Originally Posted By u/LazyDirector At 2025-04-24 03:19:05 AM | Source

Ranked choice voting (RCV) — also known as instant runoff voting (IRV) — makes our elections better by allowing voters to rank candidates in order of preference.

RCV is straightforward: Voters have the option to rank candidates in order of preference: first, second, third and so forth. If your first choice doesn’t have a chance to win, your ballot counts for your next choice.

RCV works in all types of elections and supports more representative outcomes. RCV means better choices, better campaigns, and better representation.

Originally Posted By u/Albany50501 At 2025-04-22 02:51:32 PM | Source

Originally Posted By u/imherenowut At 2025-04-24 06:55:37 PM | Source

Call out their hypocrisy!

Originally Posted By u/SinisterPaperclip At 2025-04-23 10:52:18 PM | Source

**my other post was just removed. censoring isn’t good for the movement either.

So EVERYONE can see what was said directly by fungi himself.

“I was laying in bed, I don't remember if I was even clothed or not. We were in bed, at night. She said my hand was on my genitals. That's it. But that made her uncomfortable - and she wanted to talk about it - my mistake at that point was talking about the wrong phone call, when I knew for sure I was just playing with my pants because my hands are always fidgeting.

I even remember her saying at the beginning that it might not even be anything but she wanted to talk about it.

I've realized from that (and I have done this in the past as well) that I can get fixated on the wrong thing and the conversation becomes about the wrong thing at that point. Rather than discussing the actual thing that she wanted to discuss.

Even here, for all I know I was just scratching myself. I have no idea. We never got to that. But now I'm a predator? Really? No... I'm not playing the victim either. It was a dumb situation that destroyed an important relationship in my life.

I have no idea what it was I was even doing because we never got to even talk about whatever it was exactly that I did. There's no big conspiracy there. There's a broken relationship over both of our issues with communication when it's a tense conversation.

This then turned into things like me opening doors for her, which makes her feel like she's helpless. I've opened doors my whole life for others. I never intended for that to make her feel bad or helpless in any way whatsoever. I did it out of respect and because that's what I've always done.

But my intentions did not matter to her, and I accept that's her right.

My struggle in the conversation then became with how to create rules in my head for when it's ok, and when it's not ok. She said as long as it's not performative bullshit it's fine. I looked up what would constitute performative actions, and that became even more confusing. These are the things we ended up arguing over.

There were a dozen such things that started piling onto the conversation. It was two neuro divergent people having their first ever argument and we had no guidelines in place for how to communicate when things are tense.

That's all. So I should hand over the subreddit to a PAC and a Non Profit because of that?”

We want transparency as to what happened regarding the sexually inappropriate incident that happened with fungi that he admitted to in his since deleted comments. No one can post on the 50501 main subreddit. This is such a mess.

Originally Posted By u/pawrescue At 2025-04-24 10:40:18 PM | Source

Originally Posted By u/VarunTossa5944 At 2025-04-24 10:31:05 AM | Source

Musk immediately addressed his efforts with the so-called Department of Government Efficiency under President Donald Trump, saying he would be reducing his federal budget-slashing efforts starting in May.

“I’ll have to continue doing it for, I think, probably the remainder of the president’s term,” Musk said on the call. “So I think I’ll continue to spend a day or two per week on government matters for as long as the president would like me to do so and as long as it is useful, but starting next month, I’ll be allocating far more of my time to Tesla,” he added.

Here are five key quotes from Musk on the Tesla earnings call, as transcribed by FactSet:

Future of Tesla: “The future of the company is fundamentally based on large-scale autonomous cars and large-scale and large volume, vast numbers of autonomous humanoid robots.

So, the value of the company that makes truly useful autonomous humanoid robots and autonomous useful vehicles at scale at low cost, which is what Tesla is going to do is staggering. I continue to believe that Tesla with excellent execution will be the most valuable company in the world by far.”

Financial impact of robotaxi: “I said I think on the last earnings call that we will start to see the prosperity of autonomy take effect in a material way around the middle of next year. We expect to have – be selling fully autonomous rides in June in Austin as we’ve been saying for now several months. So, that’s continued.

But the real question from financial standpoint is when does it really become material and affect the bottom-line of the company and start to be a fundamental part of the – when does it move the financial needle in a significant way? That’s probably around the middle of next year, second half of next year.”

Optimus robots: “And with regards to Optimus, making good progress in Optimus. We expect to have thousands of Optimus robots working in Tesla factories by the end of this year, beginning this fall. And we expect to scale Optimus up faster than any product, I think, in history to get to millions of units per year as soon as possible. I think we feel confident in getting to 1 million units per year in less than five years, maybe four years. So by 2030, I feel confident in predicting 1 million Optimus units per year. It might be 2029.”

Tariffs: “Now tariffs are still tough on a company when margins are still low. But we do have localized supply chains in both America, Europe, and China. So that puts us in a stronger position than any of our competitors. And undoubtedly, I’m going to get a lot of questions about tariffs. And I just want to emphasize that the tariff decision is entirely up to the President of the United States. I will weigh in with my advice with the President, which if he will listen to my advice but then it’s up to him, of course, to make his decision.

I’ve been on the record many times saying that I believe lower tariffs are generally a good idea for prosperity. But this decision is fundamentally up to the elected representative of the people being the President of the United States. So I’ll continue to advocate for lower tariffs rather than higher tariffs, but that’s all I can do.”

Tesla energy segment: “With respect to energy, our energy business is doing very well. The Megapack … enables utility companies to output far more total energy than would otherwise be the case. When you think of the energy capability of a grid, it’s much more than, let’s say, total energy output per year. If a power plants could operate at peak power for all 24 hours as opposed to being at half power, sometimes a quarter power at night, then you could double the energy output of existing power plants.”

Originally Posted By u/ChiefHippoTwit At 2025-04-23 03:12:27 PM | Source

Make America Great, at-last. Make America Great, alright?! Make America Great. Amen! Make America Great, ahem?

Originally Posted By u/GlitteryZipper At 2025-04-24 12:56:21 PM | Source

Starting a "Notice of Dismissal" Campaign and I need you to take action! Send each of our congress people a pink slip and let them know that if they don't do their jobs now they will not have a job when you vote them out:

• Step 1: get 3 pink envelopes and 3 stamps
• Step 2: write a letter urging your representative to impeach, convict, and remove Trump and his administration
• Step 3: Address it to your House Representative and 2 senators, and put your mailing address on it so they know it is coming from a constituent.
  • they are not required to read it or address it if it doesn't come from a constituent, but feel free to mail letters to other reps
• Step 4: mail it in (see below)
• Step 5: repeat until action is taken

Use the following as the sender address:

The Honorable [Senator's Name]

United States Senate

 Washington, D.C. 20510

https://www.house.gov/representatives 

The Honorable [Full Name]

U.S. House of Representatives

[Office Number] [Building Name]

Washington, D.C. 20515

UPDATE: Asked and provided!

TEMPLATE:

To Representative [NAME]

I am writing to you to clear up any confusion that may exist about what we, the people of the United States of America, want from our elected officials during these tumultuous times. We want you to impeach, convict, and remove Trump and his entire administration.

There is a long list of valid reasons—with concrete evidence—for each of those individuals to be removed from office. You have the rare position and authority to stop the damage they have done. The damage that YOU know is unconstitutional, immoral, and unethical. The only mechanism we currently have is the impeachment process that must be conducted through congress. There is no excuse for you to continue to allow the Trump administration to wield any power over the American people. If you are afraid of retaliation, or backlash from constituents, we promise there are more people who are against what is happening than there are who still support Trump, even if they had previously voted for him.

Any action taken by you or your colleagues that doesn’t work towards this very specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely goal is a waste of your time and a disservice to the constituents you swore an oath to represent and the constitution you swore an oath to protect. We beg you to put aside party identifiers and recognize that we are all Americans working to do right by our communities. Start working together, and you will not have to worry about losing your livelihood or political career. The longer you wait to take real action, more and more of us lose our livelihoods, and our rights.

Regards, Constituent [NAME] From [STATE]

This is what I'm planning to send in, but if someone wants to write something less dramatic please reply 🤓

Originally Posted By u/lexapros_n_cons At 2025-04-24 05:52:53 PM | Source

This is protected speech going all the way back to Watts v. United States in 1969.

Originally Posted By u/Accomplished-Unit343 At 2025-04-24 08:53:54 AM | Source

Originally Posted By u/Mobile_Emergency_822 At 2025-04-23 10:23:56 PM | Source

Originally Posted By u/RoyalChris At 2025-04-23 05:31:43 PM | Source

I think part of this fight is getting our message across effectively and I think this photo does such a great job.

Originally Posted By u/DigExisting9971 At 2025-04-23 10:52:27 PM | Source

Cheering you on from Westchester County, New York.

Go and get them! Whoooo hooooo!

Originally Posted By u/StarPatient6204 At 2025-04-24 06:03:33 PM | Source

Impeachment discussions/proceedings have begun. However, too many in Congress are acting like they don’t know what the American people want. They are pretending that Trump has support from the majority of Americans. We need to change that now! We can win our country back now! We can stop hate and violence now. We can stop financial ruin now! But we have to act NOW!

Call every Congressman from your state, in the House of Representatives and the Senate, once a day, every day and tell them you want Trump impeached and his entire administration imprisoned. We can take shifts calling so that their ears never stop ringing with our demands!

If you can’t call at your time, try to call between 4-5 pm to fill in the gap since there will be fewer names starting with those letters anyway. If you can’t call at all, email.

Simply enter your zip code and find your congressman here:

https://www.congress.gov/members

Time ------------------ Last name begins with

8:00 - 9:00 am -------- A, B, C

9:00 - 10:00 am ------- D, E, F

10:00 - 11:00 am ------ G, H, I

11:00 - 12:00 pm ------ J, K, L

12:00 - 1:00 pm ------- M, N, O

1:00 - 2:00 pm -------- P, Q, R

2:00 - 3:00 pm --------- S, T

3:00 - 4:00 pm --------- U, V, W

4:00 - 5:00 pm --------- X, Y, Z

Originally Posted By u/PreferenceReal7148 At 2025-04-24 01:46:45 PM | Source

https://www.ebar.com/story/154303

Originally Posted By u/HunterS_1981 At 2025-04-24 04:38:18 PM | Source

"Take back America" protest set for 4th of July. Rain or shine. In front of Washington D.C. capitol building. Starts 2pm. Repost this flyer and copy/paste this info. Post this flyer literally everywhere censorship is at an all time high. See you guys there!

Originally Posted By u/Fucknsa_ At 2025-04-24 08:25:22 AM | Source

Who am I? I was lucky to find this community on its first day. Then lucky to be the first moderator appointed by the original creator. I worked tirelessly in its early days under the name onlywhenitsdarkenough which I have since deleted. I am not connected to any political action committees, non profits, and hold minimal authority in the direction of 50501. As the movement grew I stepped back to allow it to take on its own life. I am fiercely optimistic for our future but have stepped back in to help to the best of my ability grow in this transitionary period.

Here is my message to you:

50501 has reached a cross roads. The origins of this movement started on two simple premises.

1. We the people are capable, able, and must advocate for our rights.

2. When given the opportunity good people will show up to face injustice.

A community formed around this idea, bigger than any of the founders and bigger than any of its current leaders. Ordinary people came together to build an infrastructure to facilitate the voice of the us the unrepresented. We the organizers are unimportant. You showing up is the lifeblood of this movement. Now as the complexity of infrastructure there's competing ideologies, disagreement, and uncertainty in leadership.

I call upon all the organizers past and present to refocus on placing power back into the community.

I call upon the community to be loud. We don't show up for 50501 we show up to stand proudly on the right side of history.

Toddlers are being made to attened deportation hearings alone while adults are being deported without due process all while the Whitehouse page post a deportation ASMR. It's these sick inhumanities where we must place our attention and it must not be divided.

Later today we will set aside our differences and reach agreement on how to facilitate the coming protest and we will create a space to open up for community guidance as well as to answer concerns.

Originally Posted By u/StrWtchng At 2025-04-24 07:34:46 AM | Source

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Originally Posted By u/transcendent167 At 2025-04-23 07:53:13 PM | Source

I was surprised to see how much traction my last post got, so I thought I'd indulge you in some more Danish news, since you probably won't see stuff like this in your local news feed if you're an American.

Keep in mind, this is one of, if not the the largest news agency in Denmark.

Danish article: https://nyheder.tv2.dk/udland/2025-04-23-saa-taet-er-usa-paa-at-vaere-et-diktatur

ChatGPT translation below, verified by me, but please visit the link for in-depth sources on several claims made in the article:

How Close Is the U.S. to Becoming a Dictatorship?

There are growing signs that the United States, under Donald Trump, is developing into an autocratic dictatorship, several experts warn.

“He who saves his country does not break the law.”

This quote is attributed to France’s self-proclaimed emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who in the 1800s imposed a dictatorship-like regime with censorship and harsh police-state methods.

When U.S. President Donald Trump shared the quote in a post on the social media platform X in February, experts and political opponents compared him to autocrats and dictators such as Russia’s Vladimir Putin, North Korea’s Kim Jong-un, and China’s Xi Jinping.

Fears that Trump is introducing dictatorship-like conditions in the U.S. have grown, especially as his first three months in the White House have been marked by a flood of executive orders and presidential directives that many observers say directly violate the U.S. Constitution.

Add to that Trump’s controversial statements about not ruling out the use of military force to gain control of Greenland, and Tesla billionaire Elon Musk’s efficiency unit (DOGE), which has so far cost more than 215,000 American public employees their jobs.

Most recently, Trump has been heavily criticized for denying the many Americans deported from the U.S. in recent months the right to a trial.

“That’s a fundamental autocratic move, found on page one of the autocrat’s handbook,” says U.S. commentator Sofie Rud to TV 2, emphasizing that “this is about everyone’s right to fair treatment in a democratic system.”

Four Warning Signs

Svend-Erik Skaaning, a democracy researcher at Aarhus University, does not believe the U.S. is yet a full dictatorship or autocracy.

However, he points to several troubling developments – including the rejection of court decisions and the persecution of political opponents.

“The minimum definition of a democracy is regular elections and real uncertainty about who will win. We also usually look at respect for freedom of speech, assembly, association, and governmental checks when evaluating democratic decline,” Skaaning tells TV 2.

He refers to the book How Democracies Die by U.S. professors Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt, which outlines four crisis indicators showing whether a society’s core democratic values and institutions are under serious threat:

• Political leaders and groups reject (or show weak commitment to) democratic rules of the game.
• They deny the legitimacy of political opponents.
• They tolerate or encourage violence.
• They are willing to restrict civil liberties of political opponents, including the media.

--

What Is Autocracy?

Autocracy is a form of governance where power is concentrated in a single person or a small group.

In an autocracy, rulers appoint themselves, in contrast to democracies where leaders are chosen by the people.

Elections can still occur in autocracies, but they are often so manipulated that the ruling party or individual is guaranteed to remain in power.

--

Skaaning believes that Donald Trump and his loyal supporters score highly on all four points.

But he also stresses the importance of distinguishing between unsympathetic policies and undemocratic ones.

“The former refers to policies we may dislike but that don’t impact core democratic institutions. The latter concerns violations of democratic rights,” he says.

Skaaning says he is not yet ready to call the U.S. a dictatorship because he needs to see how Trump and his administration act during upcoming elections.

“We’ll know more after the next midterms and presidential election. Then we can assess whether Trump’s camp undermines electoral integrity to the point where opponents stand no real chance,” Skaaning says.

Violating the Constitution

Niels Bjerre-Poulsen, associate professor at the Center for American Studies at the University of Southern Denmark, also sees warning signs.

“The U.S. is headed in that direction, but the courts still function as a safeguard for the liberal constitutional democracy the U.S. was intended to be,” he tells TV 2.

Bjerre-Poulsen says Trump’s autocratic tendencies stem from both his personality and his lack of respect for democratic norms and principles upheld since 1787.

“Perhaps the more disturbing question is why 77 million Americans were willing to vote for a man who clearly sees these principles as obstacles.”

He explains that the two core principles of the U.S. Constitution are the separation of powers (legislative, executive, judicial) and “checks and balances,” which give each branch the tools to restrain the others.

“Virtually all of Trump’s 2024 campaign promises conflicted with constitutional principles, yet he still won 49.9% of the vote. That tells us the democratic crisis in the U.S. runs deeper than Trump simply trying to free himself from liberal constraints,” he adds.

“Like Listening to a Real Dictator”

Much of the criticism of Trump’s powerful governing style has come from his political opponents, who accuse him of using the presidency to “justify illegal and ethically questionable actions.”

When Trump posted the controversial Napoleon quote, Democratic Senator Adam Schiff from California quickly responded:

“Like listening to a real dictator,” Schiff wrote on X.

Ritchie Torres, a Democratic member of the House of Representatives, also lashed out:

“Trump seems to think he can do whatever he wants by talking about 'saving the country.' In our constitutional republic, the means matter more than the ends. The Constitution trumps Trump’s preferences,” Torres wrote in response.

Flirting with Dictators

Throughout Trump’s two terms in office, it’s been clear that he does not share the world’s skepticism of autocrats like Putin and Kim Jong-un.

In a bid to fulfill his campaign promise of quick peace in Ukraine, Trump has even promised to lift most U.S. sanctions on Russia if Putin agrees to a peace deal.

He has also made clear he wants to strengthen U.S.-Russia relations and resume diplomatic and business ties.

Trump has publicly flirted with El Salvador’s president, Nayib Bukele, who calls himself “the world’s coolest dictator.” Bukele recently visited Trump at the White House, where they discussed a deal allowing the U.S. to send criminals to a notorious Latin American prison.

This agreement has been widely criticized, especially since many deportees haven’t seen a judge before removal.

During his first term (2016–2020), Trump also met several times with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un. The two reportedly exchanged numerous letters, which Trump once referred to as “our love letters.”

Dictator on Day One

Though the U.S. is still far from regimes like North Korea and Russia, Bjerre-Poulsen says it’s clear Trump and his allies want to dismantle what they call the “administrative state” and move toward a Russian-style oligarchy.

“Trump expects Republican majorities in Congress to rubber-stamp his wishes the same way Putin’s Duma does,” he says.

Even before Trump took office on January 20, many Americans feared his authoritarian and sometimes violent rhetoric, often aimed at his political rival, former President Joe Biden.

Those fears intensified in December, when Trump declared he would be a “dictator on day one” if re-elected.

Whether Trump truly wants to pull the U.S. toward autocracy remains to be seen — perhaps we’ll get the answer at the next midterm elections.

Or maybe even sooner.

--

EDIT: Quotes were not being imported correctly.

Originally Posted By u/helpamonkpls At 2025-04-24 05:30:25 PM | Source

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Double sided sign for the next protest!

Originally Posted By u/HimboVegan At 2025-04-24 09:46:13 AM | Source

Originally Posted By u/undercurrents At 2025-04-24 01:35:43 AM | Source

I know, the title is dramatic. Yet, I mean it. I am autistic. I have ADHD. I am neurodivergent. Please don't abandon us. With all this talk of a registry of autistic individuals, I am scared. This is a fascist administration. This is a regime. Call it what it is. It is a state that, when it gets enough power, will go after "undesirables" like myself. I'm not making things up. We've seen it before in Nazi Germany. There will be no place for people like me in this new state.

So I ask you to not abandon us. You are the only hope we have. Ordinary citizens like yourselves are the only hope we will have. We're stronger together. I wish I could say more, but I do not know what to say. Just, please support us.

Originally Posted By u/Crazy_Coyote1 At 2025-04-23 05:16:42 PM | Source

They are getting worse and trying to repeal the Civil Rights act. This is going from bad to worse extremely fast. We need the largest Protest to ever happen in DC to happen. Like NOW. If this isn't tyranny idk what is. Everyone needs to call everyone they know and we need to organize the largest Protest in American history to prove our point or else we are headed toward civil war 2.0 territory. I honestly feel this way and do not feel I am being hyperbolic. I'm not even afraid anymore. I might go buy some guns. They ARE going to start deporting people who disagree with then and when they do what are you going to do? I for hell will be defending my rights. Either that or head straight to Canada.

https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/04/restoring-equality-of-opportunity-and-meritocracy/

Originally Posted By u/xLaoztuYT At 2025-04-24 07:40:52 AM | Source