Random Politics

[A_B]

I mean, he was in his thirties when tupac was making music. It isn't unreasonable that he would like him.

[Pruitt]

I mean, he was in his thirties when tupac was making music. It isn't unreasonable that he would like him.

You know, you're right.

I think of the Stranglers show I was at a couple of years ago. All the old punks were there, some with canes!

[A_B]

I mean, he was in his thirties when tupac was making music. It isn't unreasonable that he would like him.

You know, you're right.

I think of the Stranglers show I was at a couple of years ago. All the old punks were there, some with canes!

But who am I to talk? I send Bernie Taupin lyrics in every e-mail.

[sancarlos]

I mean, he was in his thirties when tupac was making music. It isn't unreasonable that he would like him.

You know, you're right.

I think of the Stranglers show I was at a couple of years ago. All the old punks were there, some with canes!

But who am I to talk? I send Bernie Taupin lyrics in every e-mail.

The Bitch is back!

[Pruitt]

I mean, he was in his thirties when tupac was making music. It isn't unreasonable that he would like him.

You know, you're right.

I think of the Stranglers show I was at a couple of years ago. All the old punks were there, some with canes!

But who am I to talk? I send Bernie Taupin lyrics in every e-mail.

The Bitch is back!

So tell me Grey Seal/How does it feel?

[sancarlos]

[brian]

Bob Barr held in contempt of Congress. This is a good start. Kellyanne Conway needs to be next.

[brian]

I think Amash is going to run for President as a Libertarian and unlike a complete nut job flake like Gary Johnson it might actually bleed enough support from Trump to make a real difference.

[Johnnie]

[Pruitt]

That's great to see.

I found this article interesting - and it summed up a lot of what I feel as a Jew watching who is very uncomfortable with the horseshit that is going on.

When Non-Jews Wield Anti-Semitism as Political Shield

[brian]

These protests in Hawaii over constructing a telescope on Mauna Kea haven't gotten as much attention as it should probably.

There's a tendency to forget that native Hawaiians are treated every bit as poorly as other indigenous groups in North America.

[Johnnie]

Holy shit this isn't an Onion article:

Meghan McCain feels victimized by Trump’s attacks on Omar: ‘You’re taking away my agency to criticize her’

[The Sybian]

I found this article interesting - and it summed up a lot of what I feel as a Jew watching who is very uncomfortable with the horseshit that is going on.

When Non-Jews Wield Anti-Semitism as Political Shield

Thanks for sharing, that article succinctly summed up several things that have been bothering me that I didn't fully contemplate. The biggest being the way Trump runs to meet with Israeli officials and ignores American Jews when things like the Pittsburgh shooting took place. He has also made references to Israel being "your country" when talking about American Jews, and it really gives the sense that he doesn't view American Jews as his constituency, and sees us as "others." I've never been to Israel, and have no desire to ever go. While I fully appreciate the symbolic homeland aspect, and fully understand the need for such a sanctuary following the Holocaust and treatment of Soviet Jews, but I feel very little loyalty or connection to Israel. I will never blindly approve Israels policies, and I can't comprehend the idea that disagreeing with Israeli policy is anti-Semitic. I think blindly agreeing with everything a country or a leader does is exactly what led to the Holocaust in the first place, and is antithetical to the ideas that created the Jewish Homeland.

It's both hilarious and infuriating that the same people who made racist attacks on Obama then cried that Liberals can't accept any criticism of Obama without alleging racism, turn around and call any criticism of Israel anti-Semitic.

[Pruitt]

I found this article interesting - and it summed up a lot of what I feel as a Jew watching who is very uncomfortable with the horseshit that is going on.

When Non-Jews Wield Anti-Semitism as Political Shield

Thanks for sharing, that article succinctly summed up several things that have been bothering me that I didn't fully contemplate. The biggest being the way Trump runs to meet with Israeli officials and ignores American Jews when things like the Pittsburgh shooting took place. He has also made references to Israel being "your country" when talking about American Jews, and it really gives the sense that he doesn't view American Jews as his constituency, and sees us as "others." I've never been to Israel, and have no desire to ever go. While I fully appreciate the symbolic homeland aspect, and fully understand the need for such a sanctuary following the Holocaust and treatment of Soviet Jews, but I feel very little loyalty or connection to Israel. I will never blindly approve Israels policies, and I can't comprehend the idea that disagreeing with Israeli policy is anti-Semitic. I think blindly agreeing with everything a country or a leader does is exactly what led to the Holocaust in the first place, and is antithetical to the ideas that created the Jewish Homeland.

It's both hilarious and infuriating that the same people who made racist attacks on Obama then cried that Liberals can't accept any criticism of Obama without alleging racism, turn around and call any criticism of Israel anti-Semitic.

The reaching out to the Israeli Ambassador and not the Jews of Pittsburgh is something I didn;t realize, and it is deeply offensive.

And my Orthodox brethren who salivate over the love the evangelicals profess for Jews and Israel so conveniently overlook the fact that they want us there so that we can either be converted or die.

[Johnnie]

Far better than Meghan McCain using her father as some paragon of virtue today:

[Johnnie]

Wait, is this dude just being opportunist? Gotta be, right?

[brian]

He's been criticizing Trump for a couple of years now. I doubt it's a grift as most of the Never Trump grifters aren't doing nearly as well as the pro-Trump grifters.

[Johnny Carwash]

Well, life's been good to him so far.

[sancarlos]

Well, life's been good to him so far.

[Johnnie]

Written by Jane Mayer: The Case of Al Franken

Fuck, this pisses me off all over again.

[EnochRoot]

Written by Jane Mayer: The Case of Al Franken

Fuck, this pisses me off all over again.

Bannon, et al got the Democrats to eat their own.

It’s amazing how spineless Democrats get when it comes to standing by one another. All to score some bullshit never-gonna-monetize points floating in the ether.

[Johnnie]

Yup. He got fucking railroaded hard and denied due process all while Gillibrand capitalized and gained political points for her eventual presidential bid.

It's also displeasing to see Kamala Harris in there too as one of the initial 7 Democrats to go to Schumer.

[mister d]

[EnochRoot]

Yup. He got fucking railroaded hard and denied due process all while Gillibrand capitalized and gained political points for her eventual presidential bid.

It's also displeasing to see Kamala Harris in there too as one of the initial 7 Democrats to go to Schumer.

Callous. Arrogant. Self-serving. Righteous. Smug.

And no, I’m not Stuart Smalley-ing myself in the mirror. That’s the Democratic Party shoving Franken out of the way to bask in the smell of their own flatulence.

[brian]

The Democrat Party. The true enemy of the American people.

[degenerasian]

They are in it for themselves. Frankin was definitely a threat so they offed him.

The next 12 months will be a bloodbath.
Harris will go after Warren. How dare you pretend to be a minority.

[EnochRoot]

The Democrat Party. The true enemy of the American people.

It’s not binary. They got played.

[Joe K]

This thread is an interesting rebuttal to the premise that Franken got railroaded:

[L-Jam3]

Without reading the Atlantic article, what am I missing? For the sake of realpolitik, Minnesota had a Dem governor who was going to appoint a Dem to finish out Franken's term. The shitbags on the right were going to castigate the Dems no matter what they did, but since the Dems weren't going to lose a seat, just cut him loose. They'd lose more voters if they kept him. Fuck him.

[brian]

Franken would have been one of the people on the Senate Judiciary committee for the Kavanaugh hearings.

Not sure how the party could try to say with a straight face that Kavanaugh shouldn't have been confirmed while's he being questioned by a serial groper like Franken.

[brian]

Also didn't realize you guys were such Al Franken fans? Or it is just that it gives you an axe to grind and a tired hobby horse to trot out and beat to death for the zillionth time? Hmmmmm?

ETA: For those keeping score at home. The only person who seems like they might legitimately have a beef if you accept the presumption (I don't) that he was done dirty is Alan Stuart Franken. I'm really not sure why anyone else really gives too much of a fuck.

[Nonlinear FC]

That Twitter thread might be "interesting" but it's full of a bunch of holes.

The premise that Tweeden was violated ignores the context. He can say *in 2006* all he wants, that fact of the matter is that until VERY RECENTLY, USO tours were bawdy entertainment for a bunch of troops. We're not talking theater in the round.

Tweeden is full of shit, period and end of story. The way the story broke is OBVIOUSLY a smear campaign. The idea that he wrote it just for her, for one small starter, proves she is purposely lying about the context. Same thing with the boob honking picture. He appropriately feels bad about it, but it's plucked right from the act.

The aspect of this that is troublesome are the 7 women that came out afterwards. That, for me, was what tipped the scales at the time and remains problematic.

Now, with that said, the idea that borderline shit you did primarily in public spaces (with lots of witnesses) and/or primarily before you were a politician... Add to that, the fact that guys like Biden are getting a pass for pretty obvious (post #MeToo) inappropriate behavior.

Dude got railroaded because the Dems were trying to hammer Roy Moore and it just looked bad at the time. And the fact that they knew there was no risk of losing the seat to the GOP was a big factor. It was an unnecessary (in hindsight), knee jerk reaction.

[Nonlinear FC]

Also didn't realize you guys were such Al Franken fans? Or it is just that it gives you an axe to grind and a tired hobby horse to trot out and beat to death for the zillionth time? Hmmmmm?

I agreed with him needing to go at the time, and I think people are having trouble keeping that context in mind.

But he got fucked by the right wing conservative machine on this. The Tweeden stuff is batshit insane when you look at how the release was orchestrated, her political leanings, and really just the facts and context of her accusations. She lied or told half-truths at least a half-dozen times.

Again, the problem I still have is that once the Tweeden thing came out, a bunch of women came out with stories of feeling creeped out by his physical behavior. That's what fucked him. But the fact that even at the height of #MeToo, none of them had stepped forward says something to me. He had a shitty boundary radar and it cost him. But it never would've been raised as a major issue without the Tweeden shit.

[brian]

I agree with you. It was shitty the way it played out based on the right-wing hitjob, but he needed to go after several other accusers. Retconning it after the fact that he was somehow a victim of overly sensitive PC Police in the big, bad Democratic Party is fucking stupid as shit though.

[Nonlinear FC]

I agree with you. It was shitty the way it played out based on the right-wing hitjob, but he needed to go after several other accusers. Retconning it after the fact that he was somehow a victim of overly sensitive PC Police in the big, bad Democratic Party is fucking stupid as shit though.

On the same page with you, but that dude on Twitter trying to act like Tweeden's story is legit is pretty maddening. Her story is swiss cheese.

[EdRomero]

[Johnnie]

The Senate passed the 9/11 Victims Compensation Fund 97-2. The 2 were of course human skid marks Mike Lee & Rand Paul.

Here's Jon Stewart's priceless reaction in a photo before the vote:



ETA: wrong timing

[Johnnie]

This is a solid fucking post from a random dude on Reddit. Using the spoiler tag because it's long.

[+] spoiler

McConnell is a loathsome mercenary hired by corporate and foreign powers to achieve their ends at the cost of the American people, to shovel our tax dollars and our sovereign power into their hands, for the personal and petty profit of the soldiers in his employ - Republican politicians.

He's not an evil mastermind, he's not the grand architect or the wizard behind the curtain. He serves at the pleasure of Senate Republicans; if they didn't want him there, they would be rid of him in a heartbeat. The truth is, whatever they say, whatever they do, they like him there. He soaks up the anger and outrage and abuse. They can pretend to be "good guys" - like that spineless, worthless shit Mitt Romney - while wholeheartedly endorsing the entire corrupt campaign behind the scenes. Mitch McConnell is despised by everyone, even his own party. Majority Leader isn't a desirable position. Look at Nancy Pelosi - she immediately became the sole target of public ire for decisions like not impeaching Trump, despite the fact that she's almost certainly carrying out the wishes of the consensus of thousands of Democrat officials and politicians. This isn't her plan, just like this is not Mitch's plan.

Mitch McConnell is serving the designs and plans of a few massive corporations and other huge donors. That's it. The religious zealots, the industrial titans and long-time Republican donors - he passes bills like the 2018 Tax Theft bill that pleases them and delivers profits to them, while safeguarding Republican power.

I say this because articles like this blaming him for the entire debacle help him fulfill exactly his purpose: establish a single focal point of blame without addressing the systemic issues and network of corrupt and criminal actors that actually pull the strings. "Mitch McConnell is Really Destroying America" as a headline (which is all that most people read anyway) makes the natural implication that removing Mitch McConnell fixes the problem. But there's always another Mitch McConnell. Articles like this give him far too much credit and cement a perception that without him, the whole machine falls apart.

But this is factually bankrupt. The system, the real agent of America's destruction, is made up of thousands of Republican megadonors donors like the Mercers and Sheldon Addleson, corporate conglomerates like the Oil industry and Telecomm, foreign powers like Putin's Russia and Mr. Bonesaw's Saudi Arabia, and religious organizations like the Mormon Church. They funnel billions of dollars and precise, exact instructions into the Republican party, which is nothing more than a mercenary force to carry out the donors wishes. The donors pay money, the Republicans fight the war. McConnell is just another in a long line of generals. There are endless candidates. Ted Cruz could be a McConnell. So could Marco Rubio or Mitt Romney.

Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader are not enviable positions. Look at Paul Ryan. They don't really wield power. It isn't like a President, who is publicly elected. They're appointed by the party, and they're just the hate sponges for the party, the ones who will take all the blame while more "likable" candidates play bridgemaker in hopes of vying for President. It doesn't matter who serves in that capacity. Dark money is the rot, because it stacks the government with people acting directly against the public interest.

All of the emotion, the partisan bickering, the sentiment and loathing, that's all a smokescreen. These people, Republicans, they are not politicians. Not in the slightest. The only thing they have in common with politicians is many of them are lawyers and they wear suits. They don't govern. The Republican party has done literally nothing even remotely resembling governance in a long time. When was the last time they passed a bill meant to improve some part of public or private life for the average American citizen?

Do not delude yourselves. This is not about Trump, not about McConnell, not even about the Republican party. Eliminate one mercenary group, and another takes its place. The Democrats are on the side of the angels currently, but only by default, only because Republicans have devolved so far into criminality and corruption (mostly out of desperation) that it would be impossible not to be the good guys in comparison.

If we do not do something about dark money in politics, any party, no matter how conservative or liberal, can easily be infiltrated and eventually overrun with people acting in the interest of dark money over public interest.

If McConnell were following his own comprehensive grand plan, you wouldn't see this ridiculous flip-flopping of stances and interests nearly overnight. That's why Republicans are such demonstrable and laughable hypocrites. Their hypocrisy is almost absurdist - their actions frequently contradict their words because they have no real guiding ideology. They're just working for the highest bidder. Much like a mercenary might fight for one side on one day, and then the opposing side the next day, Republicans do whatever they're told by their masters, while doing preposterous verbal gymnastics on TV. Just look at what we've witnessed in a short period of time:

• Republicans outspoken against Russia pre-2016; immediately turn into vocal and ardent Russia supporters (because Russia started paying them and helping them win).

• Republicans outspoken against and opposed to executive power pre-2016; immediately and vocally support the extreme tryannical overreach of Donald Trump (because he's a Republican).

• Conservative think-tank The Heritage Foundation creates outline of Affordable Care Act & Republican Mitt Romney puts it into place as governor of Massachusetts - immediately and vocally condemn it as soon as Obama makes it the foundation of his healthcare policy

• Republicans bemoan and condemn the increase of the federal deficit - until Trump creates one of the largest federal deficits in recent memory to give tax dollars to corporations. Then they vocally and proudly support it.

• Republicans stoke xenophobia and drone on and on and one about the threat of "Radical Islam" - until Trump wants to sell billions of dollars of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, the most powerful, hardcore "islamic extremists" in the Middle East. Then, Saudi Arabia is a wonderful beacon of freedom (because they're paying them).

This is why they wouldn't be successful without a propaganda wing like Fox News. All politicians do a form of doublespeak, but there is nothing comparable to the hypocrisy of modern-day Republicans. Nothing. No 20th century absurdist novelist could ever dream up these clowns. They need to cut off their voters from reality and isolate them in a sterile alternate universe where they bury certain hypocrisies or explain them away and build a narrative utterly incomparable to the real world, because whatever you want to say about Republican voters, they have all the same mental capacities as your average Joe. They could easily see how badly they, personally, are being fucked over by the very people they choose to represent them - if they weren't living in the alternate universe that is Conservative Media.

All this to say that none of this is part of McConnell's grand design. Nor Trump's, nor even the entire Republican party. There's no teleology to any of this, no method to the madness, no overarching evil scheme. That's the fiction junkies in us, always envisioning the evil wizard plotting brilliant and infinitely complex schemes to redesign the world.

Poll Republican voters about what they think they're getting - the world they think their votes are buying - and you'll get a hundred different answers and illustrations of a hundred different worlds, none of which remotely resemble what Republicans are actually building.

The world Republicans are building is nothing more than a grotesque collage of the wants and needs of some of the richest and most morally and ethically bankrupt people and organizations on the planet, disparate in scope but almost all entirely to the detriment of the American people, because the only thing Republicans can trade for their donors' cash is federal tax dollars and the power and sovereignty of the American citizens they represent. It is ever-shifting, ever-changing, but always shitty. Either a perpetual war or economic cycles of boom-and-bust or rampant xenophobia - it doesn't matter. Republicans are a black box that donors put a handful of small bills into and get back trillions of our tax dollars and untold powers over public land or contractual rights or legal rights.

This is why the actions of Republicans need to be firmly divorced from the personalities of single individuals like Trump and McConnell and also from the veil of "conservatism" or political ideology in general. They don't care. They're mercenaries. Start acting like it. Stop talking and yelling to them and start yelling over them, to their masters, because these are the people and organizations destroying America, and we need to identify them, call them out, and recognize Republicans for the flunkies they are.

Everything begins and ends with the money. To begin with Citizens United must be overturned, but we need to keep going. Money and all forms of perverse incentives need to be dealt with, or we will always be governed by the mercenary armies of despots and multinational conglomerates. I don't care which party you vote for, truly I don't. The only thing that matters is to vote for people comitted to removing dark money from politics and most importantly watching over them with intense scrutiny every single day they're in office to make sure they follow up on that promise.

[EnochRoot]

Removed the spoilers.

It needs to be read.

McConnell is a loathsome mercenary hired by corporate and foreign powers to achieve their ends at the cost of the American people, to shovel our tax dollars and our sovereign power into their hands, for the personal and petty profit of the soldiers in his employ - Republican politicians.

He's not an evil mastermind, he's not the grand architect or the wizard behind the curtain. He serves at the pleasure of Senate Republicans; if they didn't want him there, they would be rid of him in a heartbeat. The truth is, whatever they say, whatever they do, they like him there. He soaks up the anger and outrage and abuse. They can pretend to be "good guys" - like that spineless, worthless shit Mitt Romney - while wholeheartedly endorsing the entire corrupt campaign behind the scenes. Mitch McConnell is despised by everyone, even his own party. Majority Leader isn't a desirable position. Look at Nancy Pelosi - she immediately became the sole target of public ire for decisions like not impeaching Trump, despite the fact that she's almost certainly carrying out the wishes of the consensus of thousands of Democrat officials and politicians. This isn't her plan, just like this is not Mitch's plan.

Mitch McConnell is serving the designs and plans of a few massive corporations and other huge donors. That's it. The religious zealots, the industrial titans and long-time Republican donors - he passes bills like the 2018 Tax Theft bill that pleases them and delivers profits to them, while safeguarding Republican power.

I say this because articles like this blaming him for the entire debacle help him fulfill exactly his purpose: establish a single focal point of blame without addressing the systemic issues and network of corrupt and criminal actors that actually pull the strings. "Mitch McConnell is Really Destroying America" as a headline (which is all that most people read anyway) makes the natural implication that removing Mitch McConnell fixes the problem. But there's always another Mitch McConnell. Articles like this give him far too much credit and cement a perception that without him, the whole machine falls apart.

But this is factually bankrupt. The system, the real agent of America's destruction, is made up of thousands of Republican megadonors donors like the Mercers and Sheldon Addleson, corporate conglomerates like the Oil industry and Telecomm, foreign powers like Putin's Russia and Mr. Bonesaw's Saudi Arabia, and religious organizations like the Mormon Church. They funnel billions of dollars and precise, exact instructions into the Republican party, which is nothing more than a mercenary force to carry out the donors wishes. The donors pay money, the Republicans fight the war. McConnell is just another in a long line of generals. There are endless candidates. Ted Cruz could be a McConnell. So could Marco Rubio or Mitt Romney.

Speaker of the House and Senate Majority Leader are not enviable positions. Look at Paul Ryan. They don't really wield power. It isn't like a President, who is publicly elected. They're appointed by the party, and they're just the hate sponges for the party, the ones who will take all the blame while more "likable" candidates play bridgemaker in hopes of vying for President. It doesn't matter who serves in that capacity. Dark money is the rot, because it stacks the government with people acting directly against the public interest.

All of the emotion, the partisan bickering, the sentiment and loathing, that's all a smokescreen. These people, Republicans, they are not politicians. Not in the slightest. The only thing they have in common with politicians is many of them are lawyers and they wear suits. They don't govern. The Republican party has done literally nothing even remotely resembling governance in a long time. When was the last time they passed a bill meant to improve some part of public or private life for the average American citizen?

Do not delude yourselves. This is not about Trump, not about McConnell, not even about the Republican party. Eliminate one mercenary group, and another takes its place. The Democrats are on the side of the angels currently, but only by default, only because Republicans have devolved so far into criminality and corruption (mostly out of desperation) that it would be impossible not to be the good guys in comparison.

If we do not do something about dark money in politics, any party, no matter how conservative or liberal, can easily be infiltrated and eventually overrun with people acting in the interest of dark money over public interest.

If McConnell were following his own comprehensive grand plan, you wouldn't see this ridiculous flip-flopping of stances and interests nearly overnight. That's why Republicans are such demonstrable and laughable hypocrites. Their hypocrisy is almost absurdist - their actions frequently contradict their words because they have no real guiding ideology. They're just working for the highest bidder. Much like a mercenary might fight for one side on one day, and then the opposing side the next day, Republicans do whatever they're told by their masters, while doing preposterous verbal gymnastics on TV. Just look at what we've witnessed in a short period of time:

• Republicans outspoken against Russia pre-2016; immediately turn into vocal and ardent Russia supporters (because Russia started paying them and helping them win).

• Republicans outspoken against and opposed to executive power pre-2016; immediately and vocally support the extreme tryannical overreach of Donald Trump (because he's a Republican).

• Conservative think-tank The Heritage Foundation creates outline of Affordable Care Act & Republican Mitt Romney puts it into place as governor of Massachusetts - immediately and vocally condemn it as soon as Obama makes it the foundation of his healthcare policy

• Republicans bemoan and condemn the increase of the federal deficit - until Trump creates one of the largest federal deficits in recent memory to give tax dollars to corporations. Then they vocally and proudly support it.

• Republicans stoke xenophobia and drone on and on and one about the threat of "Radical Islam" - until Trump wants to sell billions of dollars of weaponry to Saudi Arabia, the most powerful, hardcore "islamic extremists" in the Middle East. Then, Saudi Arabia is a wonderful beacon of freedom (because they're paying them).

This is why they wouldn't be successful without a propaganda wing like Fox News. All politicians do a form of doublespeak, but there is nothing comparable to the hypocrisy of modern-day Republicans. Nothing. No 20th century absurdist novelist could ever dream up these clowns. They need to cut off their voters from reality and isolate them in a sterile alternate universe where they bury certain hypocrisies or explain them away and build a narrative utterly incomparable to the real world, because whatever you want to say about Republican voters, they have all the same mental capacities as your average Joe. They could easily see how badly they, personally, are being fucked over by the very people they choose to represent them - if they weren't living in the alternate universe that is Conservative Media.

All this to say that none of this is part of McConnell's grand design. Nor Trump's, nor even the entire Republican party. There's no teleology to any of this, no method to the madness, no overarching evil scheme. That's the fiction junkies in us, always envisioning the evil wizard plotting brilliant and infinitely complex schemes to redesign the world.

Poll Republican voters about what they think they're getting - the world they think their votes are buying - and you'll get a hundred different answers and illustrations of a hundred different worlds, none of which remotely resemble what Republicans are actually building.

The world Republicans are building is nothing more than a grotesque collage of the wants and needs of some of the richest and most morally and ethically bankrupt people and organizations on the planet, disparate in scope but almost all entirely to the detriment of the American people, because the only thing Republicans can trade for their donors' cash is federal tax dollars and the power and sovereignty of the American citizens they represent. It is ever-shifting, ever-changing, but always shitty. Either a perpetual war or economic cycles of boom-and-bust or rampant xenophobia - it doesn't matter. Republicans are a black box that donors put a handful of small bills into and get back trillions of our tax dollars and untold powers over public land or contractual rights or legal rights.

This is why the actions of Republicans need to be firmly divorced from the personalities of single individuals like Trump and McConnell and also from the veil of "conservatism" or political ideology in general. They don't care. They're mercenaries. Start acting like it. Stop talking and yelling to them and start yelling over them, to their masters, because these are the people and organizations destroying America, and we need to identify them, call them out, and recognize Republicans for the flunkies they are.

Everything begins and ends with the money. To begin with Citizens United must be overturned, but we need to keep going. Money and all forms of perverse incentives need to be dealt with, or we will always be governed by the mercenary armies of despots and multinational conglomerates. I don't care which party you vote for, truly I don't. The only thing that matters is to vote for people comitted to removing dark money from politics and most importantly watching over them with intense scrutiny every single day they're in office to make sure they follow up on that promise.

[degenerasian]

Great read.

It's way beyond one person. Imagine a Ted Cruz presidency and that tax cut.