may be rude

why'd trump choose such a useless weirdo for vp? he has horrible positions on things like abortion. just learned jd vance is one of the most anti-ukraine people you can find. why'd trump leave the JCPOA, the deal with iran to keep them from pursuing nukes? now blinken says iran has a nuclear breakout time of a week.

You are a fucking idiot, Usagi called your bluff. Look at how well her policies worked in California. Mass Homelessness problem/drug addiction.....etc You'd seriously feel safer with this cackling witch in charge of things? Haha you are a joke dude. her constituents were satisfied with her work so much that they put her in the us senate. we see you pulling stuff out of your ass and it's gross.

that's some rose colored glasses you got on there while you look back. also she was a prosecutor and prosecutors are kind of badasses

kamala worked her way up to being attorney general of the massive state of california. she was point on the MORE Act, a piece of legistlation that passed the house and would legalize weed and expunge marijuana crimes.

read the rules

thousands of kids were separated from their parents and shipped around the country without tracking who their parents are, and their parents were deported. it seemed to be intentional cruelty that strangely lends itself to human trafficking he tried to overthrow democracy a million died unnecessarily of pandemic his handling of covid was a major factor in the economy utterly tanking his response to covid made it much worse, contributing to the supply chain problems that resulted in global inflation north korea became a nuclear power he nearly started a war with iran, coincidentally while the senate was trying him for impeachment he obstructed justice while the fbi was investigating his ties to russian intelligence he stopped and reversed progress on the greenhouse gas probelm he gave corporations greenlights to pollute however they wanted appointed justices who overturned roe vs wade appointed justices who decided presidents cannot be charged for abuse of doj actively threatens and blackmails others in order to consolidate power by force continued the afghan war his state dept negotiated a deal with the taliban that allowed thousands of taliban to be released from prison, significantly contributing to the rapid overtaking of the afghan government by the taliban as american forces were preparing to leave instructed his doj to investigate and prosecute poltical opponents and public servants who crossed him a few things off the top of my head. democracy is quite a big one. it's the whole game. there is simply no rational argument to vote for trump, for anyone well-informed. he is curiously close to the precise definition of the exact weak point of the country, a deceitful and malignant demagogue bent on bribery and collusion with foreign powers, willing to abuse power and cling to power by any means necessary, out of self-interest. this is the weak point of democracy and how it can tip authoritarian. that's why people treat the threat with such seriousness, because it is serious.

bunch more articles in major outlets on dems vs biden. nyt: also poltico: https://www.politico.com/news/2024/07/17/california-democratic-delegates-private-chats-biden-00169210 bunch of others out there seems now we're in the phase of a leak campaign to pressure him through the media. effectively, thinly veiled public messages. now confirmed rift between biden and obama over this. apparently, there's an understanding that obama is on the side of biden leaving the race, though this nyt article says obama didn't offer his advice to biden directly. looks like pelosi is orchestrating things behind the scenes. apparently she favors an open nomination process, rather than just giving it to kamala apparently there's a big facebook group of delegates being antsy big donors are really drying up, which is a major factor. like july donations are cut in half. reporting that dates and venues of announcing leaving the race are being strategized among inner circle, though as of late friday biden still saying he hasn't changed his mind fucking christ.

uh. looks like... it's happening? i had been wondering what obama thinks. saw this striking wapo article yesterday: one could speculate that the third paragraph is about obama. would be a weird paragraph, otherwise. seems like obama very well may be a source for the article, and there's a paragraph further down about obama offering to help biden by being a sounding board and a counselor... which reads as "obama thinks he should step down." also of course this article is striking because it's about the dem heads of the house and senate, schumer and jefferies, telling biden to step down (privately but it made it to the press) now today i see these: nyt so now schiff, raskin, nadler, himes have come out publicly saying he should step down from the race. some prominent dems, including ranking members of house committees. only 10% of house dems (around 20 out of over 200). only about 5 out of over 20 of the dem ranking members in house committees. only a couple dem senators and wapo: so pelosi in private told him she's pessimistic about his chances, and it sounds like biden's entertaining the possibility. i'm still not certain it's happening. many prominent dems stand behind biden. most on the left think he's fine to do the job, the concern is more that he could lose and lose the house along with the senate. there's been a lot of weird activity on the left about persuading biden to step down in the last 3 weeks. noteworthy that himes on tv said he's optimistic about plan b. hopefully they pick a vice who helps in swing states. i'm betting kamala heads the ticket. tester, a dem in montana with a tough race, saying biden should step down. dems need a very, very strong performance in this election to keep the senate. i think i read if they win every contested race they break even at 50/50 control in the senate. i could still see it going either way but this is the first time i saw a reason to think biden might step down. will suck if he steps down and dems lose, let's hope they've got this right. or maybe they are strategizing to at least keep the house if they lose the white house

biden's fine. trump's an authoritarian. jack smith has been waiting for the right moment to appeal judge cannon to the 11th circuit, at which point she may be removed from the case. it looks like this is the point at which smith goes to that appeals court over judge cannon's handling of this case. cannon's ruling is ridiculous, similar to others she made on this case.

so good

looks like the shooter was behind the buttress of the roof's crest relevant to note that it must be common at these things for people to report seeing someone on a roof with a gun who actually is a secret service or law enforcement officer

a journalist was watching the secret service who seemed to be scoping out the shooter before the shooting and describes it here https://www.bostonglobe.com/2024/07/13/nation/i-was-trump-rally-pennsylvania-this-is-what-i-saw/ seems consistent with this video which also captures it pretty well (not sure of the video source). the sniper raised his head a split second before the sound arrived, this seems like he saw the muzzle flash, which supports that he was looking through his scope at the shooter. it seems that the secret service was following up on tips from the crowd. guessing their visibility wasn't good enough to identify a weapon, from 400 ft, or maybe it was revealed a second before taking the fist shot.

42,918 people would have resulted in 269 to 269 in the electoral college, throwing it to a decision by the house of representatives by delegation count, by which republicans had more, so presumably they would have given it to trump. the amount of energy people put into that election was part of the record number of people who turned out to help us squeak by. 81 million people voted for biden. before 2020, the most votes any candidate ever got was 69 billion (obama 2008). exponential chain reactions of influence such as they are, and the way powerful information can be viral and propagate itself when needed, anyone involved in engaging about that election was part of the result. it's all a big weird quantum soup. everyone's mind is a battleground, and everyone is an agent of change. it's not just biden's job to win this. that perspective is obsolete.

i don't give a fuck how people interpret my 'message' because it's not a message. it's a post on a music forum in a thread that 98% of forum users have tuned out or blocked. it's my thoughts, i'm not on the campaign trail. i'm just thinking out loud here man, no one on the planet is reading your posts here or mine or anyone else's and basing their vote (if they're even American) on what we say, i guarantee. actions have consequences. some people read. it's well known that there are generally more lurkers than posters on a given forum, the ratio often to an order of magnitude of 100x or more. some lurkers here have even peeped up to post things like "this is where i get my info, thanks to the people posting" even leading experts are realizing that they don't understand in detail how people are reaching their conclusions these days, it's just a rapidly evolving, wild, opaque new information landscape. one of the places people get info is forums like this. you're free to post whatever and i'm free to post that your info may be problematic and please consider if that's really what you want to be doing

i don't give a fuck, though it would be sad ideally no but elections are not about manifesting ideals (actually impossible when you consider the varying perspectives) i don't appreciate being strawmanned as gaslighting. my posts here have been in good faith and generally well formed. he's not too old to be capable of doing the job. honestly, experience and wisdom are counterarguments, making older people have significant advantages to what they bring to the job. a lot of younger politicians take missteps that biden doesn't. he's just spent 4 years demonstrating that you were wrong back in 2019. he did the job extraordinarily well. ok we agree of course and i appreciate the debate as usual. i would urge you consider if you're truly certain that your message is accurate, because people will interpret your message in their own way, and where you may vote for him they may not. i think it's best not to stare into that void too much. we're in weird times, informationally. we need to be careful not to be steered by the herd, but rather to steer the herd.