NaibofTabr

China has been supplying war material to Russia, and is the single largest customer for Russian oil which is one of the only things keeping the Russian economy semi-functional.

completely normal behavior

These people are 80s cartoon villains.

And all things end
All that we intend
is scrawled in sand
It slips right through our hand
And just knowing
That everything will end
Should not change our plan
Whеn we begin again

So we should assume every redacted name is a Republican, got it.

“I’ve never wished a man dead, but I have read some obituaries with great pleasure.”

I’m one of those who don’t vote for any political party

If you do not vote, you are participating in the agenda of the authoritarians who want to take the right to vote away from everyone (e.g. Donald Trump saying “you won’t have to vote anymore”). “Voting doesn’t matter” is their propaganda. If you repeat his message, you have been fooled by the propaganda and are now helping to spread it.

DO NOT BUY THIS CRAP.

If you encourage others not to vote, you are complicit with the authoritarians.

I’m not going to tell you who to vote for, but fucking VOTE. People fought wars over that, demanded changes in law for that, marched on Washington for that, got assassinated for speaking about that. Anyone who tells you it doesn’t matter is a fool, ignorant of the lessons of history.

Among other serious problems, this would disenfranchise all military service members stationed or deployed outside their home state. The Democrats really should be making a big deal out of that.

Awfully specific sections that didn’t load.

No quid pro quo! No quid pro quo!

In other news, water is wet.

Congressional maps have always been redrawn by the party in power to ensure that they remain in power. I would expect Democrats to be doing the same thing if we were talking about California.

Claims made without evidence can be dismissed without evidence.

I… wouldn’t want to fight alongside anyone who was eager to do it.

Only fools seek violence.

“Nobody had called me. Nobody had said, ‘You did something wrong, you’re in trouble, you’re on probation.’ I had gotten nothing. Then I get a text message early the next morning saying, ‘Can you talk at noon?’ And I was fired immediately. There was no warning. And I asked, ‘Well, what, you know, what’s the [issue]?’ Nothing. They were just like, ‘Oh, we just want to make some changes.’ They never said why.

Hmm, terminated without cause? isn’t this grounds for a lawsuit?

Apparently there’s some bullshit narrative being pushed by Fox that Tim Walz is somehow responsible.

“The Constitution does not grant the President any specific powers over elections,” Casper wrote.

In fact, it defines exactly who has those powers:

Article 1

Section 4: Elections

The Times, Places and Manner of holding Elections for Senators and Representatives, shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by Law make or alter such Regulations, except as to the Places of chusing Senators.

Article II

Section 1

The executive Power shall be vested in a President of the United States of America.

He shall hold his Office during the Term of four Years, and, together with the Vice President, chosen for the same Term, be elected, as follows:

Each State shall appoint, in such Manner as the Legislature thereof may direct, a Number of Electors, equal to the whole Number of Senators and Representatives to which the State may be entitled in the Congress: but no Senator or Representative, or Person holding an Office of Trust or Profit under the United States, shall be appointed an Elector.

The Electors shall meet in their respective States, and vote by Ballot for two Persons, of whom one at least shall not be an Inhabitant of the same State with themselves. And they shall make a List of all the Persons voted for, and of the Number of Votes for each; which List they shall sign and certify, and transmit sealed to the Seat of the Government of the United States, directed to the President of the Senate. The President of the Senate shall, in the Presence of the Senate and House of Representatives, open all the Certificates, and the Votes shall then be counted. The Person having the greatest Number of Votes shall be the President, if such Number be a Majority of the whole Number of Electors appointed; and if there be more than one who have such Majority, and have an equal Number of Votes, then the House of Representatives shall immediately chuse by Ballot one of them for President; and if no Person have a Majority, then from the five highest on the List the said House shall in like Manner chuse the President. But in chusing the President, the Votes shall be taken by States, the Representation from each State having one Vote; A quorum for this Purpose shall consist of a Member or Members from two thirds of the States, and a Majority of all the States shall be necessary to a Choice. In every Case, after the Choice of the President, the Person having the greatest Number of Votes of the Electors shall be the Vice President. But if there should remain two or more who have equal Votes, the Senate shall chuse from them by Ballot the Vice President.

The Congress may determine the Time of chusing the Electors, and the Day on which they shall give their Votes; which Day shall be the same throughout the United States.

https://constitutioncenter.org/the-constitution/full-text

The president gets no say at all in how elections are conducted. The states determine that, except that the US Congress can determine the election day & time.

So there’s this radio editorial from 1973 called “America: The Good Neighbor”, written by George Sinclair. I think a lot of what Sinclair described has been lost, unfortunately, but this line always pops into my head:

You talk about scandals, and the Americans put theirs right in the store window for everybody to look at.

I feel like this part is still true. For better or worse, as a nation even when we feel shame due to the behavior of our politicians we don’t try to hide it, pretend like it doesn’t exist. Our politics is theater and we all know it. It’s on display for everyone to see.

You can read the whole thing here: https://thinkingagain.com/html/american_tribute.php

It is an artifact of history, and just… keep in mind that it needs to be read and understood in the context of the time it was written. The Apollo program had just ended the year before, and US troops had just withdrawn from Vietnam. The Watergate scandal was current news and is specifically what Sinclair was referring to in the quoted line above. Martin Luther King Jr. had been murdered only 5 years prior, and the civil rights movement of the 1960s was a recent memory. It had been only a decade since John F. Kennedy was assassinated.

And there was video and live discussion of all of it just on display for everyone to see on the still quite new platform of broadcast television.

Things haven’t changed much.

Taco will be the next word banned from federal information systems.

no shit son

Trump exploded the value of the US dollar by destroying the trustworthiness of the US as a trading partner, and the market is responding.