It just seems silly.

So we have 'bribed Joe' with some very suspicious ties to China, who as late has some very concerning ties with hated enemy of the Democrats, conservative, religious, nationalist Russia.

And we have 'Russia collusion' Trump who apparently got pissed on by Russian hookers in Moscow in exchange for an undying loyalty to Putin (ya I know it sounds ridiculous, I'm not the one that made it up), who as a result of 'the west's sanctions against the Russian economy have developed some very concerning ties with the hated enemy of Republicans, the authoritarian collectivist Chinese Communist Party.

So either way you cut it, we have a POTUS that the opposition thinks is 'owned' by an ally of an enemy foreign power, either Trump who is in league with Russia who is in league with China, or Joe who is in league with China who is in league with Russia. This all due in no small part to our own bipartisan foreign economic policies driving the two nations into economic cahoots.

And then there's RFK, who has no apparent ties to any of our hated foreign enemies, but is something even worse (judging by the lack of support from either side)- a moderately socialist critic of the corporate pharmaceutical industry. How evil...

Does this whole state of affairs seem ridiculous to anyone else?

 

No one?

...Bueller?

 

Vote RFK in 2024. **** the 2 party system and their candidates. They're both crooked to the bone, owned by the two party (one party in reality) system. If either Joe or Trump wins, America is doomed to another 4 years of increased division and distraction from issues that really matter. And hopefully while RFK is in office, some headway is made to crippling the two party system. Judging by the candidates that keep coming back again and again, it is a system based on being crowned by the party, not the will of the voters. I mean, look at this election. Both parties already have their primary candidate set in stone with absolutely zero input from voters. Where is the democracy? It's all a ****ing illusion. The only opposition to the crowned candidates that are allowed in are those that have no hope of defeating the chosen ones at the polls.

 

Politics in general seems ridiculous to me. I'm embarrassed to admit that it entertains me since I don't really approve of it.

 

Agreed.

What's a realistic alternative though? Sure, ideally, everyone just votes for the candidate which most closely reflects their own values, but even in multi-party systems, that tends to result in backroom alliances between multiple parties that result in people being elected with support of an even smaller percentage of the electorate.

...and we can probably agree that a one party system isn't beneficial.

If we outlawed 'parties', I imagine they would be formed unofficially anyway, and we wouldn't have the benefit of knowing if a candidate subscribed to one and which one.

As it stands, I chalk it up to what Churchill said: 'Democracy is the worst form of govt ...except for the all the others.'

 

I'm not sure. One step in the right direction would be the reversal of Citizens United vs FEC though. While corruption has always been in the parties for sure, allowing corporations and similar groups unlimited funding to campaigns completely wrecked any semblance of a fair election. I think it destroys free speech, rather than the SC decision saying that denying corporations the ability to donate destroys free speech. By giving corporations and other special interests the ability to donate, it completely drowns out everyone else that does not have those resources. We should start there, though it does nothing to break the two party system.

 

The right has many suspicions about Biden, but NO evidence (not even an accusation). They have tons of evidence against Trump (and 91 indictments), but the deity is above suspicion.

Yep! That DEFINITELY sounds silly!

 

The most ridiculous thing ever in my life is tRaitor tRump's continued support ... by any ... one.

 

Seems to me the issue there is institution of corporate personhood. And I think the SC was ruling based on that institution, and perhaps saying in their very legalese manner something to the effect of 'if a corporation is a legal person, then it has the legal right to speech.' I see no reason why a corporation needs to have the right of personhood in the first place. Why is a corporation a 'person' but other non-corporate businesses arent? Seems business can continue without the biggest ones having a fake legal persona to hide behind...

The SC is very much an entity of 'if you ask the wrong question, you get the wrong answer.' And the question (so far as I know) has never been put to it as 'should a corporation have the same rights that the actual people within it already have'? Maybe thats not even their jurisdiction, and something that needs to be addressed at the congressional level. But it hasn't there either, as far as I know, its just been 'how we do' all the way back to the Roman Empire. And its worth noting that some scholars have theorized that it was these early corporations and the inherrent corruption they generate that was a large contributing factor in the Empire's collapse.

 

His latest title, which he has definitely earned, is 'genocide Joe'. What he has done to earn that sickens me. He has used my tax dollars to fund the butchering of innocents. I will never, ever vote for someone that has made America so complicit in such evil. What really pisses me off, is that the only real alternative is Trump, someone I revile almost as much, but not quite. That leaves RFK (who I disagree with for his apparent support of Israel, but I think he would show stronger leadership to keep Israel from going overboard), whom I am hoping has a chance, but with the dominance of the broken 2 party system, it will be a very slim chance. I want at least 10 viable options with RANKED voting when I go to vote in the general election, not just the two turds that beat out the bigger turds in the primaries. I want the media to have no ****ing idea who is going to win because it is so difficult to poll such things when a ranked system is in place.

Hopefully it is a reality one day.

 

The craziness is a result of us mismanaging the economy and blaming each other for this...




We've had a half-century of flat real wages. Older workers with dated skills have often seen their real wage drop and with it their position in the middle class. Being worried about the basics drives people mad.

 

I'd reckon its far worse than that, in regards to real wealth as opposed to just the dollar amount of goods. For example, investors shorting gold to lower its price while leveraging it against real estate to inflate property values, reduce market participation in home ownership and transfer to a rental economy isn't typically represented well in the calculation of raw inflation which most typically is calculated using things like meat and grain and gasoline. Its 10x more expensive to buy a home today, relative to inflation-adjusted income, than it was in 1950. The result is that the cost of rent has increased similarly, so not only are we making less relative to productivity, but we spend all we make on just having a place to live.

The only to way to reverse this is to reduce property values, and trying to do that without toppling the whole economy is a daunting and risky prospect. But so is continuing our trend towards the '1%' not only owning all the employment, but also the food and the housing, then it wont matter if we all make $1M/hr, rent will raise to match and leave even the millionaires barely scraping by.

That all say- you're right, lack of wage growth is killing us, but raising it aint gonna fix the problem, because money isn't real wealth and we're losing control of the prices of the things that are.

 

Where the **** is my "always has been" meme?

Its always been like this. Every ****ing election. They're just rather more obvious about it being the case this year.

 

Gonna be the most insulting election year ever.. Both parties are going to go all out separating the stupid from the savvy

 

Republicans like to play with the bribed-Joe narrative to say that China has unfair representation in the white house, but let's remember that as far back as Obama, the USA has been trying to pivot to the Asian theater, and it's Joe's term when Nancy Pelosi took her trip to Taiwan. Looks like China doesn't hold as much power over Joe as some think.

 

What sickens ME is that MAGAs who give these meaningless nicknames with no evidence of wrongdoing support a PROVEN criminal to be President.

The reason it sickens me because we now must fact the fact that so many of our countrymen have completely abandoned all contact with reality for the sake of one "deity".

 

Yes, I deal in real dollars.

A house bought in 1984 for $114,000 would fetch $2m today. Using the BLS inflation calculator...

https://www.bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm

that would be $333,898.75 in January 2024. Increased rent and home prices are a misery, especially for young people.

Of course, the longer they put off reversing asset values, the greater risk to economic stability.

 

What do you mean no evidence??? He has been supporting Israel since the start, and has refused to stop funding the genocide. We see the evidence daily of the atrocities the Israelis are committing, and it is being done with the weapons WE supply. AND we have cut support for UNRWA, where Israel claims 12 out of 30,000 worked with Hamas. Palestinians depend on the work of UNRWA. Biden is financing their slaughter while denying them humanitarian support. The nickname 'Genocide Joe' is definitely earned.

I despise what Trump has done, but his sins pale in comparison to what Biden has enabled in Gaza.

 

R.I.P. the U.S. Constitution...

Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Co.

Making them persons gives corporations too much power.

 

I think what Trump did to this country is far worse than Biden did regarding Gaza.

 

Agree to disagree I guess. I view dropping bombs on innocent civilians, murdering tens of thousands of children, and displacing and starving millions more, as far worse by an order of magnitude than political disagreements in the USA. A matter of perspective I suppose.

 

Terrible that the funds have been misused by Netanyahu, but unavoidable. There are too many factors in play. Once Biden has control of the funds, he can pressure Netanyahu to shift policies. And it would be impossible to obtain aid for countries that REALLY protect us, like Ukraine, unless this funding is also approved.

There is no good way to handle a situation like this. But this is our best chance to pressure for an ultimate solution. To stop funding is not going to accomplish that. And it could have the opposite effect by giving terrorists a victory.

As I said, there are too many factors in play.

 

I completely disagree. Have you seen the weak-ass press briefings over how we treat Israel? Utterly pathetic and embarrassing. Saying there are 'too many factors in play' is a ridiculous excuse. We are the United States of America, not some third world republic. And give the terrorsits a victory? Have you been watching the news? The IDF ARE the terrorists right now, causing far more terror than Hamas could ever dream of.

If this is all the most powerful, influential country on the planet can accomplish, then it is an utter failure of leadership. Or, we are directly complicit. In either case, the current leadership needs to go. the sooner the better.

 

We MUST treat Israel as our allies, and as the best hope for having an adult in the room to end this conflict.

Netanyahu is the terrorist. The IDF follows his orders. If you remove Netanyahu, the IDF will follow the orders of whomever replaces him. Both countries have lost civilians to terrorism on BOTH sides. I REJECT the insinuation that one side has somehow "stopped" being terrorist because the terrorists on other side has killed more.

I wish this were as simple as us not providing aid, and then the slaughter would stop. WE are the only ones standing between Netanyahu and all out ethnic cleansing.

I have been engaged in many debates with posters on both sides: pro and anti-Israel (by which I mean their policy). The one thing they all have in common is that BOTH sides is that they oversimplify the problem. A binary solution in which we side with "the good guys" would be GREAT. But it just doesn't EXIST.

 

On what basis do you assume our support is unconditional?

I agree the response has been way over the top, solves nothing, and actually makes matters worse even for Israel.

Because you have already somehow determined that the aid is unconditional?

This contradicts most of what you wrote. For example, to support the right of all people to live in relative security and "prefer" Trump, who orchestrated an insurrection and has given comfort to right wing terrorists in our country, to win? To condemn Biden for being (without any evidence) a "weak leader" but to prefer somebody who is submissive to a Russian dictator who just murdered his main opponent? ... Just to mention two. Too many contradictions can only be explained by you arriving at definite conclusions with very few facts to support it. My advice to anybody is against doing that.