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[–] 79 points 1 year ago (14 children)

My 86y old Dad was trying to tell me "but it's Chuck Schumer holding back the vote". When I explained that the three branches of govt are controlled by the Republicans he didn't want to hear it.

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  • [–] 51 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    It is amazing how the democrats are simultaneously incompetent and weak yet at the same time they still control everything even when the right is in charge of everything.

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  • [–] 81 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    Years ago my dad said Obama left the economy in tatters after his 2nd term. I started opening my laptop and said we'd go to the Bureau of Labor Statistics' website so we could look at the hard data over time. He changed the subject and walked away.

    I don't really talk to him anymore unless necessary.

    They're brainwashed to a degree that can't be fixed. They're gone.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    It is not feasible to deprogram over 100 million people. Not sure what comes next.

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  • [–] 2 points 1 year ago

    Nope. And typically when people are deprogrammed it's because they make the commitment to themselves to do it. That's not going to happen here.

    Honestly, what I'm assuming comes next is that over the course of our lives this country will turn into something between North Korea and Russia. There's just too many low IQ brainwashed fools and not enough people left over willing to do what needs to be done to fix this. And this isn't WW2. The rest of the world isn't going to step in to sort it out for us.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Republicans have given zero concessions in the spending bill, yet half the country voted for Democrats. Democrats are asking for basically nothing, yet Republicans won't compromise even slightly

    It's not a coincidence that we have yet another shutdown under Trump. It's a strong arm tactic Republicans use to give zero concessions when passing spending bills

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  • [–] 138 points 1 year ago (22 children)

    So I did some ducking around for a list of Trump's hatch act violations, and it seems there where so many during the 2020 campaign that nobody has gotten around to compiling a list of ones so far this year.

    Apart from this, I know he's used the whitehouse page as his personal blog, and the housing administrations was being used for a political billboard...

    What's the latest rule on how many times one has to blatently break a law before it goes into effect?

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  • [–] 98 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    If Democrat then one.

    If Republican then infinity.

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  • [–] 29 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Remember that time Obama wore tan suit? Such of outrage!

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    That and his infernal time machine. He keeps traveling around in it and doing shit to make Republicans look bad.

    I remember when the conservatives were positively beside themselves, not knowing how to deal with him being biracial. On the one hand, they really, really wanted to use the n-word on some days. On other days, they'd want to, for some odd reason, point out to everyone that he's half-white, you guyz! He was committing the "crime" of being something they could not put in one box, and you just know how the conservative brain cannot deal with ambiguities...

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  • [+] -61 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (15 children)

    If democrat your democrat blue team is infallible but if your republican then your republican red team is infallible

    With football politics the only right people are the ones making you believe you are part of their football team mean political party same thing here in the United States

    As long as the one breaking the rules are from the persons political football team then they are doing no wrong democrat or republican

    Actual merits and job performance and anything else that could make or not make someone hirable does not apply here just blind tribal sports politics ruling the day

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  • [–] 41 points 1 year ago (9 children)

    You made TWO braindead Both Sides arguments under the same post, great job. Forget to sign into your alt account again?

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  • [+] -33 points 1 year ago* (8 children)

    Unlike republicans and democrats do not feel the need for alt accounts or shadow play

    Rather do it in the light out in public

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  • [–] 18 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    Can you give some examples of a time when a Democrat president just flagrantly disregarded the law with absolutely no repercussions

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Andrew Johnson with torpedoing reconstruction?

    Just off the top. As for modern era politics, not really.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago

    Yea, see that's why a question like that has to come with qualifiers. Andrew Johnson was a democrat, but he was a conservative democrat from before the party flip.

    He'd be a republican under the modern party ideals.

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  • [–] 5 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Obama drone striking American nationals on foreign soil with no due process.

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago*

    Leaked Drone Papers

    The White House and Pentagon boast that the targeted killing program is precise and that civilian deaths are minimal. However, documents detailing a special operations campaign in northeastern Afghanistan, Operation Haymaker, show that between January 2012 and February 2013, U.S. special operations airstrikes killed more than 200 people. Of those, only 35 were the intended targets. During one five-month period of the operation, according to the documents, nearly 90 percent of the people killed in airstrikes were not the intended targets. In Yemen and Somalia, where the U.S. has far more limited intelligence capabilities to confirm the people killed are the intended targets, the equivalent ratios may well be much worse.

    The documents show that the military designated people it killed in targeted strikes as EKIA — “enemy killed in action” — even if they were not the intended targets of the strike. Unless evidence posthumously emerged to prove the males killed were not terrorists or “unlawful enemy combatants,” EKIA remained their designation, according to the source. That process, he said, “is insane. But we’ve made ourselves comfortable with that. The intelligence community, JSOC, the CIA, and everybody that helps support and prop up these programs, they’re comfortable with that idea.”

    The source described official U.S. government statements minimizing the number of civilian casualties inflicted by drone strikes as “exaggerating at best, if not outright lies.”

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago)

    Leahy Law

    Multiple provisions in U.S. law restrict the sale or provision of weapons to other countries, including the federal Arms Export Control Act, the Foreign Assistance Act, and the Leahy Law. The open letter draws on evidence from Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International, and other watchdogs to argue that continuing to provide weapons to Israel blatantly violates these laws, in addition to international treaties.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (4 children)

    This comes from a third party football team viewpoint that labels both the dominant teams misguided and seemingly infallible following, while also thinking their alternate team would be infallible if it could play.

    There can be blind loyalty to anything. That's human nature. But you ignore the many times Democrats have burned their own because they do tend to take the higher path, whereas Republicans are more known to march in step and protect their own, usually while projecting onto the left the same behavior they did.

    Your caricature is a strawman of politics. I wish it was as simplistic as you make it out to be.

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  • [–] 0 points 1 year ago

    Yeah, that’s called electoral politics. Do you know how earlier we would’ve gotten civil rights if the right were too busy arguing over who was more racist, whilst letting pro civil rights politicians gain power. Would’ve been awesome.

    Unfortunately, right wingers know when to lock in and stop ANY semblance of progress from the left. I wish the left would figure this out by now.

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  • [+] -8 points 1 year ago* (last edited 1 year ago) (2 children)

    the last president supported segregation of schools

    sorry but dont just grow up from that take it from my great grandparents

    and the last election we had harris and walz who both worked with republicans

    walz worked with trump to take care of protesters that were fighting for all of us to live in a clean environment but hey democrats should get a free pass because they say and do a few good things compared to the republicans who democrats are supposedly fighting against on our behalf

    at the dnc protesters who were fighting for all us there as well to have healthcare, a world without war, living wages, etcetera were locked out but the republicans and celebrities got in and had grand ol' time at the gala

    where does the differences come in and how is does it help when democrats are bathing and sleeping with republicans

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    It's not that you're wrong, it's that you're trying to use a broad brush that groups everyone in the same light. No one is getting a free pass either, all of those have been mentioned in the scope that Democrats need to do better, and stop only going halfway when they manage to get traction. The American people need to do better too, the acceptance that this is how it is contributes to the problem. As does the apathy of "both sides" which you're using here.

    As a side note: I'm usually not a stickler for grammar and spelling, I figure if there is understanding any mistakes are fine in a casual discussion. But I have to say your sentence structure is hard to follow sometimes. A bit better wording would allow your points to flow a bit better.

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  • [–] 139 points 1 year ago (13 children)
    • The House: Republican-controlled
    • The Senate: Republican-controlled
    • The Presidency: Republican-controlled
    • SCOTUS: Republican-controlled

    The democrats have literally no power with which to induce a shutdown. This is the work of republicans.

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  • [–] 19 points 1 year ago* (11 children)

    Need 60 votes in the senate and it’s 53 republicans in there atm

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  • [–] 39 points 1 year ago*

    They can lower it back to 51 like before the no-show filibuster rules and keep it at 51, but that takes away a major tool used for corruption and obstruction. Or they can just not cause people's insurance premiums to skyrocket next year.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago (6 children)
  • [–] 13 points 1 year ago (5 children)

    They don't and they do. They could blow up the filibuster for good, but they don't want Democrats to be able to use the Senate fully with just 51 votes.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    So, in your own words, they just don’t want to end the shutdown then. They absolutely could if they wanted to.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    Yeah, I wasn't exactly disagreeing.

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  • [–] 1 point 1 year ago (1 child)

    I'm in the UK so appreciate the extra detail about how broken your political system is.

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  • [–] 25 points 1 year ago

    They should play that clip of Donald trump that says:

    In my opinion, I hear the Democrats are gonna be blamed, I hear Republicans are gonna be blamed, I actually think the president would be blamed. If there is a shutdown ... I think it would be a tremendously negative mark on the president of the United States. He's the one that has to get people together

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Why would an airport be "playing" a politically biased message in the first place? They're for international travel, not deciding who to vote for..

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  • [–] 53 points 1 year ago (11 children)

    I feel like this is backfiring for Republicans. No one sees them as honest anymore.

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  • [–] 16 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Their base is a bunch of morons, they either STILL don't get it, or will NEVER care. Because aside from pure morons is the pure evil group that gets off on this shit.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    There is no changing the minds of their base, what matters is getting uninterested voters to realize they need to actually participate in democracy while we still have it.

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Unless you live in the giant GOP media bubble where you don’t hear the truth about these folks. Which is 59% of the US.

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  • [–] 9 points 1 year ago

    Seriously. Just go into /r/conservative and look what "news" they are reading. It is all rage-bait stories about violence in the world caused by people of color or immigrants or leftists. There are no stories at all about the shutdown. I was flying home from vacation two days ago and could see the Fox News stories on a guy's TV in front of me. It was all rage-bait with no actual news stories, not even fake news stories blaming Democrats for the shutdown.

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  • [–] 30 points 1 year ago (4 children)
  • [–] 14 points 1 year ago

    It should be zero airports playing that Nazi propaganda.

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  • [–] 12 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    "We have always been at war with Eastasia."

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  • [–] 10 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    I really hope to see her tried in front of an international tribunal and punished accordingly someday

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Why does the real world have to be a YA novel adaptation with paper-thin and one-dimensional villains who are not believable?

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  • [–] 3 points 1 year ago

    Young Adult Dystopian literature, imo, is really under-respected. It captures realities of politics and power in a way that is understandable and relatable to even people with only partially developed minds, and simultaneously it depicts those realities in a way that is often more accurate to reality than the more subtle "adult" approaches. Reality ain't always subtle or complicated. In fact, it's often such a repetitive tune that anyone who really cares to listen to the music is driven nuts by it and wishes it would play a different melody for once. Novelty is a lot more necessary to make entertaining media, but reality has no obligation to be entertaining. Ultimately, I think YA fiction is often great "by accident". In being a product for developing minds who are only hearing the endless hymn of humanity now for the first time in their life, it is able to be entertaining without requiring creativity on behalf of the producers - in the same way that gimmicky toys that sold well 50 (or even 500) years ago can still sell well today: there's a child born every minute who hasn't seen the gimmick yet and isn't old enough to be tired of it. But in the case of YA fiction, the exploitation of this dynamic actually frees authors from the constraint of catering to so-called refined tastes that demand things like subtlety, nuance, creativity, unwillingness to rehash the same old ideas, and so so on. These tastes are really just demands for more stimulating entertainment. As a result, YA lit may not be very entertaining to the perceptive adult reader, but by shedding this need for "lowly" entertainment it can ironically begin to function more like "true art", or at least one flavor of true art: holding up an undistorted mirror to the world regardless of whether you find the reflection entertaining to look at.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    Would be funny if they played that South Park clip instead.

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  • [–] 8 points 1 year ago (1 child)

    Her message in all sports makes this world feel even more dystopian. Throw a sledgehammer at her

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  • [–] 4 points 1 year ago

    Smartly given they don't want air rage to become a thing.

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  • [–] 6 points 1 year ago

    The day I start seeing state propaganda in airports is the day I stop flying.

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  • [+] -53 points 1 year ago* (9 children)

    Should be obvious at this point that democrats and republicans both have repeatedly failed to run the government for the people

    Both parties are just tools for the owner class and past time everyone sees it

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago

    Well, democrats are asking to extend current discounted health insurance costs for everyone and republicans implemented massive tax cuts that gave the top 5% of earners 3-4x the tax benefit compared to the lower 40% Link.

    So no, the parties actually take substantially different views on the so-called owner class.

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  • [–] 7 points 1 year ago

    I remember when I was "bOfE sYdEz" until I got off my lazy fucking ass and started looking up both party's voting history and criminal conviction history and actually started watching representatives from both sides and how they presented themselves and realized that one side was WAY, WAY, WAY better than the other and that you'd have to be an idiot to play the both sides game, especially when the stakes are so high.

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  • [–] 21 points 1 year ago (3 children)

    Are you fucking seriously trying to “both sides” this shit? Yes Democrats have leadership problems, but I haven’t seen the blatantly violate the Hatch act and other laws to use the government like this.

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  • [+] -14 points 1 year ago (2 children)

    As someone who’s followed politics pre-trump. Trust me, the Dems have undoubtedly moved further left, even just 10 years ago.

    Usually there’s like 7-10 Manchins and Sinemas. Now there’s just like 3.

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  • [–] -1 points 1 year ago* (1 child)

    no that is called aging and dying off

    because elections are rigged when the information for the elections are bought/controlled by the same owner class that are trying to sell you products that are also buying politicians and the same owner class that also owns the voting machines that are used to vote for our politicians and the same owner class that owns the local news and national news plus all media

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