jhymesba

@jhymesba@lemmy.world

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jhymesba,

And it’s a joke that has been played on Americans since forever. There’s a way out of it, but it’s not easy, and you better bet your ass that BOTH parties will fight to keep the status quo. If you want change, you need to do the following things.

  1. Vote for Biden because if Trump wins, he has plans to take over.
  2. Push immediately after the election for Ranked Choice Voting.
  3. Unless and until 2 is achieved, get your guys and gals running as Democrats and vote for them in the Primaries, then vote for the Republican in the general. The GQP showed how well that works as Team Pepe is getting exactly what they want.
jhymesba,

No. They won’t. The United States has always had a taste for authoritarianism. There’s a burning desire for people that serve in these not so United States, and everyone thinks that they deserve to be served and don’t give two shits about their fellow Americans. It isn’t stupidity that guides these people. It’s assholery, and the desire to lord it over other people. Don’t ascribe to incompetence what should be ascribed properly to malice where MAGA is concerned.

jhymesba,

Your election system allowed Doug Ford to win the Premiership of Ontario with 2.3 million votes, despite the NDP winning 1.9 million votes and the Liberal party winning 1.1 million votes. In fact, Ford won Ontario with a net margin of victory of -991,722 votes. That is to say, he lost the popular vote by almost a million votes, and still win the majority of seats. Here’s a few highlights

8 ridings went for the Progressive Conservatives in a margin narrower than 1000. These are:

  • Ottawa West - Nepean (175 MoV, 16.4k NDP, 14.8k Lib)
  • Brantford - Brant (635 MoV, 23.8k NDP, 5.6k Lib)
  • Brampton West (490 MoV, 14.5k NDP, 7.0k Lib)
  • Sault Ste. Marie (414 MoV, 13.1k NDP, 3.2k Lib)
  • Kitchener-Conestoga (686 MoV, 16.3 NDP, 6.0k Lib)
  • Kitchener South - Hespeler (770 MoV, 15.7k NDP, 6.3k Lib)
  • Eglinton-Lawrence (957 MoV, 9.0k NDP, 19.0k Lib)
  • Scarborough-Rouge Park (963 MoV, 15.3k NDP, 8.8k Lib)

Had less than 1000 people in each of these ridings from the smaller left wing party given their votes to the larger left-wing party, 8 seats would have been taken from the Progressive Conservatives (leaving them with 68 seats), and the NDP would have gained 7 seats (47) and the Libs would have gained 1 (going up to 8).

This is the same for another 23 ridings, but with a larger margin of victory. These ridings were nevertheless won by fewer votes than were sent to the smaller left-wing party. If we subtract these 23 seats, the PCs would have been down to 45 seats, enough for the NDP to have more seats before we allocate these 23 seats between the Libs, NDP, and Greens.

I like a lot of things about Canada, but I don’t like this fact about your country, and I don’t want it imported into the United States. Wisconsin, Michigan, and Pennsylvania went to Trump in 2016 not because more people voted for Trump’s policies than against them, but because enough people bought the bullshit that Clinton was corrupt and no better than Trump and voted third party or stayed home. Had the Stein voters used a bit of common sense and rethought their votes, we could have avoided 4 years of utter shitshow here. Canadian politics won’t help us here. All we need to do is look at your province of Ontario and see that clear as day.

jhymesba,

An interesting thought exercise. What if Ontario used Proportional Representation. Ford would have gotten 76 seats, but he’d have seen an Ontario Parliament that was 187 or 188 seats. Of these:

  • The NDP would have gotten another 22 seats, in addition to their 40 won seats, for 62 total seats.
  • The Liberals would have gotten another 29 seats, in addition to their 7 won seats, for 36 total seats.
  • The Greens would have gotten 7 additional seats, plus their 1 won seat, for a total of 8 seats.
  • 5 seats would have to be allocated between the NDP, Liberals, and Greens since the Progressive Conservatives shouldn’t be entitled to more than 40.5% of the seats as they got 40.5% of the vote.

We’d have to amend the US constitution to make this happen here, but I think you guys could just do it with a law there. But this is what ifs and coulda-bens. The as-is shows clearly why we don’t want to import your political system here. Democrats would never win an election again if we split our votes like Ontarians split theirs…

jhymesba,

Let’s just say for a moment you’re right and Democrats increase harm. Sure, they take Korporate Kampaign Kash (the other KKK), and are always about the donor class, and we can sure hit them on this. They’re feckless, always finding reasons we couldn’t POSSIBLY do Left-Wing priorities, and yeah, I’m pissed about how many times Manchin Lucy-Yanked the football on us this last term. They’d rather please the donor class than us, because, well, frankly, I can’t pay for an all-expenses paid junket to exotic places with exotic food and exotic people quite the same way as Mr. Gates and Mr. Dimon and Mr. Bezos and Mr. Musk can. It pisses me off that I have to sit so far back on the table while all the big names get to wine and dine President Biden and the Democratic Party, while I get a few scraps from the table.

We’ll ignore the fact that the scraps I have gotten have finally made it so I can quit schooling and realistically pay my Student Loans now that it’s capped to 5% of your disposable income, and that I only have to pay that for 10 years rather than 25 or more because of PSLF. We’ll ignore the fact that I got quick and free access to a vaccine that ended COVID as a threat to me, and that I am able to work from home because my (Democratic) governor said ‘we’re out of the business of commercial real-estate. Everyone, your home is your office now.’ Between the vaccine and the not having to crowd on public transit with people who are frankly nasty, I haven’t gotten sick more often than once a year. But hey, the Dems increase harm according to you, so let’s go with that. Why trust my lying eyes eh?

OK. The Democrats are the equivalent of slow-driving a car towards a cliff. The Republicans? They have a plan for what they want to do. What does it include?

  • Fire Federal employees who refuse to implement Trump’s conservative manifesto for the USA.
  • End FBI attempts to police misinformation (oh, sorry, “Speech”).
  • Ban abortion pills federally.
  • Enforce Comstock Act to ban the mailing of abortion pills.
  • Exclude abortion coverage from Medicade
  • Ban unfriendly news media from the White House press pool.
  • Enforce unitary executive theory practices.
  • Schedule F - Replace tens of thousands of career bureaucrats with hand-picked conservative plants, which will require a similar overreach by the next Democrat, assuming we are allowed to pick one as POTUS, to undo.
  • Reverse liberal policies.
  • Removing references to abortions.
  • Defunding clinics that provide abortion services
  • Defund Dept of Justice and FBI
  • Target Political foes and unfriendly media orgs.
  • Restrict LGBTQ+ rights.
  • Rollback of climate policies.
  • Force Conservative policies on us
  • "Family Values"
  • “Christian Values”
  • “Traditional Gender Roles”

So, when I say the Democrats are slow-driving the car towards the cliff, if you let the Republicans behind the wheel, they’re gonna stomp on the gas as hard as they can, and they’re gonna rocket that sucker off the edge.

It may suck to you having to make this choice, but it’s what America offers. There are no other options in the USA thanks to our antiquated system of electing representatives. Pick the slow choice, or the fast choice will rocket you and everyone else off right…fucking…now.

PS: in case it’s not clear, I disagree with the heart of your argument, but for the sake of pointing out that even under your own assumptions, it’s better to vote D than R, I entertained it long enough to explain why you’re a fucking moron for pushing not to vote for Dems.

jhymesba,

What makes you think anyone is upset? Ridicule comes not from people being upset about something, but thinking that this is the dumbest thing they’ve seen in quite a while. Getting ridicule should tell you you need to be a bit more introspective about what you’re doing. And since this is Trump we’re talking about here, we know that shithead isn’t going to be introspective about anything, so we just point out the irony that Trump claims he has “very strong support, so very strong” with the Black community, but can’t seem to find a single Black person to put in his photos of the event.

jhymesba,

Got called out for your bullshit here, I see. Biden is spreading it around, as other posters have said, touring this massive country of 300+ million fucking people as best as one man possibly can. And while I’m not thrilled with everything he’s done, I’m still voting for him. Why? Because it’s the best thing to do. I should do it. And so should you. Fuck off with the bullshit already. November is a choice between two visions for America. One gets us in line with other countries by reining in Student Loan payments, improving our infrastructure, and generally making progress fast enough to affect us in this lifetime, while not giving the Right extra motivation to go hate-vote our guys and gals out, and the Centre more motivation to stay home, vote third party, or even join the Right in voting our guys and gals out. The other…is fucking Project 2025. Go look that shit up if you don’t know about it. Apparently 2/3rds of the country doesn’t realise how much of a threat it really is.

jhymesba,

Or as I like to put it: He could be in bed with a live boy, a dead girl, a half-eaten puppy, a half-eaten kitten, and then take a massive diarrhoea dump in the middle of the bed on live TV, and his supporters would still support him.

jhymesba,

One of the two will be President in 2025. And I just don’t buy the ‘Biden is slow because he’s older.’ In fact, I’m not voting against Trump exclusively. I am actually voting for Biden, and that link is why you should as well.

jhymesba,

Thank you for saying this.

Team Red put in serious effort to drag this country hard right. They can taste victory in the air and have YUGE plans for remaking this country into the Authoritarian Right-Wing Dictatorship they’ve been craving since Bush’s years. Fuck 50 years of Republican rule. They want a Permanent Republican Majority (for at LEAST 20 years), and they’ll tear down Democracy (because that has to have something to do with Democrats, am I right) to get it.

If the Right functioned like the Left did, the Republicans would be locked out of the political system at the first hint of adversity. But they didn’t, because the Right-Wing Shitheads’ answer to RINOs was to organise and work to push them out of office in favour of hard-right ideologues. Vote for the Conservative in the Primary and the Republican in the General. That’s their motto.

Right-Wing Shitheads win when people like go_go_gadget convince our voters they should sit home because they didn’t get exactly what they want. It’s all hands on deck to stop a naked Fascist takeover of the country, and we need to be calling the idiots on our side out whenever they push these memes that the best answer to feckless politicians on our side is to take your ball and go home.

To all of you saying stay home or vote third party, this is exactly how the country keeps shifting Right.

jhymesba,

It is. Really, it is. Just look at what Trump did to everything you supposedly care about from 2017 through 2020. I said in 2020 that had we elected Hillary Clinton POTUS, we’d at least not have backslid as hard as we did from 2017 to 2020. But people had to express their displeasure at Hillary, and stayed home or voted Third Party, and from 2017 until 2020, they got what they voted for, hard, without lube.

It’s the same thing now in 2024. Biden HAS made concrete gains in areas I’m interested in, ranging from investing in green energy, pushing for domestic chip production, and standing up for minority rights in all areas. Trump plans on reversing all of that and then some with his Project 2025. Stay home and get Project 2025.

jhymesba,

You can apologize for something you can’t change. I apologize for people all the time, despite knowing I can’t change them. And that’s how this apology was. “We failed you because some of us are knuckle-dragging morons. I know this apology won’t fix anything, but know that we’re trying despite the fools trying to hold us back.”

jhymesba,

Well, let’s think about that. In 2023, only 27% of Americans identified as Democrats. This matched the number of people who identified as Republicans, while a massive 43% picked ‘independent’ as the party of choice. However, when you ask voters what political ideology they identify with, you get a more interesting numbers. 29% of people describe themselves as Socially Liberal or Very Liberal, and only 21% describe themselves as Fiscally Liberal or Very Liberal. This means that 71% of people do not see themselves as Socially Liberal in any way (and 38% see themselves as Socially Conservative to some degree!), and a stunning 79% do not see themselves as Fiscally Liberal in any way (with 44% seeing themselves as Fiscally Conservative to some degree!). So, is there some amount of wonder that Biden might try to tact in the direction where the majority of Americans are?

44% of Americans lean in the direction of Fiscal Conservatism, and another 35% don’t see themselves as Conservative, but also don’t see themselves as Liberal. Biden’s got to reach out to this group of people, because he can’t win with 21% of the vote. So instead of bitching at him, maybe motivate more of that 79% who are Fiscally Moderate or Conservative but possibly Socially Liberal to embrace your policies, while turning out reliably for the leftest main stream party candidate between the Rs and the Ds until you can get RCV passed, then make sure to get your people to rank people from the left to the centre and not rank the right-wing candidates.

jhymesba,

On top of this, you have the bigger picture. What will happen if Trump wins?

  • It will get harder to go to college, as Trump works to gut Pell Grants and cap Stafford Loans.
  • If you have gone to college, it will get harder as Trump will increase the monthly amount you have to pay and not reward you for going into lower-paying public service jobs.
  • Gay marriage will be put on the chopping block.
  • Laws stopping discrimination against Gays and Minorities will be repealed and/or not enforced.

This is just the most benign parts of Project 2025. It gets worse from there.

So, on top of more people dying, we’ll suffer here at home because of idiots like Maggoty here.

jhymesba,

Are you fucking kidding me with this bullshit?! You don’t really believe this, do you?

To them, we’re all a bunch of baby-eating, baby-fucking Satan worshippers, the most evil sort of evil, and you don’t compromise with evil. Gawd is on their side, and we’re the devil incarnate to be opposed by word all the time, and by action (with guns) when they feel they can get away with it. Don’t believe me? See this article and know that these people are fucking nuts and fucking real.

The only ones that can pull them out of the BS factory are they themselves. And unless and until they choose to do so, I am sure fucking going to keep ridiculing them.

Our better play is to stop thinking that we can tolerate 4 more years of Trump just because we didn’t get EVERYTHING we wanted out of Biden. The Trumpers are firmly devoted to their God-Emperor, and those who are voting GQP who don’t like Trump are despicable and unreachable in their own rights.

jhymesba,

Nah, it’s you missing the point.

Trump wasn’t convicted for who he was. He doesn’t get a pass because of who he is or the fact he’s running for President, either. A jury of 12 people unanimously declared that the prosecution proved their case 34 times. Any one of them could have said no to the charges. In fact, one seemed to be very interested in that course of action. But in a room with only 11 other people, he weighed the evidence, considered the charges, listened to the arguments made by both the Defence and Prosecution, and then, with all of that weighing on his mind, and with the added weight of his conscience, came to the conclusion that he couldn’t get Trump off on a SINGLE charge.

Put Trump’s supporters on a jury for a trial of a Black man doing the shit Trump did, they’d ABSOLUTELY convict that Black man of the charges they insist were cooked up for Trump on the exact same evidence, WHILE protesting that Trump was unfairly convicted by “Demoncrat plants and lawyers and Deep State Operatives”. Fortunately, our court system is designed to filter out these kinds of people, which is why I don’t buy your bullshit about ‘corrupting the legal system’. It’s not corrupted, despite all the effort Team Pepe puts into it. Now buzz off with your nonsense.

jhymesba,

His message here is that Republicans can SAY whatever they want to to pollsters, and there’s a movement out on Team Pepe to do just that.

“We’re an empire now, and when we act, we create our own reality. And while you’re studying that reality, judiciously, as you will, we’ll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that’s how things will sort out. We’re history’s actors, and you, all of you, will be left to just study what we do.”

Never forget that.

jhymesba,

Another voice calling you out on this bullshit.

Team Blue has kicked and will kick members out who give the party a bad name. Hell, they’ll kick 'em out before the conviction. That doesn’t happen with Republicans, with only Santos (gee, Hispanic name, I wonder why) facing the music for his bullshit in all of the GQP.

Fuck this Both Sides bullshit. It’s not true, and we shouldn’t stand for it.

jhymesba,

Fuck off.

jhymesba,

Fucking true enough. Fuck off with your touch grass bullshit.

jhymesba,

He is the least awful Senator WV will vote for. I guarantee you the next guy who sits in that seat will be an utter, abject shithead with Confederate and/or Nazi flags on his walls and a bible dogeared to all the parts that hates gays and advocates death to non-believers, with the pages that say love thy neighbours untouched and unstained because the shithead never opened his bible up to those pages because those are all liberal crap.

jhymesba,

Waste of a perfectly good explanation, but I’m with you here.

jhymesba,

Now I can say that anyone who is voting for Trump is voting for an outright convicted felon and they can shut that shit down about being the party of law and order once and for all!!!

'Confused' Judge Cannon needed concept explained 'slowly' to her in court by lawyers: NYT (www.rawstory.com)

As part of an analysis of how U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Florida Judge Aileen Cannon, reports from her courtroom show a judge who is both “prickly” and" insecure" and often has trouble understanding what lawyers from both sides try to explain to her....

jhymesba,

I’m not sure why you got downvoted for this, so I upvoted it.

The Democrats are having a hell of a time making things work out for them. Every election they have, they are at BEST tied and frequently have times where they are under water on polling. The average person has no idea what the Dems have done for him, and only sees ‘muh gas cost more, muh groceries cost more, and it’s all Biden’s fault.’

Biden’s numbers go up when he Dark Brandons, but they don’t stay that way because the Right’s bullshit is non-stop and never-ending. You get force-fed it by supposedly ‘left’-leaning organisations like CNN and MSNBC. The only voices those media outlets let speak are the ones hand-wringing about the latest thing Dems got wrong, and of course constant non-stop coverage of the worst aspects of the protests on the Left. And then Biden goes back to being quiet. We voters on the left are basically treated like mushrooms, ‘fed shit and kept in the dark.’ Moderates start buying the rhetoric that inflation is Biden’s fault and Biden’s responsibility to fix, despite the fact that profits are at an all-time high.

I’d be careful about calling Trump an idiot. You don’t get where he has gotten while being an idiot. Let’s not attribute to incompetence what SHOULD be attributed to malice. Trump failed to get where he wanted to be because he underestimated the bureaucracy. He’s not planning on doing that this time, nor are his backers, and the Project to Dismantle American Democracy (euphemistically called Project 2025) details EXACTLY how he intends to do it.

Trump’s shitting the bed is intentional, because he knows that he could broadcast a live TV video feed during prime time of him in bed, with a live boy, a dead girl, a half-eaten puppy, and a half-eaten kitten, and then take a massive shit right in the middle of that bed, and 30% of Americans would vote for him with no reservations, and another 15-20% would vote for him ‘because he’s our guy who shits the bed and not the other guy or gal.’ As he famously said, he could shoot somebody on 5th Avenue and those 30% would STILL vote for him. America has a taste for authoritarianism (as it always has, REALLY, some people need to study history), and Trump has leveraged that for political gain.

We need to stop underestimating Trump’s ability and intelligence, and by ‘we’, I mean the Democratic Party leadership, starting all the way at the top with President Biden. It’s time for Dark Brandon to come out and not go back home until after Election Day, and for heavens sake, keep trotting him out the next four years.

PS: Let’s either swap Harris out, or make her start being the face of this Admin. Biden can’t run in 2028, and if Trump Sr. isn’t there to capitalise on this, Trump Jr. or some other authoritarian jerk will be, as will Project 20259.

jhymesba,

Some people just exist to shit on other people for no particular reason except to shit on people…

jhymesba,

“Neolib.” drink!

(Not really. If I started playing a drinking game on YOUR bullshit, I’d die of alcohol poisoning.)

jhymesba,

I’d point out here that before 1980, and especially before 1970, Democrats were a completely different breed. Don’t forget that the Democrats had the Dixiecrats as a major constituent. These people are now the core voters of the GOP, and have held the Solid South since 1865. So you could say racist shitheads have ran the congress since 1932.

jhymesba,

Man, it is so hard to summarize a 900 page document in a few paragraphs. The way the article from the Guardian article puts it, it sounds like just usual Conservative priorities. We need it to be much more in-depth…

jhymesba,

Sad thing I was about to downvote you until I read the very last sentence. Man, it is Poe all around out there. There ARE people stupid enough to say this shit.

jhymesba,

Biden tried to do more than he accomplished, but got shot down by right-wing courts and the two ‘moderates’ in Manchin and Sinema. You think Sanders could have done better, given what Biden faced?

jhymesba,

The KKK did NOT endorse Hillary in 2016, nor Biden in 2020. Guess who they endorsed, Mr. Perry? Pro-Tip: He’s running on your side this year and is currently grousing in a courtroom as they determine if he broke the law or not…

jhymesba,

You are the very definition of a single issue voter, and your single issue is far closer in nature to your complaints here about the issue you are poo-pooing here.

Israel is an 18 hour flight that costs almost $2000 for most Americans. The quickest flight is 12 hours and $1k. For most Americans, especially given how insular most Americans are, Israel might as well be on another planet. They might feel sorry for the Palestinians killed by Israelis, but then again, they may also feel sorry for the Israelis abducted and killed by Hamas. For most people, there are no heroes in the Israel-Hamas war, only villains, and for those who REALLY care about this, there’s a significant number of people who view HAMAS and Palestine as the bad guy, and leaving Israel to hang will piss them off, and take their votes and, for the rich ones, their money away to other political parties. That’s a far bigger deal to the Democrats than college kids who can’t be trusted to get out and vote on election day.

You’re being told to vote blue no matter who because the reality of the political system is that at the end of the day, one of two people will be in the White House come Election Day. The Republican or the Democrat. So you have to look at what the Republican and the Democrat are offering you, and pick the BEST of the two options from that list*.

Team Red is promising you that if you vote for them, they’ll take the country back to the 1950s. Where Blacks were put in their place as subhumans, and women in their place as baby-factories. Where White Men ran the show and everyone else sat down and shut the fuck up. Where the Left was in league with the Commies and where gays were drugged and killed, not allowed to get married. Donald Trump, who WILL be their standard bearer for three elections in a row, is openly admiring the likes of Orban, Netanyahu (no chance he’s helping the Palestinians!), Kim, and above all, Putin (defeating an authoritarian Russia is important to a lot of Lefties, too, considering they are going in the direction of Czarist Russia pre-Communism). A vote for Team Red may be the last free vote you ever make!

Team Blue, for all its faults, is a party that stands for libertarian ideals, the freedom to choose to live your life the way you wish within reason, and influence the government with votes. Were Team Red not so horrible for ALL Americans and indeed the entire world, Team Blue would simply say ‘vote for us next time and we’ll clean up the mess you made when you voted for the other guys this time.’ If you actually care about gays, transgenders, minorities, women, the environment, consumers, workers, and so on, you have to realise that Team Red is against all those people and Team Blue is for all those people. Even with as wishy washy as Biden is being over Palestinians, you have to realise that Biden is at least telling Netanyahu “Our support isn’t unlimited. You need to dial this shit down or my hand may be forced by my constituents.” Pro-tip: Trump will say “Go ahead. Kill every last one of those filthy muslims. My constituents like that shit and I’m busy jailing everyone who doesn’t.”

In the end, you’re being told Vote Blue no Matter Who because a vote for Team Red, or indeed any other party including a non-vote may be the last fucking vote you’re ever allowed to take.

(*): Unless you live in Alaska or Maine or one of the towns that allows RCV. Here, feel free to vote Green as long as Blue is your second choice.

PS: I studied the fall of the Iranian Resistance and the rise of the Ayatollah in an undergrad Political Science class back in undergrad. Important lesson: Khomeini rose to Supreme Leader by dividing the Left and making them fight amongst themselves after they worked together to overthrow the Shah. So did Hitler, honestly. It’s a time-tested tradition to throw in division on the Left because it works so fucking well. WE need to be the Left that doesn’t break to this, because Trump is counting on us breaking so he can do here what Hitler did to Germany and Khomeini did to Iran. You pushing so hard for that serves Trump’s purposes. Any wonder why you’re getting so many downvotes?

jhymesba,

It works so well. See: Iran, Russia, China, and Nazi Germany for just a FEW examples of the Left fucking itself over and being played by Authoritarians.

jhymesba,

Not so much rabidly pro-Israel as ‘there are no heroes here, just villains’. At least on the Left.

jhymesba,

Here’s some pragmatism for you.

  • Leaving Israel to hang out to dry will open up America to accusations that it gives in too easily to ‘antisemitic’ rhetoric and doesn’t really care for Jews. Don’t think that can happen? It already has.
  • Putin and Netanyahu, despite not being as close today, have historically been close, and Israel is a pretty friendly nation to Russia, with the third most common language spoken in Israel being Russian, and the third ranked non-Soviet state in terms of Russian speakers being Israel.
  • Jews represent roughly 5.8 million Americans, compared to roughly 3.5 million. And Jews, as a whole, lean heavily towards Democrats, with roughly half of those polled in 2018 identifying with Team Blue. And while almost 60%, we’re still talking 2.9 million Jews versus 2.1 million Muslims. Doing what you say you want him to do will lose him many of those 2.9 million votes, and if he listens to the most vocal of the people saying they won’t vote for him, he has to wonder how much of the 2.1 million other votes he’ll get back.
  • And of course, the rest of the Middle East is just WAITING for us to stop protecting Israel. They’ve wanted Israel gone since 1949, and we are the only reason that hasn’t happened. I’m sure that’s entered Biden’s pragmatic evaluation, too!

How’s that for pragmatism for ya?

Leaked Cables Show White House Opposes Palestinian Statehood (theintercept.com)

Ahead of the United Nations Security Council action to consider the Palestinian Authority’s application to become a full member of the international body, the United States is lobbying nations to reject such membership, hoping to avoid an overt “veto” by Washington. The lobbying effort, revealed in copies of unclassified...

jhymesba,

From the quote above:

The cable says that Security Council members must be persuaded to reject any proposal for Palestinian statehood — and thereby its recognition as a sovereign nation — before the council’s open debate on the Middle East, scheduled for April 18.

jhymesba,

THANK YOU. This is what I was wanting to say.

The Middle East is a mess. Israel is hated by literally everyone around them, and I guarantee you that Russia is waiting in the wings for us to do the stupid thing and stop backing Israel. It would solidify Russia’s ties with Iran, weaken America’s stance in the Middle East, and make us look bad internationally. I guaranfuckingtee you that if Israel gets glassed by its numerous opponents in the Middle East because America held up aid over Gaza, that shit will be spun WORLD WIDE as America giving in to Antisemitism, which will be hung STRAIGHT on the Global Left’s shoulders. It’s fucking transparent. And calling Biden a genocidal Zionist just plays RIGHT into Russia and the Global Right’s agenda. Again, if you’re saying that bullshit, you’re either part of the Right-Wing attack on the Left, or you are a useful idiot being leveraged by the Global Right as a weapon to hit the Left with.

Oh, if I only had more Upvotes to give you, kescusay. :)

jhymesba,

I get it. Investigations take time. And maybe that’s my own toxic meme I’ve taken in. We gotta get this right the first time or Trump skates on a technicality. And we all know how skilled of a technicality skater that fucker is.

jhymesba,

Straw man argument, those police are not part of the executive branch, nor were they punished or prohibited from doing so again by the new executive.

The police I was speaking of with the line 'unmarked, literally secret as in unknown, police came in and abducted people protesting the murder of a Black dude` referred to the Federal agents that abducted and abused people in Seattle protesting the police you are mentioning murdering a Black dude. Before you throw an ad-hominem masquerading as an accusation of logical fallacy, maybe try reading the entire damn sentence and understanding what it says?

The complaint isn’t that Joe Biden isn’t exactly what I want, it’s that every time someone lays valid criticism at his feet and army of simps comes out to defend him with comparisons to trump.

Because you have one of two options, Biden or Trump, in the upcoming election, and if Biden doesn’t win, Trump will, and my argument is that will be WORSE. If you’re REALLY interested in holding Biden accountable, you should be turning out in EVERY election, and voting the progressive in the primary, and the Democrat in the general. But know it’s an uphill battle. Only 26 of America can be cajoled into labelling themselves a Liberal, let alone a Progressive, and 74% of America, when asked what they are, pick Moderate or Conservative. I’ll come back to that in a bit.

Again, a strawman argument, mixed with some unprompted race baiting. I for one am not white, and have several complaints with Joe Biden and his presidency.

To borrow Biden’s phrasing for this, what a load of malarkey. Again, try reading the whole thing. If you’re not White, not only was this not directed at you, if you let Trump get into office, you just committed an own-goal. Then again, you can be anything you want on the Internet, where the Men are Men, the Women are Men, the Children are FBI Agents, and nobody, and I mean nobody knows I’m a cat, so it’s not like a White Conservative can pretend to be a Black Liberal disillusioned by Biden who will stay home. I mean, I am not saying you’re that guy, but that guy IS out there and so it’s my job to tell you if you’re a minority that has run into that ‘Black Liberal disillusioned by Biden’ that if you do the stupid thing and stay home or vote Third Party in the General, Trump’s telling you in his own words that he’ll be retribution against you for all the times you inconvenienced a White dude…

Which is inherently the problem. If progressive voters are staying at home, it’s not the fault of the voter. It’s the fault of the democratic party for claiming a geriatric center right is the best the party has to offer.

And here is where I come back to the ratio of Lefties vs. Righties. You can’t convince more than 26% of people to say they are liberals. Don’t we all get a say, including the ~25% of us who will vote a Democrat in but don’t think we’re Liberals? And don’t forget: that’s 26% who say they are Liberals, not Progressives. So even people who share the same label with you may not agree with all your priorities. The United States functions on a consensus building system. You have GOT to convince a large number of people you’re right in order to build the voter coalition that gets you elected. And that means Biden gets to walk tightropes between the various constituencies that got him into office.

Nobody is saying you MUST go vote for Biden. Nobody’s holding a gun to your head and forcing you to hit that button for Biden. Stay home and don’t vote or vote for Jill Stein. That’s your right as an American! Gawd bless 'murica fuck yeah! But what you don’t have a right to do is announce that choice, or even hint of that choice, without somebody like me pulling up and pointing out the glaring flaw in your plan. It’s not a good plan. It’s a STUPID plan and you are STUPID for coming up with it. The good plan is to start RIGHT FUCKING NOW and put your money and your body where your mouth is and support progressives across your state in Primary elections, and have conversations with the 40% of Americans who don’t like labels like ‘Liberal’ or ‘Conservative’ why they should like your label and convince them that your answers really ARE the right answers and that they should vote with your guy or gal despite the big money moderate squishy dem saying they aren’t. It works! Look at Ocasio-Cortez! TYT gets this, and they understand why Team Blue is the only answer. Team Red made it clear that ‘Voting for the perfect candidate in the closest Major Party Primary, then voting for the winner of that Primary in the General, and keeping the heat on the winner’ WORKS. That’s how they went from Corporatist Party 2 to Corporatist Party 2 with engaged base to Team Pepe in a matter of 20 years. You should have started that playbook back in 2000 as well, but like they say…the best time to plant a tree is 20 years ago, and the second best time is RIGHT NOW.

Start by holding your nose and voting Biden, because Trump willHAS destroyed everything you care for and promises to double down if he wins in November.

jhymesba,

OK. Biden doesn’t support genocide. No, really, he doesn’t. He supports Israel’s right to exist, for sure, and he sure wants to ensure that the 2000+ people murdered and 200+ people kidnapped last October get justice, but he doesn’t support genocide. Enjoy your limbo.

It’s Russian/Republican Propaganda that he does support genocide because he continues funding Israel, pushed by dishonest assholes who benefit from us being divided and uninformed knee-jerk-reactionary useful idiots that push that propaganda. Biden has said repeatedly that Israel’s continued indiscriminate attacks on Gaza make it harder for him to justify continued aid. But can he stop the aid? Let’s think about this RATIONALLY for a moment.

Suppose the US just says “Well, fuck you, Israel, you’re on your own.” What happens next? Here’s some ideas:

  • Israel screams betrayal at the United States, saying that we are enabling a genocide that the Arabs have tried to push on Israel since its very founding in 1947, then again in 1967, and again in 1973.
  • Iran launches a bigger attack at Israel, and starts another war similar to the Israeli War of Independence, Six-Days War, and Yom Kippur War, giving some truth to the accusations.
  • Russia pushes the meme that Antisemitic Lefties in the US pushed Biden to abandon Israel. It’s a lie, but Russia is GOOD at making lies stick.
  • American Jews, pretty faithful Democrats now, buy the notion that the Left abandoned them and become Conservative. Don’t say it can’t happen. It’s happening in Israel right now.
  • Israel, abandoned by the US, approaches Russia, who they have good relations with. Russia asks for a few of Israel’s 36 F-35s, and Israel as a final Fuck You to America hands the planes over. Russia gets access to our stealth fighter technology, manages to weaken America’s standing in the world, and finds a new source of money for their oil reserves to fund their war on Ukraine more, all at the same time.
  • Particularly scary, Israel, beset on all sides and feeling abandoned, decides to nuke Iran. Pakistan, who is known to be nuclear armed, and Iran, who might have a few test bombs of their own, retaliate, prompting a nuclear firestorm and long-lasting aftermath that makes the Middle East a hellhole to live in, and possibly affects the entire global climate.
  • That nuclear exchange might prompt a global nuclear war with how much of a hair-trigger the world is on right now. Remember, kids, Global Thermonuclear War is a strange game, and the winning move is not to play!

I’m not saying all of these are going to happen, or even most of them, but it would SURE serve Putin’s interests if there’s a falling out between the actual authoritarian Netanyahu and the leader of the left-most party in the USA, driving Netanuyahu into fellow-authoritarian Putin’s arms! It’d also be quite a feather in Trump’s cap if Biden abandons Israel, loses enough of the US Jewish vote (in addition to the rabble-raisers here in the US who swear they won’t vote for Biden even if he does stop funding Israel because once a Genocider always a Genocider…) that he loses the election to Trump, and then Trump gets to restart the funding and say “See, Democrats are the real antisemites! Pay no attention to the picture of a cartoon frog dressed up as me gassing prevalent US Jews and Liberals from 8 years ago, that’s a lie…”

So. Once again. Limbo away. Just be fucking truthful about it.

jhymesba,

You mean the guy that claimed that trying to stop the spread of a respiratory virus was a greater affront to liberty than the literal genocide of Jews in Nazi Germany? The guy whose own family called him out for attacking the CDC and Anthony Fauci despite the science clearly showing that the COVID vaccines were MUCH better for you than catching the damn virus those vaccines were meant to stop? That guy?

Or the guy who spoke at a Moms for Liberty group, basically giving that very Conservative and extremist group a platform? Or the guy who agrees with conservatives that the government is being ‘weaponised’ against them?

The guy who plans on abandoning former members of the Warsaw Pact to Russia’s tender mercies, on the promise that Russia will leave Ukraine when we stop sending arms to them? On the silly notion that UN Peacekeepers will somehow bring Russia to heel? When has the UN ever managed to accomplish ANYTHING, let alone stand up to a former Great Power?

Or the guy who thinks that the riot at the capital was ‘just a protest’ and that there needs to be a ‘special counsel’ to 'determine whether their convictions are appropriate (pro-tip, Kennedy, I don’t think they got ENOUGH punishment for what they did!)? That guy?

Or the guy who panders to Republicans by saying “I won’t take your guns away,” while still saying “Oh, but I believe in gun control”? THAT guy?

Oh yeah, and the guy who, in a room with 100 people who have a choice between him, Biden, and Trump, will create a 49 Trump, 48 Biden, 3 RFK Jr. and ensure that the room goes with Trump because the rule is ‘the person with the most votes wins’, and whose campaign has specifically said it’s attempting to “Get Rid of Biden” with no mention of Trump? THAT Guy?

Yeah, I won’t. And you would be cruel and stupid to do so, knowing that my example of 100 people in a room is EXACTLY how the US voting system works.

Sources: www.axios.com/…/robert-f-kennedy-jr-rfk-2024newsnationnow.com/…/where-does-robert-f-kennedy-j…forbes.com/…/rfk-jr-staffers-top-goal-is-to-get-r…

jhymesba,

Hey, pal, I didn’t write the headline, so don’t give me crap about it. But here’s a fact you miss with your “not democrat or republican” nonsense. Do you claim to care about Non-Christian, Gay, Transgender, or Minority people? Then you must vote for the Democrat. Because come November, one of two parties will win the election. That’s just how the American system is designed currently, and it’s going to take LOTS of hard work to fix it, and there are gonna be LOTS of people who will fight you tooth and nail to stop that from happening. But until it happens, either a Democrat or a Republican will win that seat, like one has every year from 1860 until the present. That’s even more likely if the only time you’re pushing for an alternative is during the General Election and not, say, during the Primary or for local elections.

And to remind you, the two men who have a lock on that office in January consist of:

  • A man who is admittedly old, who has a speech impediment and a history of engaging mouth before brain throughout his adult lifespan, who is a bit stuck in the past and thinks that solutions that worked on problems back in 1980 will work on problems today, and who is too friendly with Israel as a nation to recognise that Israel’s leader is more akin to his opponent than anyone on his side of the political aisle.
  • A shithead who is only 3 years younger than the other guy, who doesn’t have a speech impediment to explain away his word salads, who once famously bragged that he could take any woman in the world he wanted despite her thoughts on the matter because ‘he’s a star’ and ‘he’s allowed to do that’, who mocked and denigrated disabled people willingly and openly, who quoted Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini freely and pridefully, and who encouraged shitheads to run down Americans protesting shithead policies, and who has a plan to double down on all that bullshit come DAY ONE and he promises to be a dictator “only for a day!” if he wins.

One of those two will be in office come January. Nobody else. Your third party or no-vote won’t change that. If you stay home or vote third party in 2025, you should be fucking ashamed of yourself if you even begin to think you’re a friend to any of the issues the Left stands for.

jhymesba,

babbling, senile, old man

It’s true. He’s old. We don’t need to be ageist, though. The question is can he do the job, and he’s proven for the past 4 years that he can. I’d like younger, but the time for a younger candidate was 4 years ago, not now, when the Primaries are about wrapped up.

He does have a gaffe problem, but that’s not a function of him being senile. Are you ableist on top of being ageist? He’s not good with speech, but nothing, and I mean NOTHING indicates the man isn’t aware of what’s going on around him and can’t communicate.

the Republicans are all idiots,

Do you really believe that? That party managed to put a stamp on this country that will last long after I’m dead unless we hit LEV and I live to be a thousand years old. They managed to do what the Left couldn’t do and put their differences aside long enough to get 6/9 out of the Supreme Court, 28/49 Legislatures, 57/98 Chambers, and 4022/7386 legislators. It was their idea to “Vote for the best candidate in the Primary, and the winner of our Primary in the General” first, and that strategy has secured them several big wins, including overturning Roe V Wade.

take advantage and get away with whatever we can

Welcome to adulthood in America! Glad you could join us! It’s been this way forever and yes, I’m 100% behind you with the whole “Dems are shitty for using the bad behaviour of Republicans to cover for their own.” And guess what! I once believed as you did. Al Gore v Bush? My vote was ‘none of the above’. And then I saw the consequences of that vote, the utter shitshow that Bush the Younger visited upon the United States, and his utter mismanagement of the economy and Hurricane Katrina and of freedoms and liberty (do you remember “Free Speech Zones”? I do…) and leading us into a war based on nothing but lies and the fallout of that war and the crazy gas prices of 2004 and 2005 and 2006 and the economic collapse that took a good 2 years of unrecognised hard work as Obama had to stop and fix all the shit Bush 43 broke. I too was pissed when Obama cowtowed to Republicans and Insurance Companies and gave us RomneyCare repackaged as ObamaCare, but I recognise that that’s the way the game is played, and I look at my wife and my friends and all the people I don’t know like migrants that are just trying to escape a hell in their own country that Trump promises to unleash the military on when (not if in his mind, when) he’s returned to office and I realise a fact. The solution never HAS been and never WILL be to just stay home and let the Fascist takeover of our country happen. Like the Democrats know that they never have to change if you don’t show up in the election, the Republicans know you WON’T show up, so they can edge to the Right counting on you to stay home.

Like I KEEP saying. There is the smart option, of showing up faithfully every year, voting for the Progressive in the Primary and for the Democrat (however much you have to hold your nose to do it), year after year, accepting the proper amount of change in your direction given you represent a quarter of the American electorate at BEST, and there’s the stupid way of doing it, which is to stay at home and let the avowed Fascist win, and watching the protests get swept up on 20 January 2025 by military people and literal unmarked vans with Federal officers who are wearing no identifying marks at all, just like what happened in 2020 during Floyd’s protests. And if you advocate for the stupid way, I’m going to minimally call you stupid, if not outright callous and cruel, doing Russia and the Republican’s dirty work for them.

jhymesba,

When you can’t win on the facts, just throw out an ad hominem and run away. ;) Thanks for conceding my point, though!

jhymesba,

This is a very fair approach. Stop Fascism now, then right after the vote is won, start pushing the party Left.

jhymesba,

Then I guess you’re happy with subjecting non-Christian, Gay, Transgender, and Minority friends to Team Twitler.

jhymesba,

Your assertion was that

…Democrats would have an easier time turning third parties over if they didn’t push a dementia patient…

Silence7 pointed out that Biden’s State of the Union showed that the 3 years older man had a lot more virility than Trump showed in his Criminal trial.

So, your point of Biden being an old geezer that couldn’t keep his eyes open, let alone actually articulate himself, is at odds with the facts here, and Silence7 is pointing this truth out to … well, not you, who I suspect has a closed mind who benefits from leftie voters being peeled off from Joe Biden, but at least to people who read you and think the 81 year old is too damn old and let this stupid ear-worm get into their head. Sorry it doesn’t serve your purposes to have people pointing out to you that the dementia patient is the OTHER guy in this election and Biden is spry for being 81 years old, but them’s the facts, and you go to debates with the facts you have, not the ones you wish you had. ;)

jhymesba,

All of the above appears to be true. Trump is being slammed both in court and out, and Trump’s fundraising is going to his legal bills while Biden’s getting more money and needing to spend it on fewer things. The early polls were scary, for sure, but Bidens numbers are improving, possibly because we’re getting more real pollsters in the polling, possibly because less invested people are tuning into the election and realising that as much as the past 4 years sucked, Trump’s handling of COVID and his approach to governing are much worse.

Still. We need to be careful with ‘we’ve got this in the bag’ thinking. We don’t call TFG ‘Teflon Don’ for nothing. That guy’s got more lives than a cat, and is wileyer than a fox. And you know what he’s going to do based on what he’s accusing other people of doing. We have got to turn out in exceptional numbers and UTTERLY CRUSH TRUMP at the poll box. Even then, we may need to brush up on our self-defence skills because I wouldn’t put it past Trump and his backers to actually start an honest-to-goodness coup complete with guns and armies if he loses it. I’m not going to rest until Biden is reinaugurated in 2025…

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