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2020 Presidential election

Wes Mantooth said:
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Kicky2-1.jpg


I thought I had a better pic than this. It's Kicky in his Fesenko jersey cheering at a Jazz game.
 
sirkickyass said:
I got a lot more interested in the Tara Reade story when I found out she was fluent enough in Russian to translate Rumi's poems into the language.
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Of course, because her story is so improbable that it's laughable. But her duplicitousness as a Russian asset sent to make claims to take down Trump's opponent is so ******* obvious to common sense, and so vindicatingly intoxicating, that it's obviously got legs.
 
infection said:
Of course, because her story is so improbable that it's laughable. But her duplicitousness as a Russian asset sent to make claims to take down Trump's opponent is so ******* obvious to common sense, and so vindicatingly intoxicating, that it's obviously got legs.
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Honestly, I came away from reading all her blog posts about how hot Putin is with his shirt off on the side of "this lady is just a ****ing weirdo."
 
sirkickyass said:
Honestly, I came away from reading all her blog posts about how hot Putin is with his shirt off on the side of "this lady is just a ****ing weirdo."
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So, in essence, you’re suggesting that her claims of sexual assault didn’t peak your interest, but when you found out she’s translated Russian, and that presumably her allegations of sexual assault maybe aren’t real but instead a result of her working international conspiracy, that this was able to whet your appetite for Russian conspiracy enough to draw interest?
 
sirkickyass said:
The two-party system problem isn't really about the number of parties. It's that we don't have a mechanism for a major political party (in this case the GOP) to naturally die.

In a parliamentary model with lots of parties there's no obvious reason for the white supremacists, the single issue abortion voters and the low tax enthusiasts to be lock step aligned into a single slot of candidates. As demographics and times change narrow issue groups could wax and wane over time naturally. The first past the post system means there's no natural way for the GOP to fade and have something replace it. So the desperate push to prop the infrastructure up become increasingly desperate and weird. Next thing you know, the only person that can unite the base is the most racist and vile one of them all.
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Very interesting to read a train of thought that has been echoing in my head for quite some time (highlighted section).
Unfortunately, I do not see a way we would ever migrate to a parliamentary model. A voter-elected head of the Executive Branch is too important to too many people (and special interests).
 
leftyjace said:
Unfortunately, I do not see a way we would ever migrate to a parliamentary model. A voter-elected head of the Executive Branch is too important to too many people (and special interests).
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We could have, for example, the unitary POTUS and sates with more than one representative assign representatives based on overall state vote totals, as opposed to specific districts. That might cause more problems than it solves.
 
Also, the Russian angle was predictable and inevitable. As can be noted here from my post almost two months ago:

infection said:
Your last sentence contains the conditions upon which all of this is predicated. The task here isn’t to justify nominating someone who’s sexually assaulted someone, it’s to now discredit the individual. Fortunately for them, Russian disinformation provides a palatable backdrop, as does “but Trump.”
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“OMG Russia!” is the left-wing equivalent of “OMG Soros!” with the exception that “OMG Russia!” has a lot more mainstream acceptance, but it’s the same ridiculous premise to take any critique that’s more challenging and throw it up on the background of conspiracy to dissipate it. It even got used against Bernie.
 
Gameface said:
I haven't heard specifics about the allegation. I don't think this turns into an effort to talk about what kind of skirt the accuser was wearing. Again, I think you're going to see this handled in a significantly different way than the Kavanaugh situation was.

If I'm wrong I'll admit it and I'll condemn Biden and the DNC for it emphatically.
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From March 28. I do suppose GF was right that this was handled in a significantly different way than Kavanaugh.
 
infection said:
So, in essence, you’re suggesting that her claims of sexual assault didn’t peak your interest, but when you found out she’s translated Russian, and that presumably her allegations of sexual assault maybe aren’t real but instead a result of her working international conspiracy, that this was able to whet your appetite for Russian conspiracy enough to draw interest?
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I'll be totally honest about this: I didn't closely look into Tara Reade for several weeks for a few reasons. The first is that the whole thing made me uncomfortable. I didn't really want to deal with it and preferred not to look at it directly. Straight up. The second is that there wasn't any useful thing to do with the allegation. By the time I was aware of it, the primaries were effectively over. So there's not much that a principled stand can do when my options are voting between two different men that are accused of sexual assault (and no, I'm not voting third party because being an adult means making difficult choices). I even asked some committed Berners who were really promoting the hell out of Tara Reade what their suggested alternative was if I felt that Trump was clearly unacceptable. They didn't have a good answer.

Confronted with those dual motivations - discomfort and hopelessness - I mostly ignored it.

When it turned out there was a connection to my favorite topic, Russia, I overcame those barriers and looked into it. It's almost like I take an interest in things I find interesting. What a shocker!

And no, I don't think she's part of an international conspiracy. I think she's a mega-weirdo whose motivations are too difficult to unpack. She's in the "useful idiot" camp, not in the "agent of the Kremlin" camp.
 
leftyjace said:
Very interesting to read a train of thought that has been echoing in my head for quite some time (highlighted section).
Unfortunately, I do not see a way we would ever migrate to a parliamentary model. A voter-elected head of the Executive Branch is too important to too many people (and special interests).
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A viable third party could erupt, though. Like, this might sound crazy, but what would happen if Joe Rogan ran for president as an independent? The R’s and D’s are both super vulnerable at the same moment of history.... and it isn’t without precedent that a huge force from a new form of media emerges with a better sail to capture the political winds.
 
infection said:
Also, the Russian angle was predictable and inevitable. As can be noted here from my post almost two months ago:


“OMG Russia!” is the left-wing equivalent of “OMG Soros!” with the exception that “OMG Russia!” has a lot more mainstream acceptance, but it’s the same ridiculous premise to take any critique that’s more challenging and throw it up on the background of conspiracy to dissipate it. It even got used against Bernie.
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Russia actually is a hostile foreign power.
NAOS said:
A viable third party could erupt, though. Like, this might sound crazy, but what would happen if Joe Rogan ran for president as an independent? The R’s and D’s are both super vulnerable at the same moment of history.... and it isn’t without precedent that a huge force from a new form of media emerges with a better sail to capture the political winds.
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I'd love to see the male/female split of his voters.
 
sirkickyass said:
Russia actually is a hostile foreign power.
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Yes, and the existence of Islamic-extremist terror is not a very good justification for someone's fear of their fellow Muslim countrymen trying to enact Sharia law in the United States.
 
RandyForRubio said:
#believeallwomen

Glad that due process is a valid idea now though.
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The importance of due process, and it’s force and function in the rule of law, has barely slipped. You’d never know that, though, if you listened to people of your general political persuasion.
 
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