firmly believes charter schools, like all other public schools, may not be religious institutions. We insist every charter school student must be given the same federal and state civil rights and constitutional protections as their district school peers. The Oklahoma Supreme Court’s decision reassures all Oklahoma families that their students’ constitutional rights are not sacrificed when they choose to attend a public charter school,” Paisner added.

Emphasis is mine. It’s great to see this was struck down, especially considering how Oklahoma is about as conservative a US state can get.

A couple paragraphs I found interesting. Emphasis is mine:

[Hillary Clinton writes] I am the only person to have debated both men (Mr. Trump in 2016 and, in the 2008 Democratic presidential primary race, Senator Biden). I know the excruciating pressure of walking onto that stage and that it is nearly impossible to focus on substance when Mr. Trump is involved. In our three debates in 2016, he unleashed a blizzard of interruptions, insults and lies that overwhelmed the moderators and did a disservice to the voters who tuned in to learn about our visions for the country — including a record 84 million viewers for our first debate.

It is a waste of time to try to refute Mr. Trump’s arguments like in a normal debate. It’s nearly impossible to identify what his arguments even are. He starts with nonsense and then digresses into blather. This has gotten only worse in the years since we debated. I was not surprised that after a recent meeting, several chief executives said that Mr. Trump, as one journalist described it, “could not keep a straight thought” and was “all over the map.” Yet expectations for him are so low that if he doesn’t literally light himself on fire on Thursday evening, some will say he was downright presidential.

Pretty much sums up the double standard with Trump.

I think we need to do that, and if I recall he did raise taxes on corporations with the Inflation Reduction Act. It also looks like it was originally going to be a more ambitious increase, but for whatever reason that didn’t happen.

However, to your point he did not raise them to where they were at 35% before the Trump tax cuts were passed in 2017.

If I had to guess, it was probably because raising taxes is generally not a popular move with the general electorate; its an easy way to lose votes and piss off some powerful people (which makes the Trump tax cuts even worse in the long run.)

Nah you see Trump is such a good businessman he makes other people’s money appear out of thin air. Poof. /s

But actually though, this is a really foreign concept for Trump. He’s always managed to fail his way into getting money from someone else.