The democratic nominee
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Not voting if you really don’t care is at least a choice, albeit in my mind a poor one because apathy leads to the triumph of extremism.
Not voting because you think there is no difference between candidates and parties suggests an inability to think either critically or objectively about the issues and how those issues have been dealt with over time.
Not voting because it will not make a difference due to living in a hopelessly one-sided state (I know something of this, being in the State of Traitors…um, I mean, South Cackalackee) makes some sense at first glance: why bother?
But the answer to me is I will always vote, no matter how hopeless the cause, to express my voice. I will not let the idiots think they represent everyone.
“All that is necessary for the triumph of evil…” is the epitaph of those backers of the Democratic progressive movement who sat out 2016.
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I’m still voting on other things to be clear. I just can’t bring myself to vote for POTUS this time.
@mayjay fair enough.
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@BShark said in The democratic nominee:
I’m still voting on other things to be clear. I just can’t bring myself to vote for POTUS this time.
Well, I am sorry you are depriving the country of your voice, one I have come to respect and admire, on the single most critical election. If the “good people” marching with the Nazis, KKK, and other white supremacists prevail, it will be because they exercised the franchise that their forebears deprived millions of people of, the right that many died to obtain.
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@BShark said in The democratic nominee:
We obviously can’t see it happen but I believe that whether Biden or Trump wins, the next four years will play out exactly the same.
This about sums it up
Two privately owned political parties choose two candidates with nearly identical policies and then voters try to guess which will be slightly less shitty. Both parties hold primary votes, but neither is under any legal obligation to uphold the results if they want to go with someone else. There’s no preferential voting, the system is designed to give a third party candidate the longest odds possible. They use easily rigged electronic voting machines. The political and capitalist classes hold near complete control over mass media and have no reservations about lying or burying stories they don’t like. On top of all of that, there is quite a lot of outright fraud in manufacturing fake votes and suppressing or destroying legitimate ones.
So I guess I’m just getting more and more disillusioned with the process and THE SHOW.
Not sure about the voter fraud stuff as most of what I’ve read indicates reports of fraud are generally overblown. The two party system definitely has it’s limitations and I’m not really sure what it’s great benefits are either (maybe someone could enlighten me here).
I’d argue the bigger problem is voter suppression/voting accessibility. Seems to me the idea of democracy should be to get as many people to vote as possible yet many find it necessary to make it more difficult and put up more barriers because they know the more people that vote, the less likely they win.
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@BShark said in The democratic nominee:
We obviously can’t see it happen but I believe that whether Biden or Trump wins, the next four years will play out exactly the same.
This about sums it up
Two privately owned political parties choose two candidates with nearly identical policies and then voters try to guess which will be slightly less shitty. Both parties hold primary votes, but neither is under any legal obligation to uphold the results if they want to go with someone else. There’s no preferential voting, the system is designed to give a third party candidate the longest odds possible. They use easily rigged electronic voting machines. The political and capitalist classes hold near complete control over mass media and have no reservations about lying or burying stories they don’t like. On top of all of that, there is quite a lot of outright fraud in manufacturing fake votes and suppressing or destroying legitimate ones.
So I guess I’m just getting more and more disillusioned with the process and THE SHOW.
Parties are undemocratic because they’re private actors with one job: win elections. We have very weak parties in this country, much to our detriment IMO. Our first past the post and single member district system ensures there are only 2 viable candidates per district 99% of the time. Weird races like Kansas governor in 18 notwithstanding.
We don’t rig ballots. It’s a 100% no go zone for political operatives. I’ve been on U.S. Senate all the way down to state legislative campaigns and it’s just not done. There is honor among thieves in that regard. There are some isolated cases of bad apples but you’ll find more often than not bad apple gets thrown out by their own party. We’ll fight like hell to get our people out and draw the district lines to our advantage but we don’t mess with the ballots. There was a ballot harvesting case in a district in NC in 18 and the NRCC cut the candidate. No room for it in this business.
Bernie had no shot because he and his platform just are not that popular with voters. He got the exact process he wanted for 2020 after packing the DNC with his folks and still couldn’t beat Biden. At some point it’s not the system, it’s the candidates.
I’m definitely voting for Biden, but a little birdie told me today there might be a fairly strong independent/libertarian candidate, Rep. Justin Amash (I-MI). He’s been dancing around the subject for awhile, but he’s taken some steps recently that point that direction. I respect him, and probably would vote for him if I still lived in Kansas as a protest vote, but not in a purple state.
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I think my least (or is it most) favorite thing right now is the people that decried Kavanaugh but are now saying we shouldn’t jump to conclusions with Biden. At least be consistent. But no, it’s purely and only about party lines.
@mayjay I’ve been at this point before but end up always voting, fwiw. Just gotta get this bitching out of my system.
@benshawks08 Voter suppression is one of the absolute biggest problems. There is way too much to want to get into and unpack it all. Black people in Texas having to wait literally all day for the chance to vote is an issue. Many people can’t afford to take a day off of work to vote. Other people don’t realize things like this happen because their own experience is walking in, voting and being done in 5 minutes.
Wisconsin just this week was still holding primary elections with in person voting. Disturbing.
The benefit of the two party system is to make things easy for the ruling class to ensure who they want wins. I’m sure they would manage but boy would it be messy if they had to account for the possibility of anyone winning.
@FarmerJayhawk No need to rig ballots I would imagine, but it does seem easy to do if needed. Things like the Illinois primary results being put out on TV over a day in advance do give pause however. If I didn’t actually see that when it happened and then the results later, I probably wouldn’t have believed it. But is seems even easier still to just control the nominees, pump out the information you want for brainwashing via the TV and now the internet.
I agree Bernie was never winning, I’ve been saying that since he announced his candidacy. Much smarter people than me predicted Biden would get the nomination.
If this Amash guy is old enough to run for POTUS he is probably too old to still be in the Libertarian phase.
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My apologies to everyone reading my posts.
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@BShark not at all. I feel you on the Kavanaugh comparison. However, there was no choice with Kavanaugh. Imagine if you had the choice between Kavanaugh and someone way worse and either way, it was happening.
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@BShark said in The democratic nominee:
I think my least (or is it most) favorite thing right now is the people that decried Kavanaugh but are now saying we shouldn’t jump to conclusions with Biden. At least be consistent. But no, it’s purely and only about party lines.
@mayjay I’ve been at this point before but end up always voting, fwiw. Just gotta get this bitching out of my system.
@benshawks08 Voter suppression is one of the absolute biggest problems. There is way too much to want to get into and unpack it all. Black people in Texas having to wait literally all day for the chance to vote is an issue. Many people can’t afford to take a day off of work to vote. Other people don’t realize things like this happen because their own experience is walking in, voting and being done in 5 minutes.
Wisconsin just this week was still holding primary elections with in person voting. Disturbing.
The benefit of the two party system is to make things easy for the ruling class to ensure who they want wins. I’m sure they would manage but boy would it be messy if they had to account for the possibility of anyone winning.
@FarmerJayhawk No need to rig ballots I would imagine, but it does seem easy to do if needed. Things like the Illinois primary results being put out on TV over a day in advance do give pause however. If I didn’t actually see that when it happened and then the results later, I probably wouldn’t have believed it. But is seems even easier still to just control the nominees, pump out the information you want for brainwashing via the TV and now the internet.
I agree Bernie was never winning, I’ve been saying that since he announced his candidacy. Much smarter people than me predicted Biden would get the nomination.
If this Amash guy is old enough to run for POTUS he is probably too old to still be in the Libertarian phase.
What you likely saw was absentee ballots. Trust me, our biggest complaint is county election officials can’t count ballots fast enough! Right after polls close, we start calling our county contacts to get early counts and we keep calling around until we know. It’s a giant pain in the azz and delays drinking hours. Boo!
One is never too old to fight for individual liberty, peace, and prosperity
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@approxinfinity said in The democratic nominee:
@BShark not at all. I feel you on the Kavanaugh comparison. However, there was no choice with Kavanaugh. Imagine if you had the choice between Kavanaugh and someone way worse and either way, it was happening.
I’m all for giving people due process. I just think it’s shitty to be one way with someone and another with someone else because of Ds and Rs.
I don’t think this coming up should make Biden pull out nor do I think he will end up in any kind of trouble for it. The whole Kavanaugh thing was just a show. Immediately forgotten and no longer pursued once he was in.
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@BShark that’s my trouble with both sides, one side does it and it’s forgiven. The other side does it and should face the wrath of god himself. Its the hypocrisy back and forth anymore.
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Damn those rich white people lmao
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This is part of the media problem I was speaking of, hundreds of media outlets have headlines like this. Thousands are criticizing Trump for talking about it in the comments, they didn’t care to look into it of course. A reporter (an idiot at best) asked him about it and he gave a deflecting answer. They just want attention folks, it’s misleading headline to grab clicks and get comments on social media. Who the hell asks questions like that in a global crisis SMH.
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@BShark said in The democratic nominee:
https://mobile.twitter.com/ghostmw312/status/1247945583190585345
Lol
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Poor fellows just discovered politics ain’t beanbag.
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@FarmerJayhawk said in The democratic nominee:
@BShark said in The democratic nominee:
https://mobile.twitter.com/ghostmw312/status/1247945583190585345
Lol
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Poor fellows just discovered politics ain’t beanbag.
My assumption is some of those are fake/satire but damn did I laugh.
Some are likely real as well but nooooo way that one with the chicken nuggets is legit.
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@kjayhawks said in The democratic nominee:
@BShark that’s my trouble with both sides, one side does it and it’s forgiven. The other side does it and should face the wrath of god himself. Its the hypocrisy back and forth anymore.
It goes back further. McConnell bitching and giving the Democrats hell for stalling on Kavanaugh, while the Republicsns delayed for a whole year on Garland and prevented the Democrats from having a nomination to the court under Obama. And there’s a long history of both parties stalling on SCOTUS nominations before that.
Unfortunately, part of the problem here is that THE SHOW might bevthe THE ONLY EDUCATION the populace might get from the other side.
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@approxinfinity said in The democratic nominee:
@kjayhawks said in The democratic nominee:
@BShark that’s my trouble with both sides, one side does it and it’s forgiven. The other side does it and should face the wrath of god himself. Its the hypocrisy back and forth anymore.
It goes back further. McConnell bitching and giving the Democrats hell for stalling on Kavanaugh, while the Republicsns delayed for a whole year on Garland and prevented the Democrats from having a nomination to the court under Obama. And there’s a long history of both parties stalling on SCOTUS nominations before that.
Unfortunately, part of the problem here is that THE SHOW might bevthe THE ONLY EDUCATION the populace might get from the other side.
It goes all the way back to Bork. Zero character flaws. D’s just didn’t want an originalist on the Court. Then the Thomas fiasco, then Harry Reid nuked the appointments filibuster for all but SCOTUS nominees, then McConnell said ok if you don’t like the filibuster for judges, we’ll oblige. Hence Gorsuch and Kavanaugh.
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@FarmerJayhawk i wish abortion was left at the state level, we never had Roe v Wade and the Republicans never had to adopt the Pro-Life position universally (and conversely, the Democrats adopting Pro-Choice) to woo the Evangelicals.
I think when Pro-Life v. Pro-Choice became a winner-take-all battle at the federal level, it pushed us further down the road of bitter partisanship in Washington and guaranteed that the Supreme Court would be dragged into partisan bullshit.
Jefferson was wise to advocate a separation of Church and State and when Roe v. Wade gets overturned it will mark the crossing of a line that should never have been crossed, which I think is why Republican appointees have to date not been willing to pull the trigger. Abortion should have been handled at the state level and kept the hell out of Washington.
I’m curious if you think that abortion was on a collision course with the SCOTUS, or if you think this could have been avoided if Weddington and Coffee didn’t push Roe v. Wade or if the SCOTUS hadn’t taken the case.
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@approxinfinity I’m a little confused what your saying about separation of church and state and Jefferson and roe v wade.
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Roe v Wade is completely a religious issue @benshawks08. Once it became precedent in a SCOTUS case (thanks to ambitious feminist lawyers pushing it), it was Pandoras Box, we were never going back. The Republicans aligned with the Evangelicals and began their crusade to get it overturned.
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I was trying to pinpoint the moment I think the Supreme Court jumped the shark @benshawks08 . I guess you were asking what this had to do with @FarmerJayhawk’s post.
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@approxinfinity said in The democratic nominee:
Roe v Wade is completely a religious issue @benshawks08. Once it became precedent in a SCOTUS case (thanks to ambitious feminist lawyers pushing it), it was Pandoras Box, we were never going back. The Republicans aligned with the Evangelicals and began their crusade to get it overturned.
It is very much NOT a religious issue. I think that’s all I will say on that as it could open it’s own Pandora’s box.
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@benshawks08 said in The democratic nominee:
@approxinfinity said in The democratic nominee:
Roe v Wade is completely a religious issue @benshawks08. Once it became precedent in a SCOTUS case (thanks to ambitious feminist lawyers pushing it), it was Pandoras Box, we were never going back. The Republicans aligned with the Evangelicals and began their crusade to get it overturned.
It is very much NOT a religious issue. I think that’s all I will say on that as it could open it’s own Pandora’s box.
The contention around the issue is whether some people are able to restrict others from having an abortion or not. The main argument, as I understand it, for being able to restrict others from having an abortion (i.e. “pro-life”) has to do with when a child or fetus can be regarded as a human life. The Church has taken the position that life begins at inception, and that all life being sacred, the fetus should be granted the same rights as other citizens. The arguments against allowing others to restrict one’s ability to have an abortion (i.e. “pro-choice”) argue that life begins at birth, and that circumstances such as unwanted pregnancy, health risks to the mother, birth defects, rape or any other reason are all valid reasons to have an abortion; it is the woman’s right to choose.
I’m sure there are people in both camps that believe their reasons for or against are not religious, but the point of contention and the majority of people who are arguing against the right to have an abortion are Christian in this country.
I don’t want to get into an argument about which is right. I really don’t.
My point is that this shouldn’t have gone to the Supreme Court. It caused the Evangelicals to align with the Republicans in order to win the Supreme Court so they could overturn Roe v. Wade. It put the Court under constant partisan attack thereafter. Had it stayed at the state level, with each state allowed to have its own law around abortion, our country would be better off. That’s how I see it anyway. My hypothesis. I’d love to hear feedback if other people think it would have been positive or negative for the country if this hadn’t been rules on by the Supreme Court, or if it was impossible to avoid.
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@approxinfinity I’m also not trying to argue the right or wrong of it but I think leaving it to states would just increase inequity from state to state. A person could be charged for murder in one state for a service a doctor can provide in another. Just doesn’t make sense to me that way. As far as I know birth certificates are dolled out at birth making that the point of personhood. Has this been different at any point in history? I honestly don’t know.
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@benshawks08 it’s possible that it could not be considered murder for the woman, but could be considered murder for the doctor to perform it in states where it was illegal. The woman could conceivably cross state lines if she needed it performed. That’s not ideal, but with hindsight, I think it could have been better than the role Roe v. Wade played in partisan gridlock.
There are many other things that are illegal in some states though nothing of the same magnitude. There would have to be a compromise there. I don’t think we can go back to state level legality now. I think the cat is out of the box. But if it never happened, organically the law would have developed on a state by state basis. I don’t think it would have become nearly as contentious. Everyone has a passionate opinion about it now. I think we’ve been conditioned, and it didn’t have to be that way.
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@approxinfinity said in The democratic nominee:
@kjayhawks part of the problem there is actually the decline in news coverage. With less reporters working stories, there’s less coverage.
Local news is the biggest casualty from the online advertising model. It’s a hard problem to solve as the business models benefit from efficiency that comes with concentration.
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@kjayhawks said in The democratic nominee:
I’d be shocked if trump doesn’t win by miles. People are scared of change, Trump is fool but people know what to expect. With the the talks of socialism and what not it’s a huge guess to what Biden does good or bad.
I agree people are resistant to change, but it’s not like Trump has been exceptionally consistent or predictable.
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@approxinfinity said in The democratic nominee:
@FarmerJayhawk i wish abortion was left at the state level, we never had Roe v Wade and the Republicans never had to adopt the Pro-Life position universally (and conversely, the Democrats adopting Pro-Choice) to woo the Evangelicals.
I think when Pro-Life v. Pro-Choice became a winner-take-all battle at the federal level, it pushed us further down the road of bitter partisanship in Washington and guaranteed that the Supreme Court would be dragged into partisan bullshit.
Jefferson was wise to advocate a separation of Church and State and when Roe v. Wade gets overturned it will mark the crossing of a line that should never have been crossed, which I think is why Republican appointees have to date not been willing to pull the trigger. Abortion should have been handled at the state level and kept the hell out of Washington.
I’m curious if you think that abortion was on a collision course with the SCOTUS, or if you think this could have been avoided if Weddington and Coffee didn’t push Roe v. Wade or if the SCOTUS hadn’t taken the case.
My theory is Roe short circuited what was likely going to happen at the ballot box anyway, legal abortion in most places. My counterfactual is the fights over marriage equality. If Obergefell would’ve been decided in say, 2007 vs. 2014, you’d have a lot more bitter fights over it now. But instead, public opinion developed more organically and the Court ruled when it was more “ripe.”
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@BShark said in The democratic nominee:
We obviously can’t see it happen but I believe that whether Biden or Trump wins, the next four years will play out exactly the same.
This about sums it up
Two privately owned political parties choose two candidates with nearly identical policies and then voters try to guess which will be slightly less shitty. Both parties hold primary votes, but neither is under any legal obligation to uphold the results if they want to go with someone else. There’s no preferential voting, the system is designed to give a third party candidate the longest odds possible. They use easily rigged electronic voting machines. The political and capitalist classes hold near complete control over mass media and have no reservations about lying or burying stories they don’t like. On top of all of that, there is quite a lot of outright fraud in manufacturing fake votes and suppressing or destroying legitimate ones.
So I guess I’m just getting more and more disillusioned with the process and THE SHOW.
I don’t want to be in this camp, but I think I’m sitting right next to you @BShark I don’t think it will be exactly the same, but I fear the same mechanics are at work on both sides. Both have escalated the game to the point that it’s getting harder to diffuse things, find the common ground and compromise. When they play the game set at “Win At All Costs,” we all will lose.
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@approxinfinity It had to go to the Supreme Court. The issue presented was whether restricting someone from getting an abortion unconstitutionally violated that person’s rights. Constitutional rights are national in scope, and equal protection cannot be infringed by states under the 14th Amendment.
That some people base their opposition on religious underpinnings does not make the issue involved a religious one. Think of it this way: if I believe that God wants me to have access to a gun, that is irrelevant to my constitutional claim to have unrestricted access–that right is in the Second Amendment. Similarly, my constitutional right to vote is based on the 4 amendments that deal with voting, not my theological contention that religious people who want to deny it are wrong.
The huge problem, though, for abortion rights is that unlike those examples, they are not spelled out in the Constitution. Instead, they are based on a “right to privacy” that is a judicial construct from the Warren Court of the 1960’s. Primary among the cases creating it was the Griswold case (1964 or so?) saying states could not restrict access to contraception.
The Court at that time started a process of finding rights in what was called the “penumbra” of the Bill of Rights, which basically means that these are rights to be free from government that are so inherent they need not have been spelled out explicitly.
This is the basic conflict between “strict constructionists” and “living document” schools of thought. The former decries adding rights that were never imagined by the framers. The latter believes that the changes in societal conditions since 1787 bring up new situations implicating the ability of Americans to free, and require broad interpretation to protect the framer’s goal of preserving that freedom.
Roe could have been based on stronger constitutional grounds, but Blackmun went far afield and the result has been chaos. He could have simply said that absent medical reasons, the state cannot prohibit abortion as a violation of equal protection: in no other situation is someone obligated to put their own life on the line to preserve another, as is required of a pregnant woman forced to continue to delivery. (That is a theory my Con Law professor had, but I have not seen it urged many places.)
He could have stretched the 10th amendment, finding a right to privacy in the “powers . . . reserved . . . to the people.” This would have created other problems, because the amendment discusses affirmative power held by states and the people, rather than the feds; it has never been a restriction on states criminal powers.
Anyway, Blackmun invented the trimester breakdown, coupled with the viability standard, apparently as a compromise to get a majority. With absolutely no textual basis and no absolute bright line of protection, it has invited attack ever since.
My own feeling is that Blackmun believed, as did many of us liberals back then, that technology might end the controversy. There was a hope, I suspect, that there would be developed a means of ending pregnancies by transplanting fetuses to willing recipients at an early enough time as to involve no more discomfort or danger than legal abortion (This was a naive hope, I now realize.)
I think Roe will be overturned. I also think that it wouldn’t be in such great danger if the abortion rights movement had shown more respect for people who have such a huge distate for the human cost of abortion, but that is a different discussion that also requires recognition that pro-lifers have not demonstrated enough concern for the lives affected after an unwanted birth. Suffice it to say that neither side allows the other any legitimate standing in the debate.
Until a foolproof and safe method of preventing pregnancy is developed, the mess will continue.
Edit: I was writing during several preceding posts, so I haven’t read or addressed those after 'Prox’s one that began with “My point is that this shouldn’t have gone to the Supreme Court.”
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@mayjay thanks for the detailed breakdown. i’ll have to read Backmuns opinion on it. I appreciate your Con Law professor’s take. Makes sense to me. And I never considered that assumptions about future technology played a hand in the ruling.
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Too funny not to share
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https://twitter.com/danozzi/status/1247971313743880192
Mmmm cathartic.
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@approxinfinity The technology as a cure for abortion thing is my own conjecture insofar as it relates to Blackmun. I remember talking with my dad and others about it a lot, and even reading about it, but a lot of that discussion was also just focused on birth control. A lot of people believed opposition to birth control would fade away.
But virtually everything has been objected to by somebody, hasn’t it?
As to my Roe discussion, I cannot guarantee all my thoughts against the vagaries of trying to remember discussions from law school 40 years ago!
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@BShark laughable
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Truth bomb
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A well polished ad. With Trumps horrible COVID response front and center down the stetch, I don’t see how he’s reelectable.
Here’s the Trump Pence campaigns letter trying to get the ad taken down:
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Don’t underestimate the staying power of stupidity.
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@approxinfinity I usually wouldn’t defend Trump in any manor but Dr. Fauci himself wasn’t too worried about the virus in January. I think Trump is trying not to scare people at this point. I just wish he carried himself more professionally, drives me nuts. To me it doesn’t matter if he’s re-elected, it’s always the less of evils and which corporations are funneling in the cash to said candidate.
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@kjayhawks I take your point. Fauci was wrong too early on. The really critical period was February 2 (date of Trump’s travel ban) to mid-March (when states started issuing stay-at-hoQme orders, California first). His lack of leadership there not directing people to stay home, and lying and bullshitting every press conference was mind-blowing. I would like to see if they can distill that into effective messaging before election season.
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@approxinfinity it will be interesting to see how it effects his chances in November for sure.
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@approxinfinity you see the press conference today?
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Trump does not mean well. Trump cares only for himself. Any well-meaning person would be able to admit a mistake. He is precisely the same as he has been for 50 years.
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This is a sports board, so let’s think about this in terms of sports. No one on this board would tolerate any player or coach that would not ever own up to any mistakes, choosing instead to always blame (pick one or many) the referees, the other team, teammates, coaches, media, etc. We wouldn’t tolerate it not only because its annoying, but also because if you never take that accountability, you cannot improve as a player. If you say, hey, I’m actually a good shooter, but I was missing because the rim was bent, or, I am a good defender, but that guy was scoring because the help defense was out of position, or, those turnovers weren’t my fault, my teammates weren’t paying attention, etc., then you never improve in those areas because psychologically, you are telling yourself that your performance is fine. You will certainly plateau, meaning other, less talented players or coaches will easily bypass you in time.
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@justanotherfan you nailed it!
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@Crimsonorblue22 I read about it but that probably isn’t enough, unfortunately. I heard he said he could tell the Democratic governors to open up and they’d have to what he says. Did I miss anything notable?
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@justanotherfan Well said, could go towards most in politics.
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@kjayhawks I think the big problem is when politicians think more about getting elected/re-elected than honestly evaluating what’s they think and feel and then try to do the right thing. The media does have some culpability there as if someone does something the first evaluation is how will it affect the next election. If someone changes their mind they are a flip flopper and on and on it goes. Same problem with the dem primary. Too many people focused on beating trump instead of voting for the candidate they truly think is best.
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Biden won’t be the president even if he is elected. No keep an i on the vp selection. Biden is nothing more than a Manchurian president.
