Enkrod

She hasn’t really gotten away with anything, ever. And she’s not going to get away with this either. The judge was onto her bullshit from the very beginning.

That’s it, that’s exactly it… Stephen Miller, ordered on Wish that’s what he looks like. It was driving me crazy!

Doesn’t accepting a pardon, especially a blanket pardon, also mean that you lose your Fifth Amendment protection to not incriminate yourself? You can not be punished for what you did, that means you have nothing to fear and can be made to confess everything and incriminate accomplices. Wouldn’t that be some way to have a go at Trump?

Effect of a Pardon

The Fifth Amendment privilege exists to protect the witness from providing self-incriminating testimony so long as, and only so long as, the danger of prosecution persists. As a result, according to at least one Supreme Court case, when a “witness has already received a pardon, he cannot longer set up his [Fifth Amendment] privilege, since he stands, with respect to such offense, as if it had never been committed.”

congress.gov

Congresswoman Stevens is not a current member of the Michigan Democratic Party, nor will she be in the future.

Sauce (Warning: Twitter)

Well, the one supporting a Republican over a progressive primary-winner who is not supporting Israel, got kicked out of the party and abandoned by her staff…

Isn’t this actually a good example of “blue no matter who” working in favor of a progressive Candidate not supporting Israel? Isn’t this an example of exactly how you want the democratic party to handle these types of people?

Urgh, that’s disgusting. Thanks for telling me.

Dark gods yes! He and Vaush have some (some) pretty good takes but damn, they are insufferable. And Hasan is a bit of a tankie on top of that. He has a pretty shit take on Ukraine.

Works for me… hmmm… does this work for you?

I linked to a specific comment by kreskin, read that.

Wait here a second.

There we are, found it.

There are LITERAL accelerationists here that will tell you that voting is bad, because the system needs to get worse, so it can finally collapse. And they are not a small minority, though a minority they remain. They will gladly sacrifice anyone who dies to a fascist regime on their way to accelerate the collapse.

“They’re wrong” is three words though. Only partly why I like “get fucked” better.

To be fair: I was very much afraid he might get elected sgain.

That’s a top voting recommendation right there. Someone is afraid of her.

Well thank you for telling us what your values are. Makes so many things so much easier to do.

Even if we disagree about restricting eligibility, can we at least agree that improving civic knowledge is essential to a functioning democracy?

I can agree that a good measure of civic knowledge in the populace is absolutely a prerequisite. Now the question is does every voter need that? There my answer would be no. But should every citizen have been taught enough about civics in school to ensure at least a minimum breadth of civics knowledge in the populace? Yes.

I also think that a society needs a metaphorical buy-in from the populace. A populace that doesn’t feel they get to vote, demonizes the system that excludes them. We can see where that leads to in America, a low-trust society, where people do not trust the state, where the bureaucracy is seen as an enemy, oppressor, an occupying force. Removing the vote may guarantee a better result short term, but long term you’re just alienating a not inconsequential amount of the populace, creating a two-class society where the oppressed class will do anything in their power to hurt the system. And the US is already mostly there, because the people do not feel represented. I’d argue that many of the wrongs you’d want to correct with this are directly or indirectly caused by a lack of feeling to belong.

I am very much convinced that your solution is easier to implement in the rapidly autocratizing US. But I’m also convinced that my solution of more democracy would create a better, healthier, happier society. The most democratic countries in the world, are also the best educated and the happiest. https://www.v-dem.net/documents/75/V-Dem_Institute_Democracy_Report_2026_lowres.pdf

The system in the US is broken and you cannot fix it, by breaking it more, it has to be overhauled completely into something that guarantees representation, civic participation and engagement. And those three things would absolutely drop even lower the higher the hurdles for the smallest measure of representation, participation and engagement are.

Quite the Vaushite take.

I think the problems of american politics isn’t because it’s too democratic, rather I think it’s that the US is:

1. not a liberal democracy anymore
2. stuck with a voting system that forces a two-party system and doesn’t allow for proportional representation
3. electing the president directly instead of forming a multi-party coalition government that then elects the president
4. allowing money to influence politics way too much
5. running an education system barely worth its name

In short, the problem is not too much, but too little lived democracy. Allow the uniparty to fracture and the populace would be better able to pick and choose what they support.

On war crimes, they are the same.

Soo… even if I would accept that (and I don’t, but let’s say I would) that means in that one regard they are the same, but Republicans are still worse for many other groups.

So voting democrat, only when necessary to prevent a republican in office, is still preventing that more of harm a republican would do.

The only way to redeem the US system is to take it apart and reform it into something that honors basic human rights.

That is the main objective, I agree. And Tom Morello agrees. And I do not see how preventing worse outcomes as secondary objectives, while actively working for that goal is in conflict.

You can work towards dismantling the system while allowing more harm until that goal is reached by not using what little power you have within the system to prevent harm.

Or you can work towards dismantling the system while also using what little power you have in it to reduce harm until your main objective is reached.

There’s no contradiction in it. Because neither voting 3rd party, nor non-voting brings you closer to your main objective.

🤣

What? The vote changed nothing, all of California’s electoral votes went to Harris. Do you not know how the US voting system works?

He votes against fascism every single time.

That all of California’s electoral votes would go against republican fascism was a foregone conclusion. So what he did is use his vote to promote a third solution, one that is not corporate democrat. That’s absolutely fine.