And liberal Zionists support Biden. Who is currently COMPLICIT in sending weapons to your country. Stop this whataboutism.

I think that in general most Americans support Israel. Both democrats and republicans, why would they support Palestine? They have been the number one enemy of the Arab world along with the UK and Israel for more than half a century.

Stupid or brazen...not sure which...Johnson nonchalantly talking about the impeachment vote not working out because "...sometimes when you're counting votes, people show up when they aren't supposed to be in the building..." Purposely taking a vote when a "no" vote has been hospitalized and shouldn't be available to vote...but they do make it on the floor. Be the scumbag that you are, but don't be so smug about it.

but let's get back to Lankford for a moment. Nice of him to (not) expose the garbage, but let's get a name and a backbone while we're at it.

https://twitter.com/i/status/1755297920847429720

I'd argue that Labor Zionists are more supportive of Bernie Sanders.

Dunno if any of you saw this, but Trump is not immune to prosecution in his election interference case.

https://apnews.com/article/trump-capito ... 35e47f390e

This will certainly go to the Supreme Court, so we'll see how that decision is made.

It literally says in the Constitution that insurrectionists are to be banned from holding public office. You would think this would be the single most open and shut case in the history of the US legal system, but then again when did the illegitimate Supreme Court made up of fake Constitutionalists ever actually give a fuck about the Constitution?

Trump isn't going to win anyways, jesus h. christ. I'm so sick of hearing about him...

Can we just toss this fuck in prison already and wash our hands of this shitstain on American history?

I agree that Trump did lead the insurrection, and that January 6th was an insurrection, and that thus he should be banned, but I believe that legally, he will be able to have his name on the ballot, because he has not been recognized guilty of it officially. I mean I know he is, you know he is, anyone who has eyes and hasn't had their moral compass upended by MAGA should know it, but I think he will get away because, by the book, under the law, he hasn't been found guilty yet. On the other hand, I'm glad states like Colorado tried to boot him, because that's what should be done, really.

I kinda hope that his arrest and/or eventual demise will lead to infighting for the power vacuum and MAGA will die, but honestly I'm worried, Trump is only the rotten tip of the iceberg and he empowered many compelte dickheads who now feel confident in bringing mud-slinging, open lies, blatant disregard for norms, laws and rules, open bigotry, and calls to violence. And it seems like nothing is going to wake up the millions of Americans who have stuck their heads up Trump's plumpy, bloated arse, and it's probably more likely that they'll flock to the next asshole. Hopefully demographics change happen faster than they can brainwash the new generations.

I realize how pedestrian this is, but I keep hearing about how the supreme court can't side against him and mute the voices of the people who want him, but he sure doesn't have an issue with erasing the voices of the people who don't want him. All this talk about freedom of candidacy, but the discussions never work both ways. It's one of the many examples of how Trump has exposed how the press isn't as liberally biased as they cry. CNN and MSNBC want their money. It's that simple. Bring out the comparative charts and the soundbites and show how, for example, this border deal is essentially what they failed to pass during his presidency. They should be doing it for lots of things, like for another example, the difference between the classified documents cases. Yesterday, I heard more talk about how the interview points to Biden's mental incompetency than why the cases aren't the same. The so-called liberal media is working overtime to make Biden look he's in the throws of dementia. If Trump doesn't get himself re-elected, they're going to do it for him.

The 'fake Constitutionalists' aren't the only ones who have qualms with the case being advanced regarding the 14th Amendment-- I mean, both Kagan and Jackson appeared in arguments over the case to be skeptical of the case for Colorado striking Trump from the ballot.


Despite the incessant whinging from the right wing about how unfair the media is to them and to Trump, there's a double standard being applied across the media landscape and politics in general to Biden and Trump so wide you could drive a truck through it, and it ain't on Biden's side. The fact that so much attention is being directed to the verbal stumbles of a man who's had a legitimate medical speech disorder his entire life is a testament to that fact when you consider how astonishingly, bafflingly incoherent his opponent is pretty much all the time. Trump gets to be incoherent, he gets to lie, he gets to be crude and hostile, because I guess it's just not newsworthy when he's those things anymore.

At the very least, journalists should be questioning why a Republican special counsel who was appointed US Attorney by Donald Trump and has been an active player in Republican politics felt the need to go out of his way to take shots at his party's opponent's mental state and memory, particularly when those details are not germane to his investigation and rest on cherry-picking a handful of moments from several hours of interviews. Gee, I wonder if politics may have influenced that choice.

People mocking presidents for speeches has been going on as long as I've been alive and will continue to go on.

George Bush Jr was mocked mercilessly for speeches throughout his presidency and now Biden is getting it also.

Nobody on either side has any room to cry for any sense of decency at this point.

There is a very distinct difference between Bush getting mocked on the internet for saying it's hard to put food on your family and an investigator using a report that is expected to be (and will be viewed as) non-partisan as a vehicle to score political points against his party's opponent. This is not just some guy "mocking presidents for speeches."

Hur knew what he was doing. The wording of these excerpts was calculated to generate damaging headlines for the President against whom his political benefactor is running. And he knew, because special counsel reports are expected to be neutral and impartial, he would be lending an illusion of non-partisan credibility to his attack, particularly for observers who aren't very engaged and are already inclined to buy into a largely specious narrative about Biden's mental wellbeing.

Ah, Bushisms...

עשה טובה, אל תיכנס לדיונים עם אנשים פה. חבל על הזמן והמאמץ שלך. צא לטייל, שמע מוזיקה טובה, באמת. תתעלם. עצה ממני אליך. אין לך מושג עם איזה קקה אתה משחק פה.

Shalom! Lol okay. I just hope Hamas put down their weapons and release the people they have kidnapped and tortured, but I'm not here to discuss geopolitics too much.

I feel like I'm taking crazy pills, because the last few weeks have been crazy as hell: we have Jack Posobiec proudly proclaiming the Republicans will end Democracy: https://www.newsweek.com/jack-posobiec- ... ac-1872694

We have Alabama saying embryos are human beings: https://www.nbcnews.com/health/health-n ... rcna139846

We have Republicans going all out against all recreative sex and all birth control: https://www.alternet.org/experts-gop-end-recreational/

We have Charlie Kirk, a Republican, fantasizing about children watching executions: https://www.mediamatters.org/charlie-ki ... in-age-its

We have Tucker Carlson sucking Putin's and Russia's dick: https://www.independent.co.uk/news/worl ... 97506.html

And Florida being the Florida of America in the middle of a measles outbreak: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2 ... ak-ladapo/

Seems like they're going all out on anti-intellectualism and launching a massive campaign agaisnt individual rights.

Always have been.

These last few weeks should be considered crazy, but this is just how things are. The most recent polling matchup I saw had Biden with 49 points over Trump with 45 points. 45 fucking points. Still. Somehow.

Anger and victimhood are the Republican drugs, and they fiend for the fix. A cult hooked on those drugs. They have a preferred dealer, but it doesn't matter how it comes to them. They gobble it up. A party of "NO!" No to everything and no platforms or actual ideology. Even the flag is empty symbols and colors. They'll go along with this IVF nonsense because it gives them an opportunity to tell a group "NO!"

There is a sizable population of American 'independents' who will just always, always be vaguely 'against' whoever happens to be in charge at any given time. To some, it's because they're just generally unhappy and they've decided if they just label both parties/candidates 'pretty much all the same' then they get to register that vague discontent by unthinkingly voting against whoever the incumbent is. To others, it's because they think it's the only way they get to brag about being 'truly independent.' They don't adapt to new information or bother to think critically-- to them, it's proof that they're independent, above party politics, unbiased, etc. This is why 'both sides' crap is so dangerous at this moment in American history. Peddle that narrative enough and those 'independents' along with actual Republican voters will drive us off a cliff, blithely telling us all as we plummet to our dooms about how Democrats and Republicans are basically the same anyway.

(Obviously, this is not all or even most independents... but it's a damn lot of them.)

This could very well be in the Ukraine thread. I'd bet my record collection, and everything else I own, that 90% (or more) of Americans have no clue that almost all the military stuff we give Ukraine, from tanks to clothing, is old/new stock that would cost millions to destroy (and by law, at some point is required to be destroyed). Those Abrams tanks that we argued over last summer were all sitting out in the open, behind fences, rusting to the ground from the Gulf War. I used to live in an area where one of our ammunition depots is located. We spend A LOT of money monitoring and maintaining old stuff we're never going to use and then have to eventually destroy. And being an ammunition inspector, an actual private contractor job, is quite dangerous too.

My point is that the US news keeps reporting these monster $ numbers, and almost all the population is sitting around thinking, "How are we going to pay for that? And keep paying for that?" They're doing us a favor by taking all this old junk that they very much need. And our factories are refilling our own shelves with new stuff, creating jobs, tax revenue, etc. It's a win/win/win/win situation. If they'd just fucking report the entire situation rather than sensationalize and mislead, it would be even more of a no-brainer than it already is.

I'm sure I already made this exact same post weeks ago. I had to listen to an idiotic conversation about this a couple days ago, and I'm still fired up about the shit journalism and utter ignorance of the public.

I was definitely one of the utterly ignorant public before reading this.

I've wondered where the money was coming from and not reporting something that seems to be good for everyone doesn't make much sense.

Makes the US government look a whole lot less charitable though.

Since when has the US government been charitable to begin with?

Why else would they have carried out so many foreign interventions if not to promote freedom and democracy?

Hahahah!

Good point.

In all seriousness - I'd argue the Emancipation Proclamation, granting tribal sovereignty and the G.I. Bill are instances of charity.

Perhaps from a surface level perspective they may appear to be acts of charity...

But somehow I doubt the Emancipation Proclamation was done as an act of genuine goodwill towards African-Americans...

nor do I think tribal sovereignty was towards Native Americans.

There are always underlying, ulterior motives. Especially when it comes to politics

Indeed.

In the same spirit, a good argument can be made that most of the "New Deal" legislation enacted by the FDR Administrations was more for the prevention of socialism than they necessarily were for the welfare of the public. Give them a little bit, and preserve the powers that be.

Especially, with Native Americans. Fucked over at every turn imaginable.

Political considerations are always part of the equation (it's politics, be real) but this extreme cynicism (nothing has ever been done for the welfare of the people, it's always for some shady other purpose) is not only damaging, but... mostly baseless. About a thousand books and articles have been published about FDR and the New Deal. The vast majority of them don't endorse this view. About a thousand (okay, maybe a little less) books and articles have been published about the Great Society and the civil rights legislation of the 60s. Most of them tend to conclude that they were pieces of legislation driven by a desire to create a more prosperous, equitable society. And well over a thousand books and articles have been published about Lincoln, the Emancipation Proclamation, the 13th amendment, etc. In total they present an image of a president who recognized the constraints of politics but moved as soon as he could to end slavery, not because it was to his political benefit, but because he believed it was the right thing to do.

You can also point to many acts of craven political cowardice committed out of selfishness or malice (the aforementioned treatment of the Native Americans is a horrific example-- there are less horrifying but more recent ones, like the devastating Reagan tax cut that spawned decades of burgeoning inequality or the Nixon administration's use of racial politics to end the momentum of the Great Society). To let those acts color all of politics strikes me as reductionist and simply a way to avoid thinking too hard about the realities of politics, which are never as simple as the "IT'S ALL CORRUPT, MAAAAAAAAAN" crowd wants to think they are.

...didn't you used to work with these grubby politicians yourself? I don't remember what capacity it was, but still. I recall you saying something about it at some point.

I think you need to take those rose tinted glasses off, my friend. Maybe they seem like decent people to you, not sure how they fooled you into thinking that. I don't think you're that foolish, but still

You're heavily biased, Stevie Wonder trapped in a basement could see it

I have worked for those "grubby" politicians! I'm proud of the work I've gotten to do with civic-minded people who want to pursue policies that will help their communities thrive. The main thing that tends to sully that work is people who insist to me, in defiance not only of pretty much my entire experience but also scholarly research and analysis, that all politicians are grubby, corrupt, greasy little bastards who are only in it for their own egos and power. Not just because it's mildly insulting to be told that I'm either naive or in on it, but also because it's enormously toxic to the health of a civil society. I see too many people who would make phenomenal public servants discouraged from it by people telling them it's inherently grotesque and soul-sucking. Ironically, when those people get pushed away from politics, what's often left is... the people who are already grotesque and soulless and don't care if others see it.

I don't have rose-tinted glasses. I know politics is a magnet for people who are ego-driven, conceited, and sometimes corrupt. I've gotten to work with and know people who meet that description much more than I'd like. I also know politics all too often does provide fertile soil for immorality, exploitation, and corruption. If we pretend that's all there is to politics, then we will have none of the nuance and thoughtfulness we need to actually root out corruption and unethical behavior from politics; it's like a doctor telling a cancer patient that instead of trying to identify the cancerous cells and cure them, they're going to just assume their whole body is cancerous and there's no point in trying to help them. If your doctor told you that, you would assume they were lazy at best and disastrously incompetent at worst. Prescribing that treatment to politics is no less useless.

Frankly, this is not about idealism vs cynicism. It's about realism vs cynicism. Indulging in the fiction that all politicians are grimy, grubby sleazebags who deserve our mockery and spit is a lot easier than doing the hard work of advocating for policies that actually root out corruption and immorality, like campaign finance reform, or anti-gerrymandering legislation, or support for CSOs, or a million other things that actually help create a more productive, equitable political system. If you would prefer to insist that politics is always, always a shady, under-handed business, then that's your right, but I don't think you get to claim the mantle of realism. Just the mantle of convenience and ease, with an added dollop of making it harder for anyone who tries to use the political process to do a little good for others.

Ah, there it is!




Listen, I'm not saying that there are no decent people in politics who actually want to help improve the lives of everyday citizens. But you cannot sit here and tell me that there aren't innumerable examples of politicians being exactly what you describe. You can't blame anybody for being extremely critical and distrusting of their government and the politicians that run it. There are numerous good and compelling reasons to be so...

To deny that would be disingenuous



No, what's toxic to the health of a civil society are the ones actually causing the toxicity...y'know, the politicians. At the end of the day they are the ones who were bestowed with (varying degrees of) power to actually make things happen...or to not make things happen. Depending on the issue we're talking about, either one of those choices can cause catastrophic damage.

How about instead of blaming citizens for being cynical towards their government and their "representatives", we could try working on having a better system of government and better politicians? Until that day comes, we should remain distrustful.



If you can point me towards a person who has the sociopolitical connections and financial means to not only run a successful political campaign, but also win...I can point you to a person who is able to be bought and sold by their campaign donors, or their donors in general. Or, at the very least, they lose perspective over the course of their career.

Even if they start out with good intentions, it'd be foolish and naive to assume they will remain that way for the entirety of their political career. How does the saying go?

When you lie down with dogs, you come up with fleas...




Debatable.



No shit



If your doctor found malignant tumors in most, if not all, of your major organs, your doctor wouldn't be making an outlandish assumption if he figured there would be more present elsewhere. Now obviously he has to test that hypothesis first, but my point is, it's a completely fair and reasonable assertion to make based on what we know.

The issue is, even when we manage to cut out many of those tumors, more end up emerging. At some point you're going to be deemed terminal.




First of all, it isn't "fiction". You're oversimplifying the position. Most reasonable people are aware that not every single individual working in politics is a corrupt, worthless, lying POS. It's an assumption, an assertion...based on what we know from past actions and events, and based on what we know about the nature of politics.

Also, policy ideas about stuff like campaign finance reform aren't exactly new and original ideas. People have been discussing this and tossing it around for ages now. It isn't as if we're the first to discuss such a thing. I could say the same thing about many of the other policy ideas you've brought up.

As far as passing sweeping legislation regarding some of these things, how well is that going? Not too well from what I understand. I wonder why that is? Almost as if these politicians benefit from the way things like campaign financing and gerrymandering operate. Weird, right?

I understand change happens painfully slow in America, but let's not fool ourselves...

I'll put it to you like this, there aren't enough decent politicians to warrant giving any one of them the benefit of the doubt. It's really that simple. Trust is earned, not given...nor is it an obligation

It's the same thing with something like law enforcement, yeah? It'd be an unreasonable position to take that every single one of them are bad...but they work within a completely fucked and broken system. Even the decent ones aren't so decent when you peel back the layers.

It would be extremely difficult, if not impossible, to operate ethically and morally under such a broken system where you can potentially reap all of the benefits, and face almost none of the serious consequences.

There it is, a piece of information that I've mentioned several times during these discussions! Ya got me.


I can understand why people are critical of government and politicians while also pointing out why blanket cynicism and claims that aren't backed up by any evidence are not productive ways to make progress.


This is all fine rhetoric, but it doesn't really mean anything. What does 'bought and sold by their campaign donors' mean? Are you arguing that politicians will vote however their donors want them to? Because we don't have to guess about that-- studies have tended to find that donors seek out politicians who already align with their policy preferences, and that in fact, politicians will tend to suffer electoral reprisal if they exchange ideological consistency for contributions. Look up Canes-Wrone and Gibson's work on this; they've summarized the literature on the issue as indicating little evidence that politicians are 'bought' by contributors. As for your 'the longer they're there, the more fleas they get', the evidence suggests that junior legislators are actually more vulnerable to influence by interest groups, donors, etc (this is just one of many studies to that effect). They don't lose perspective over the course of their careers, they gain independence and insight.

Money in politics is a big issue. Campaign finance reform is critical-- public election funding, caps on spending, keeping corporate money out of elections and empowering small donors as much as possible. It's critical because special interests can swamp elections with money originating from outside the jurisdiction in question rather than from the voters themselves-- and they do so not to buy the vote of whoever is running, but to elevate fringe voices and drown out the voters themselves. I think we can agree that's a problem, at least, but I would argue it's the problem, not nebulous claims that legislators get corrupted by their donors.


That's the thing... test the hypothesis. I wouldn't need a doctor to either blithely go 'no problem, you're all good!' and I wouldn't need a doctor to tell me they've found cancer here, so it's gotta be everywhere, your whole body is broken, you don't have a healthy cell in there. I'd like my doctor to actually put in the effort to identify where the problem is and develop targeted interventions to address the problem.


I don't think I am oversimplifying the position... It's just an unrealistically simple position.


That's not really true, though. New ways of implementing campaign finance reform are being pioneered all the time. In the last couple of years a couple of local governments in the US have been the first to implement bans on foreign-influenced corporate spending and now similar legislation is under consideration by state legislatures across the country. Just five or so years ago ranked choice voting was relegated to local and obscure judicial elections and now multiple states are using it for all their elections, with several others considering it. It seems every year a new jurisdiction, whether local or state, implements some newly developed method for public financing of elections.

It's just not as simple as you insist it is.


See above. Progress is absolutely happening. There's a hundred reasons why it's not happening fast enough at the federal level that require deeper analysis than 'politicians are bought and sold/corrupt/insert negative term here.'


I don't know how you know this. There are 535 people in Congress (okay, some of those seats are currently vacant, let's be general). Maybe 40-50 of them regularly make the news, and "congressperson thoughtfully considers legislation" isn't a headline that gets clicks, so when politicians make the news, it's usually not in the most flattering light. I'm guessing 99% of people could not pick Virginia Rep. Rob Wittman out of a police lineup (you and me included, for what it's worth). And let's not even get started on the roughly 7,500 state legislators or the probably hundreds of thousands of city councilmembers, mayors, county supervisors, school board members, etc. What percentage of them do you feel confident do not accord with your definition of decency? It just doesn't seem like a productive conversation to be having when we could be focusing on actual policy and legislative fixes.

A fair compromise



Really now? Are we going to pretend that lobbyists don't exist?. You're talking about all of this all while ignoring the bellowing elephant in the room.

Yes, of course donors are going to try and reach out to politicians who are more closely aligned with their own political viewpoints. But you trying to paint these guys as honest and intelligent policy makers who have a ton of insight and little, if no ulterior motives and what not is just...hilarious to me. Like I said, man. Rose tinted glasses



The hypothesis has been pretty thoroughly tested, if by nothing else but by time itself and the actions of these elected officials.







I'd be happy to hear your explanation. I'm not even being sarcastic, I'm all ears.

Damn, you're right, man, every one of those peer-reviewed studies and articles forgot all about lobbyists.


This isn't me trying to paint anyone anything. I am telling you basic facts upheld by decades of research and data. You're welcome to argue against them, but do so knowing that you're choosing your gut feeling over data and expert analysis. Which is, ironically, a nice little encapsulation of one of the great problems in American politics, considering most American voters tend to choose their gut feelings over facts and information too.

All of the information and points made in that one short video is a simple demonstration why and how the game of politics in the US is corrupt and rigged from the ground up. Or at least it points out one many major problems that makes the whole think stink. I don't even see why we're still arguing this point.

I'm not saying that those articles you referenced were wrong, either. I just think you're far too idealistic and hopeful.

It's important to have the ability to extend an olive branch and give credit where credit is due. Thing is, I just don't see much to be given out. Not enough to quell any cynicism or suspiciousness

It's been kinda frustrating to read this most recent conversation. I mean, here's how Ezadara basically reads and responds to MalignantTyrant's position (and I'm mostly inclined to read it in the same way) -



Now, quite a few of MT's comments (compiled in the spoiler tags just below) seem to confirm Ezadara's reading - that is, taken literally, they'd be consistent with the stance that "nothing has ever been done [by the government] for the welfare of the people, it's always for some shady other purpose." (Emphases on the absolutist language: "always," "all," etc.)



But confusingly, there are also a few comments which state or imply that this is not MT's stance:



Do you see what I mean? The upshot of the quotes in spoiler-box 1 is: All politicians are indecent/corrupt/untrustworthy (or at any rate, we should presume that they are). But the upshot of the quotes in spoiler-box 2 is: Not all politicians are like this.

So, there's this seeming back-and-forth which makes it hard to be sure what precisely is being argued. But there's also a bit of a "so what?" quality, by which I mean: What difference does it make (in terms of your conduct today as a citizen, in the voting booth, etc.; and in terms of the specifiable impact of public policy on the quality of your life) whether it makes sense to attribute these character deficiencies to politicians as a group? It might be (I doubt it; I think Ezadara has the more persuasive case) that the political profession inherently creates these stains on people's souls (so to speak), or inherently attracts nothing but broken individuals anyway; and yet in spite of this, it'd be no less important to keep the more predictably dangerous politicians out of office, in order for us as citizens to derive the most benefit from (or minimize the harmfulness of) the laws they're responsible for.

Cynicism is a mostly worthless, puerile emotional response. On the other hand, skepticism can be a useful and worthwhile rational tool. Young people are understandably cynics. Adults who don't grow out of that perspective, through both experience and gained wisdom, are sad sacks. Not judging anyone. Just saying. The cynic is no badge I'd ever want to wear.

any of you fact checkers feel like digging?

@AdamKinzinger
For 1/10th of one years defense budget, we have allowed Ukraine to destroy 10 years of Ground equipment procurement and 20 years of air procurement of Russia.

and if you want a general overview of the HBiden deposition:

https://twitter.com/Woody4123/status/17 ... 9755055595

how long until these religious wingnuts try to pass a law against pulling out? It would be funny if I didn't think they would be glad to go that far.