Summary

The Department of Transportation (DOT) has issued a memo prioritizing federal funding for communities with marriage and birth rates above the national average.

The directive, which applies to grants, loans, and contracts, also prioritizes projects benefiting families with young children.

A congressional aide criticized the policy, saying, “Considering fertility rates when prioritizing federal grants? We obviously have no idea what the full impact of that will be… It’s absolutely creepy. It’s a little ‘Chinese government.’”

The memo also blocks mask mandates and requires compliance with immigration enforcement.

  • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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    9 hours ago

    Remember how all the protest voters told us how Harris would have been the exact same? Something about the DNC not offering a candidate that would be any better than trump?

    Yeah… Don’t believe them when they try to tell you that they didn’t go out of their way to help make this happen.

    • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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      9 hours ago

      Yep. Quite a few of them have gone quiet, I’ve noticed. Not one of them has apologized for their cloying sanctimony before the election, no matter how wrong it was.

      • WhatYouNeed@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        They have gone quiet because the project is now wound down. Dufus is in the white house, so they have been moved to a new task.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          Yep. Well, most of them. Some seem to still be sticking with, and even doubling down, on the stupid and immoral position, although they frame it as being morally superior to everyone else. 🤣

      • supersquirrel@sopuli.xyz
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        2 hours ago

        If you all are going to keep repeating these lazy narratives I demand you back them up with data.

        Further, I demand you hold leaders like Biden and Harris accountable for failing to listen to voters, just because you don’t like our opinions doesn’t mean you can simply ignore us and expect to form a functioning coalition.

        Centrism and neoliberalism are dead, everybody has abandoned this category of politician and politics, it is an extinct belief system that brought about an environment it could not survive in. People either want genuine hope and working class politics rooted in a proud sense of leftism/solidarity with the average worker or they want fascism and not the diet kind centrist liberals serve up, a very small amount of people want cowardly, spineless status quo managers who are unable to do anything but try to convince people they are less bad than the really bad guy.

        Also, I voted for Harris, all the leftists I know did. You are yelling at random people with intimate connections to Palestinians who couldn’t bring themselves to vote for someone who wouldn’t even let a Palestinian voice speak at the DNC. That is the fault of the DNC for failing to understand people won’t vote for them if they refuse to do ANYTHING of substance to stop a genocide that could have been stopped with a single damn phone call from Biden if he grew a spine or a heart. Leftists recognized the catastrophic consequences of this strategic blunder and attempted to steer the bus away from the cliff but centrists just completely and utterly ignored leftist and Palestinian voices and actively worked to discredit and silence them, often as jeering insults told in the company of Republicans as a way to try to get them to like them for being centrist, as if Republicans would ever vote for a Democrat in any significant number?

        1000 facepalms

        Centrism and neoliberalism failed, stop trying to pretend like y’all own the narrative, your strategy and description of how things would pan out failed miserably, and actually nobody else really cares about you whining and blaming others for not voting for a shitty candidate.

        Trump is worse than Biden or Harris would have been, we know. We knew that before. You aren’t listening if you think that is a big GATCHA to us?

      • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        I sincerely hope that each and every one of them is at least capable of feeling guilt. Because I so badly want them to suffer the guilt of having helped caused this. I don’t even care anymore that they refuse to admit it. They know it, I know it- them admitting it doesn’t make it better.

        Knowing they feel the full weight of guilt pressing on them for being partially responsible for everything that will happen as a result of their ignorance?

        Yeah… That does make it a little better.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          9 hours ago

          The trolls, etc., on places like Lemmy? I doubt many of them were even genuine in this kind of sentiment - I’m sure some were even foreign actors working to stir up division everywhere, most especially on the left. And if they really hold this position, I have no idea.

          It’s the people I know IRL that are the ones I’d like to see wake the fuck up. And apologize for their useless bullshit and their tiresome lectures about gEnOcIdE and “bothsides” and just let it all burn down so we can rebuild America in some wholesome perfect way kind of dorm room talk. Yes, American foreign policy is shit and has been for decades before I was even fucking born, and yes, Democrats are often complicit in this. Gaza is hardly anything new, as shocking as it is. Yes, the Democrats are not offering up a perfect pretty pony for them on every single issue.

          But now we are going to be blasted with fucking sewage for the next four years, with actual harm coming to at-risk people (which is going to be nearly everyone if it gets bad enough) HERE and foreign policy is going to be much worse, and we can point at people like this and thank them for their part in making it happen.

          • Quadhammer@lemmy.world
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            57 minutes ago

            Muks had/has an actual team for disinformation for x just like im sure many other companies/countries do. Welcome to a post truth society where lies make money and the division is an added bonus.

      • Clent@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        6 hours ago

        They just moved back into their underground slayers where naysayers are immediately banned.

        They will never apologize because they insist they are right and we’re wrong. Further they hold the actual left wing voters responsible and claim we are allowing this to happen, we are complicit and we need be held to account. I’ve been assured that liberals are The Enemy.

        For all intents and purposes they need to be placed among the cult of the right. They aren’t a logic based lovely. They are not progressives. They are a flavor or authoritarian. They literallly believe their flavor of idealism is the only valid flavor.

        They actually remind me of libertarians, where everyone has maximum freedoms for to as they wish so long as they don’t use that freedom to form a government. Neither has any doubt. They are 100% they are correct and as any inllectual has told us, that’s 100% nonsense.

        • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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          35 minutes ago

          For all intents and purposes they need to be placed among the cult of the right. They aren’t a logic based lovely. They are not progressives. They are a flavor or authoritarian. They literallly believe their flavor of idealism is the only valid flavor.

          There is a reason that horseshoe theory is a thing. Though I don’t think these people were necessarily on the left, per se, but just maybe more attracted to giving hot takes on nearly everything, politics included, and maybe for a time were associating themselves with leftists.

          I can think of at least one person I know who was down for all things crunchy when it came to “health”, or getting chakras aligned and going to seminars on the latest guru pitching something about past lives or whatever and kind of generally supported the Green Party (they said, but I’m not sure if they actually voted? I remember asking if they went to the polls, decades ago, and they were like, what?? So I know they didn’t vote that time anyway).

          And ever since 2015, she has been a full-on, 100% maga zombie. Watching Faux, believing Qanon, all of that shit. She really does think that Hillary and Obama were sex trafficking little kids. She’s extended family, but ever since that - she’s been cut out of all events, because it’s all she wants to talk about. No one can deal with her, not even other Republicans - even if they voted for donvict, too. The irony? She is almost 100% reliant on government handouts.

        • theangryseal@lemmy.world
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          3 minutes ago

          Right or not, 6 million democrats/left leaning people stayed at home.

          I get that people want to vote for a candidate they actually believe in. I never felt more motivated than when I voted twice for Bernie Sanders in two primaries.

          I also felt damn good to vote against Donald Trump. I don’t understand why people just let this happen. I really don’t.

          I don’t want to blame voters, but SIX MILLION sat out this election that voted in the last.

      • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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        2 hours ago

        How many more times do republicans need to win before protesters decide to get off their ass and participate?

        • DrDeadCrash@programming.dev
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          35 minutes ago

          Bullshit, the Democratic party blocked every non-establishment candidate and never once took a stand against the Republicans. It’s just not my party, I guess so they won’t be getting my vote in the future. Assuming fair elections will even be able to be held again.

    • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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      8 hours ago

      Yeah, this is all the voters’ fault!

      Quite the naive take you have there, playing right into the divide and conquer strategy which fascists love to employ.

      Many of those protest voters have been intensely pressuring the DNC to make serious changes to their leadership to signify they do actually intend to learn something from their defeat and do better next time. So far, Dems have largely refused to do so. In fact Dems seem intent on making the same mistakes again in the next election cycle - so buckle up for an even more devastating loss next time. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if they somehow find a way to forego a democratic primary again in ‘28, if we make it that far. It will be alright though, for them - they have been assured the donor checks will keep coming, and they can continue grifting with insider trading through the next term. Just like these fossils have been doing for the past 50 years.

      Dems/Liberalism can not save us from fascism.

      • Melatonin@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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        36 minutes ago

        I hope you’re right, but I’d rather see a new party.

        Dems top candidates next election will be Harris and Buttigieg.

        Save this post, I’ll bet you money.

      • forrgott@lemm.ee
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        5 hours ago

        Intensely pressuring who?!? The DNC who think they have “good billionaire” bankers???

        Get over yourself; your deluded fantasies have no impact on reality.

      • CharlesDarwin@lemmy.world
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        7 hours ago

        🤣 Well, I see someone has learned no lessons.

        Anyway, YES, it IS the fault of some of the voters. Absolutely. Just because you don’t get a pretty pony doesn’t mean you absolve yourself of everything.

      • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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        8 hours ago

        Ninety million people didn’t vote. That’s over one third of the voting body of the country. Third party votes made up another three million. Don’t even try to offload the responsibility non-voting had in the mess we’re in.

        And don’t pull that “divide and conquer” bullshit here. We all tried to get you to join us in solidarity against trump. You refused. So no, that shit isn’t going to play here at all and you should be embarrassed for even thinking about mentioning it.

        Hypocrite.

          • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            I don’t blame just third party voters. I blame people that entrenched themselves within their blind stupidity and refused to try and stop a tyrant felon and ignored him when he told them what he would do.

            • I blame people that willfully plugged their ears from the months and months worth of warnings of what would happen if they didn’t stop their entitled stubborn bullshit.\
            • I blame the idiots that spread propaganda freely to one ignorant child to another.\
            • I blame the idiot children that believed the propaganda.\
            • I blame the people who stayed home with folded arms while the rest of us tried to do everything we could to save the a lot of American citizens from becoming political targets- from becoming less-than.

            I don’t give a fuck that the DNC propped up a lame duck. I don’t give a fuck what they thought was going to happen. They were warned by people that know better what will happen if trump won. And they were told what they could do to stop it.

            They didn’t.

            So they can take a bow. They fucking did this.

            • Kentifer@lemmy.world
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              2 hours ago

              Why is it that warnings of what would happen weren’t taken seriously enough by Democrats to try to earn people’s votes? Voters warned them what would happen if they stuck to the same policies they had been running on. If the elites of the party are going to make all decisions for the rest of us, they can accept all the blame when they lose.

              • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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                2 hours ago

                Why is it that warnings of what would happen weren’t taken seriously enough by Democrats to try to earn people’s votes?

                Because when threatened by piece of shit Naizs like trump- we don’t get to have that luxury of entitlement. We needed to do what was necessary to stop trump and that was it- pencils down, the test is over.

                And now, because a bunch of people that clearly had nothing to lose- decided for everyone that none of this was worth their time because the democrats didn’t jump perfectly through their hoops, we ALL get to suffer.

                Congratulations. You did NOTHING.

                • Kentifer@lemmy.world
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                  58 minutes ago

                  You don’t know how voted or what privileges I have and don’t have. But knowing that I’m a nonbinary tran person who voted for Kamala won’t change the fact that people don’t vote for candidates out of duty. That’s never been how people vote. So you can absolutely keep pretending that your position is noble and that it’s your fellow citizens who failed you, but at the end of the day, Democrats were running on a message that he was the worst thing possible, but weren’t willing to do everything possible to stop him. They had a responsibility to deliver policies that solved the problems people were encountering, to respond to their base when their base said “we don’t want to fund genocide”. Lying to people about the economy as those same people couldn’t afford the same amount of groceries anymore definitely hurt them. Allowing Republicans to scapegoat trans people and Kamala not even saying the word trans throughout the campaign, allowing the other side to control the messaging surrounding the issue isn’t likely to have earned them any votes.

                  But pointing these things out to Democratic cult members to yourself is tantamount to heresy because you’ve lost any iota of self reflection. You don’t care that Democrats are Republican-light. In fact, you probably think that’s a good thing.

                  Newsflash: the antidote to fascism is not liberalism. It is economic populalism. Democrats can’t afford to keep backing capitalism if they ever want to win again. Democrats got us into this mess, they aren’t the ones who were ever going to save us.

            • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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              4 hours ago

              Do you realize that compared to 2020, Dems lost more voters than the total amount of third party voters in ‘24? By about 3 times. It made 0 difference. Those voters exercised their constitutional right to vote for the party they thought best represented them. What right do you have to demand they vote democrat instead?

              It is the responsibility of the party to win the votes, not the responsibility of the voter to support “their team.” You coming on here and attacking people for not wanting to further entrench the oligarchy’s grip on our society is precisely the divide and conquer effect I’m talking about. I get that you’re upset because of how things are going, but you have to realize that demanding something different is our only way out of this mess.

              • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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                3 hours ago

                No amount of side-stepping your refusal to do a simple thing like voting is going to absolve you of your responsibility in helping get trump elected.

                Regardless of how you twist things around, you’re not the victim here. You’re the cause.

                • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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                  3 hours ago

                  All of America is the victim here, but somehow dimwits like you think it’s the fault of individual voters instead of our shared responsibility to demand better from our politicians. The DNC is responsible for winning votes, period. And they failed miserably.

                  Anyway you’re obviously rage baiting at this point. Do better, demand better, and maybe there’s a chance to turn things around.

                  • Rhoeri@lemmy.world
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                    2 hours ago

                    Dimwits like you

                    They protest voter said, in a conversation that is calling them out for their responsibility in helping get trump elected.

                    I did better kiddo. You shit the bed.

        • crusa187@lemmy.ml
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          4 hours ago

          Biden admin had 4 years to stop fascism in its tracks. They didn’t even begin to pretend to do something until 2 years in. And you expect people to vote for more of that? Interesting strategy, but sadly doomed to fail.

          Unfortunately for Dems, many Americans are no longer under the spell of mainstream media running cover for their corruption. Americans deserve actual representation in their government. Dems can either stop accepting bribe money and start fighting to improve people’s lives, or they can continue to lose. When the only choices are Hitler vs Hitler lite, the last election has shown people will just vote Hitler, or perhaps not vote at all. I’m not claiming this is a good direction for the country, rather pointing out facts concerning the election which could be useful learnings for Dems if they care about winning. Here’s another fact for you: they don’t.

          • HubertManne@moist.catsweat.com
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            1 hour ago

            How exactly what standard presidential powers would he use. Because lets be clear. I don’t want a leftist doing the bulashit facist abuse of power to protect us any more than I want trump to be doing it. Biden did amazing considering the congress and situation.