Midway through this summer, a high-quality poll found that Democrats in California were overwhelmingly in favor of the upcoming ballot measure for a one-time 5% tax on billionaire wealth.

The ratio was more than 4 to 1. But the state’s most powerful Democrats – including the governor Gavin Newsom, his near-certain successor Xavier Becerra and the Los Angeles mayor Karen Bass – have lined up with Silicon Valley billionaires who’ve raised upward of $340m to defeat the initiative.

cross-posted from: https://jlai.lu/post/45502817

[purple, speaking]
We could fix everything

[purple, proudly]
It'd be easy actually, we have most of the political power

[purple, smug]
But we won't

[zoom on purple's face, smiling creepily at us]

https://thebad.website/comic/could

cross-posted from : https://lemmy.zip/post/73193700

Claims that Ukrainian strikes on Russian data centres reduced Kremlin-linked bot networks have spread widely online, but experts have told BBC Verify there is no evidence the attacks have significantly reduced them.

Researchers from dTeam, a US-based group that tracks Moscow-linked influence operations, told BBC Verify there has not been "any traffic change from known Russian accounts and bot clusters on any platform".

Bots linked to pro-Kremlin influence operations like Storm-1516 and Matryoshka - both of which BBC Verify has previously reported on - were still active on social media on Tuesday, evidence shared with BBC Verify by dTeam shows.

cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/53698743

🏳️‍⚧️🏳️‍🌈🇵🇸🏴‍☠️

EDIT: Replaced cool flag with a phtoto from an old article. It's getting difficult to find useful images that I am 100% sure aren't AI gen.

No one gives a fuck about October 7.

No one cares. They used to, but then Israel spent three years showing the world why October 7 happened in the first place. After witnessing the cruelty and savagery of the state of Israel, people get it now. Everyone understands.

After Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on the morning of October 7, there was an outpouring of love and sympathy for Israel from around the entire world. Every major landmark from the Eiffel Tower to the Sydney Opera House to the Empire State Building were illuminated blue and white in solidarity with the Israeli people. Grown men wept. Bono permanently ruined “Pride (In The Name of Love)” by changing the lyrics to “Early morning, October 7, as the sun is rising in the desert sky, Stars of David, they took your life, but they could not take your priiiiide.”

Anyone who hadn’t been following the Israel-Palestine issue very closely was on Israel’s side that day. And then the bombs started dropping.

And dropping.

And dropping.

And dropping.

And as the bombs dropped, Israel’s approval rating dropped with them.

There are only so many children you can see shredded to bits by Israeli military explosives before you start suspecting that there’s something terribly wrong with the Zionist project.

There are only so many pictures and videos you can see posted by IDF troops dressed in the underwear of dead and displaced Palestinian women before you start wondering if there’s something terribly wrong with the culture of the Israeli military.

There are only so many Israeli polls you can see published showing overwhelming support for the Gaza onslaught before you start believing there is something terribly wrong with Israeli society itself.

There are only so many mainstream humanitarian institutions who can determine that Israel is guilty of genocide before you start recognizing exactly what it is that you are looking at.

There are only so many bombed-out hospitals, so many miles of completely flattened neighborhoods, so many grizzly accounts of Palestinian prisoners being brutally raped and tortured by Israeli soldiers you can see before all the excuses, justifications and spin stop working on you.

And once the hasbara stops working, it’s just you and the unadorned reality of the situation, staring each other right in the eyes.

The propagandists and spinmeisters have been falling all over themselves trying to frame the world’s plummeting support for Israel as an epidemic of “antisemitism”, but that’s not working anymore either. Everyone knows it’s a lie. Nobody’s buying it. It just feels like they’re insulting your intelligence. [...]

And yet western news outlets seem to be making a coordinated attempt to use this anniversary to elicit sympathy for the state of Israel. That is propaganda in action.

No one gives a fuck about October 7.

No one cares. They used to, but then Israel spent three years showing the world why October 7 happened in the first place. After witnessing the cruelty and savagery of the state of Israel, people get it now. Everyone understands.

After Hamas launched Operation Al-Aqsa Flood on the morning of October 7, there was an outpouring of love and sympathy for Israel from around the entire world. Every major landmark from the Eiffel Tower to the Sydney Opera House to the Empire State Building were illuminated blue and white in solidarity with the Israeli people. Grown men wept. Bono permanently ruined “Pride (In The Name of Love)” by changing the lyrics to “Early morning, October 7, as the sun is rising in the desert sky, Stars of David, they took your life, but they could not take your priiiiide.”

Anyone who hadn’t been following the Israel-Palestine issue very closely was on Israel’s side that day. And then the bombs started dropping.

And dropping.

And dropping.

And dropping.

And as the bombs dropped, Israel’s approval rating dropped with them.

There are only so many children you can see shredded to bits by Israeli military explosives before you start suspecting that there’s something terribly wrong with the Zionist project.

There are only so many pictures and videos you can see posted by IDF troops dressed in the underwear of dead and displaced Palestinian women before you start wondering if there’s something terribly wrong with the culture of the Israeli military.

There are only so many Israeli polls you can see published showing overwhelming support for the Gaza onslaught before you start believing there is something terribly wrong with Israeli society itself.

There are only so many mainstream humanitarian institutions who can determine that Israel is guilty of genocide before you start recognizing exactly what it is that you are looking at.

There are only so many bombed-out hospitals, so many miles of completely flattened neighborhoods, so many grizzly accounts of Palestinian prisoners being brutally raped and tortured by Israeli soldiers you can see before all the excuses, justifications and spin stop working on you.

And once the hasbara stops working, it’s just you and the unadorned reality of the situation, staring each other right in the eyes.

The propagandists and spinmeisters have been falling all over themselves trying to frame the world’s plummeting support for Israel as an epidemic of “antisemitism”, but that’s not working anymore either. Everyone knows it’s a lie. Nobody’s buying it. It just feels like they’re insulting your intelligence. [...]

And yet western news outlets seem to be making a coordinated attempt to use this anniversary to elicit sympathy for the state of Israel. That is propaganda in action.