Coups seem to work just fine in many places. All the coups in the Sahel went great, albeit most were initiated by a young officer corps.

Macron in a lot of ways seems to be following the Obama playbook. He's a young, by most accounts competent manager of an empire in decline wedded to his neoliberal ways while espousing hope and change. Due to the fact that neoliberalism can't actually do anything besides make a small circle of people an immense amount of money, the state atrophies anyway and brings about mass support for the far-right as the only viable alternative. Macron and Obama both will leave office having done their best to make sure a fascist government gets elected.

Seeing SOPHIE live was insane. There was like a cage of women crawling over each other and making out behind her. A singer just started stripping onstage as she belted out some heavenly shit. SOPHIE hovered over it all like some deity blasting us with divine bass. I was the only cis person for miles it felt like. One of the greatest sets I've ever been to.

Glad this is a posthumous release that's being handled respectfully and appropriately by the right folks. Having new SOPHIE in 2024 is a fever dream.

Betteridge's law of headlines strikes once again

Putin can probably speak English well enough, there's just little need for him to do so publicly. If his accent isn't perfect it'd get so much scrutiny, so better to just use translators.

Which, if you'll note, Trump is very publicly trying to do. Multiple meetings with billionaires, some coming out in support.

I mean the LTV is integral to how like capitalism and exploitation work, so the only "debunking" that ever happens around it is things like "hey why do things cost different prices at different times, markets and exchange are what create value not labour!" which is a point that Marx himself in Capital Vol. 1 calmly explains has no bearing on the LTV. You can't debunk the labour theory of value unless you think humans doing stuff to things isn't what creates value, which is frankly nonsense.

This doesn't have any numbers! Yes, 300k workers commute to Manhattan by car. Who are those workers? Where are they from? How much do they make? Overwhelming they're vastly richer than those that take transit, and mostly from outside the city entirely. As we've tried to explain, the overwhelming majority of the working class in NYC does not own a car at all, and their daily lives will be made far better by a lessened presence of cars in the place where they work. The working class of NYC may not all live in Manhattan, but a good very many do commute to Manhattan and walk around during the week. Implementing a congestion charge reduces pollution and pedestrian deaths, both of which affect way more workers than the small amount of who may happen to drive into Manhattan.

EDIT: Of course you're linking to a Trotskyist rag that doesn't use any numbers outside of just telling me that 300k workers (again, that number is mostly wealthy people who can afford to park in Manhattan; parking alone is like $20 an hour, this has been shown by various different studies that the working class by and large does not drive into Manhattan) commute to Manhattan without examining what workers.

But we're talking about transit in New York City. About implementing congestion pricing in New York City. Yes, congestion pricing in most places in the Untied States is a regressive tax on the poorest. That is not the case in New York City.

OK but you see how this is not really a solution, right? This is the ultraleft position of "if we can't do the best possible thing we shouldn't do anything at all." Congestion pricing discourages cars from entering the city and is a step towards a private car ban. The MTA does not control the bridges or tunnels into Manhattan, that's the Port Authority, so they're not in a position to ever ban or affect cars entering or exit the city. There's no like perverse incentive this creates on the part of the MTA to support cars because they have no policy levers to do so.

Yeah the studies I linked show that it's not just folks who live in Manhattan, most workers commuting into Manhattan don't drive cars, and those that do are disproportionately wealthy.

Yeah your last point is correct, which is why having a congestion price that just makes it harder to drive with no increase in transit is stupid. Luckily that's not the case here, the congestion pricing is directly tied to expanding transit options for workers to get into the city.

Also note that in Manhattan there is already a service charge tacked on to all Ubers, and you need to be a licensed cab driver by the NYC Taxi and Limousine Commission to drive an Uber in the first place. It's not like other places in the United States where anybody can be an Uber driver.

At least as far as New York City goes this is wrong. Car ownership in the city is correlated with income; the poorer you are the more likely you are to not own a car and instead take public transit to work. https://wellango.github.io/posts/2021/06/who-owns-cars-in-nyc/

There have been repeated studies (see https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2007/11/02/fact-check-congestion-pricing-is-not-a-regressive-tax or https://citylimits.org/2017/09/07/debate-fact-check-is-congestion-pricing-regressive/) that in NYC congestion pricing would not be a regressive tax, and in fact would be progressive given the composition of car ownership in the city. Couple this with the fact that less cars means a more pleasant experience for those walking and taking transit (the vast majority of New Yorkers, especially amongst the poor) it's clear that congestion pricing would be a good thing.

Cowardice to the most insane degree. The one good thing that I was looking forward to is gone. Infinite jihad against Hochul.

It's insane how true this is. Even when Democrats have a full mandate and complete ability to actually do good things they are functionally incapable of doing anything good. I am now issuing a fatwa against Governor Hochul.

Cannot overstate how embarrassing this is. This was supposed to be the policy that gets the MTA working again. Widely supported by New Yorkers (like 66%+ support). Would have an immediate impact on millions of people.

Yo what the fuck. Obviously Democratic governors are cowardly and suck etc etc but Hochul just "indefinitely delayed" congestion pricing in New York City, the one good policy on the horizon for New York and something that would have made my day to day living experience infinitely more delightful. This was due to go into effect in 25 days. It's been planned for years. Would've reduced traffic and air pollution in Manhattan by a lot. Cowards. https://abc7ny.com/post/congestion-pricing-nyc-kathy-hochul-start-delay/14912968/