I would only disagree that Biden hasn’t accomplished much. He’s had some key wins and his handling of the economy - well how much actual control a president has is debatable, but he at least didn’t fuck up the inflation soft landing. One of his wins pissed the right off so much they fucked up the whole House in a tantrum. We could do a lot worse than Biden, though it’d be great to do better.

Out of curiosity, what is your vision of government where the players are simply at all-out war with one another instead of seeking compromise? Outside of an autocracy, I’m struggling to picture a stable government where people on different sides make no attempt at working together.

And if what you’re seeking is a left-authoritarian government then I’m going to have to agree with the both-sidesers on this one. I don’t want any flavor of authoritarian rule. Fascism is probably the worst, but the Soviet Union was a real shit show, too.

You are posting a position you don’t even necessarily understand. You are providing what might be facts or maybe not. Might be subject to bias in training data. What do you think this adds to the discussion? You want someone to disagree with stuff you don’t even know?

I don’t have time for that bullshit so I asked ChatGPT to write a rebuttal. I’m not even going to post the whole thing, just the following excerpt:

“It’s crucial to understand that transgender women are individuals whose gender identity is female, regardless of their assigned sex at birth.”

This right here is why posting AI answers is garbage. It’s not just flat out wrong, but insists that this nonsensical garbage is crucial to your understanding.

And for what it’s worth I’m a big fan of AI. I use it all the time. I’ve written applications that leverage it. I’ve had it help me with coding issues. But I never, ever trust it.

Can we have a national celebration of Jan. 6 as the day insurrection failed to destroy the nation? I don’t need a day off of work, but I’d sure love to have some fireworks and flags. The usual patriotic bullshit except celebrating our democracy instead of whatever the fuck they usually celebrate… country music or muddy trucks or whatever.

What was your expectation before?

Disagreeing about the best path forward and finding compromise is what democracy is, so honestly I can’t imagine what else you expected.

Don’t even be fooled by this. They want these things and so they allow themselves to be cowed by these threats, but if they started receiving threats from the left you’d be seeing a call to arms.

Have they tried dragging the Teslas out of the environment?

https://youtu.be/3m5qxZm_JqM?si=HOIGd_LY3Juym4Fh

My father in law, who is a retired state police officer, lost so many friends to COVID. I think at one point he had five straight weekends of funerals.

I find this a compelling argument. Thank you. It would be really silly to argue before SCOTUS that you’ve been denied due process.

There just needs to be due process to make it harder to abuse. Now arguably there has been due process at least in Colorado, it’s a factual finding that he engaged in insurrection there. I’m here for it. I just suspect the Supreme Court will find a way to invalidate that, and I suspect it will hinge on the fact that he never was formally tried for insurrection, rather the case was essentially “we all saw him commit the crime so he can’t hold the office.” But we can have a murder on film with a closeup of a person’s face and they still get a formal trial to defend themselves. We saw it with our own eyes is not sufficient to bypass a trial unless a trigger-happy cop feels sufficiently threatened.

Edit: that being said, when it was used against civil war criminals, I don’t believe there was any official finding of insurrection there either, so that might be a harder argument than I think.

I appreciate what you’re saying here. However one of the things Trump did was constantly abuse the power of his office. He changed the fucking weather prediction with a sharpie.

The last thing we want is to give someone a tool that can be used without sufficient checks and balances to strike at his political opponents. Because you’re right it’s been plain to see what he’s been up to and a frightening percentage of the citizens are just fine with it.

Direct action required dehumanizing your opponent, which is largely something those on the left are against but those on the right do constantly. It’s at best a small surprise that there isn’t more stochastic violence from the left.

I submit that the Presidency is an office (quotes like “I serve the office, not the man”) and the person holding that office is an officer. I get that sometimes the constitution can be unclear, but that one doesn’t seem like rocket science no matter how folks want to split words.

No my take is they will find he is being denied without due process. Which is arguable. Has he even been formally accused of insurrection? I mean I know we all saw it with our own eyes, but do we want to open the door to denying someone their right to run for office based on an opinion that what he did could be considered insurrection? Think about how many people trump would accuse of insurrection. Everyone that fought against him in what he would call his legitimate reelection.

So this tool needs to be used very cautiously because it could be turned to serve evil.

Are you familiar with Douglas Adams?

The major problem—one of the major problems, for there are several—one of the many major problems with governing people is that of whom you get to do it; or rather of who manages to get people to let them do it to them.

To summarize: it is a well-known fact that those people who most want to rule people are, ipso facto, those least suited to do it.

To summarize the summary: anyone who is capable of getting themselves made President should on no account be allowed to do the job.

- The Restaurant at the End of the Universe

This guy has been criming since before he was elected. I’ll be honest, no I don’t understand the process that has kept him out of jail for seven years. I don’t understand how this process can be called justice.

It really depends on the balance of posts. It’s possible I would migrate to something more US focused but I’d have to see whether I’m unhappy with the ratio after the change. I don’t want to keep myself ignorant of the rest of the world, but if I can’t comment on a majority of posts because I know nothing about that country then it’s not really a community I fit into.

But I recognize that’s a me problem and not a y’all problem.

Why not just a Democrat? Hell, why not just a citizen? Am I not allowed to ask right wing politicians questions just because I haven’t voted republican in 30-odd years? Is she not running to represent Americans, rather than exclusively Republican interests?

This is all rhetorical, don’t answer.

I would send $100 cash to anyone slipping That Smell onto one of his campaign stop playlists. I’m sure I’m not the only one. Could be lucrative is all I’m saying.

You at least have to be intelligent and articulate enough on Fox News to make the propaganda work. Say what you want about fox news anchors, but they at least sound smart if you don’t pay attention to their words. At no point has Boebert ever sounded like she had two brain cells to rub together.

MTG sounds smarter than LB and that’s the lowest bar I can think of without branching into vegetables.

I don’t think that contradicts anything I’ve said, but I think we’ve taken this about as far as we can. I respect your interpretation, but I don’t agree with it.