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Alright, the scope of this discussion is creeping pretty drastically. There’s still no one big sack of cash, and while yes california could save some money by not paying out their payroll taxes (btw where did you find the state payroll amount? I’ve been looking around and can’t find it reported anywhere) it’s still not very much money, especially as they would then be required to cover that portion of the budget that was once covered by the federal government ($600 Billion) who doubtlessly would stop funding California in response to blatant secession…

It’s not nothing, but it’s really just not very much in context. Together those make up around the same amount trump is causally refusing to release from the SNAP emergency funds (~$33 billion) and that shortfall is being mitigated. Not trivially, it would be awesome to have that cash and people will feel it, but cutting those funds off for a full year would result in something like two weeks of reduced SNAP benefits or a couple days of federal furlough.

In comparison to all federal taxes payed out by people within a state, that’s a pretty miniscule sack of cash. The government is among the largest employers in every state true, but their payroll contributions aren’t anything compared to the whole and they’re paltry compared to things like business-derived tax revenue. States could withhold them, yes, but it wouldn’t do much if they did.

I’m confused, sorry: what are you disagreeing with?

That’s not really how it works - there’s no one big sack of cash that gets handed over by the state, individual businesses (and people) pay their taxes to the IRS directly, and then separately to the state tax agencies (obvs leaving out some of the draconian nuance here). States don’t have a practical method of withholding taxes short of going to every business and demanding they stop paying the feds. While hypothetically possible at some point, it’s not in the short term feasible.

Hey just so you know, it’s total bullshit that the german populace didnt know about the holocaust. Some of the civillians may not have known about the specific mechanics, but many were even aware of the gas chambers masquerading as showers, jews included.

People tried to hide behind ignorance after the fact, as I have no doubt they will try to do once this latest atrocity is done. I very much agree that simply being aware does not put us into any position different than the german population in WWII, we must strive to do better than their example.

Then I really don’t understand why it’s so hard for you to understand that those people are very faithful to god’s word and that sharia law has all logic to them.

I’m sorry, that’s not at all what I was trying to say. I understand the culture that this situation exists within, but while I understand how it happened, I do not think it is good that it has happened, or that we should respect that they kill people just because of the strength of their beliefs.

I don’t see how Islam can change in that regard

I know many queer muslims, and while I do not see a path forward for implementing queer rights in most muslim countries right now, the existence of so many different muslim groups should show that the quran is not a true monolith - this gives me hope that one day, there really can be peace.

that you don’t understand Islam and Yemeni and/or Palestinian culture

I lived in palestine for years and regularly attend my local mosque, and although I am not myself muslim, nobody has yet seemed to reject what I have to say on the basis of not being suitably informed on the subject. But hey, maybe your standards are different.

I don’t see the point of making Muslims accept homosexuality

“Don’t kill queer people” is not the same thing as “accept queer people”. If “It’s okay for them to kill people because their laws say it is” were valid, then there would be no issue with Israel’s genocide or US imperialism. All the major, objectionable acts taken by both governments have been legal under their laws, yet they are both reprehensible to the point of justifying military intervention.

Yemen can do bad things, and we can hold them to account for those bad things. Just because they follow their interpretations of the lessons of the recitation does not excuse that those things are reprehensible.

Are you seriously saying we can’t expect them to do better… because they’re muslim? That is some pretty backhanded islamophobia.

Uh…

Yemen is one of the seven countries to apply a death penalty for consensual sexual acts between adults of the same sex.

It’s good they’re banding together to protect muslims against the threat of Israel (their words) but they’re still a religious authoritarian nightmare.

That doesn’t contradict what they said at all. The absence of state-level protection is objectively a difference in consequences, too.

Please just stop with the nonsense.

Organized leadership instead of lone-wolf vigilantism is not a difficult distinction to identify, dude come on.

That jolly red fucker is finally gonna get what’s coming to him!

That injury list is one heck of a cathartic read…

The photos are current, as far as I can tell - there’s many different outlets reporting on this and that all have similar photos, especially with the age of his grandchild who is also in the photos. He’s not dead, damn it all.

Man, there’s some biases in there you should probably unpack.

What does that even mean?

They link to it in the article, here’s an archive link: https://archive.is/2nETW

Honestly I think we just… lost interest? The Epstein revelations & Palestine have really been the main topic of national discourse and nobody here cared about whatever Iran was doing. There was so little political will behind the Iran shit it was pretty impressive.