The Republican party needs to have plausible deniability. In the conservative playbook, it’s okay to repeat things that they know for a fact are untrue, or to tell a lie of omission to further their agenda, because they can always walk it back at the point in time which they are receiving blowback by saying they didn’t know it wasn’t true or that they didn’t have all the facts at hand. Assuming that the lie doesn’t manifest itself into truth or that there are enough people who care enough about the real truth to bother fact checking it at all to the point where it would necessarily generate any kind of controversy.

This was Vance saying the quiet part out loud, probably by accident, and his pivot was not convincing at all.

Oh, it will. If they march on the capitol again, Biden will call in the national guard.

Trump didn’t do that when he was at the helm because he wanted them to succeed.

I almost want them to try again so this time an example can be made of them, since our legal system refuses to hold extremists accountable for their own actions.

Why take a bribe from John Oliver, who would immediately turn around and disclose that Thomas accepted it on his television program, when he could just go ask Daddy Harlan Crow for an identical RV and then not disclose it?

The Supreme Court is corrupt to the core. There’s an inability to hold them accountable for anything. The system of checks and balances functionally doesn’t exist for this “apolitical” branch.

The culture war has been going on for a lot longer than a decade, it’s just only in the last decade or so that it’s been amped up to 11 in terms of how aggressive it’s being fought. Conservatives are almost always on the losing side of social issues that require a culture shift. Women’s suffrage, civil rights, seatbelt laws, anti-smoking laws, gay rights… the list goes on, and the fight is never quite done for some, but they always lose in the end.

The very fact that conservatives are very pro for things like coal mining that liberals are trying to legislate away create strong reasons for some people to hold their noses and vote Republican regardless of how noxious the candidate is. When their livelihoods are literally at stake and the liberal response is “Well you should have gone to college to learn a new skill or trade” it makes sense that they are corralled right into the arms of conservatives. Economic drivers are the most powerful force behind the conservative movement right now, not culture bullshit that deep down they don’t really care about. It doesn’t help that very few people understand the relationship between “the economy” as outlined by experts and “the economy” as experienced when paying for groceries or filling up their car at the pump. It doesn’t matter that conservatives almost never deliver on their promises to fix the economy and often end up sending the nation into a recession, if bad decisions on a national scale lead to temporary relief on a local scale for some, that’s what they will remember when voting next time.

Liberals need to be doing more to bring disenfranchised voters into the fold. Educating them without being condescending or dismissive would be an excellent start. Turning down the temperature in politics is not possible without also lowering the stakes, backing off of hardline positions in the short term might be the most effective way of undermining support for terrible conservative candidates.

CNN should take some notes. That’s what moderators are supposed to do.

Report to the nearest Ordo Hereticus branch office for immediate punitive correction and summary execution.

Trump could be in a vegetative state, literally medically braindead, and Trump voters would still line up to cast their ballots for him.

That’s what happens when you have a cult of personality, it takes on a life of it’s own and becomes more of an identity than an ideology. They don’t care what Trump stands for or even if Trump stands, all that matters is that they are Trump people and they only want to associate with their kind.

For the rest of us, things like fitness and policy matter, which is why Biden was held to account and Trump will never be. There is no line that cannot be crossed.

Justice DENIED. AGAIN.

There’s no impropriety about sending a convicted felon to prison just before an election. He has already been convicted. The fact that he is the nominee is irrelevant. RNC should have thought about that before they picked a guy they knew would likely end up behind bars for all the criminal acts he committed.

Now Trump will say he “won” the case, just like he did with the classified documents case. Corrupt judges all the way down.

Banning it was his administration’s idea. Not saying I’m for or against banning TikTok, I don’t really have any skin in the game because I don’t even use the service so it makes no difference to me, but ffs hold this dude accountable for one fucking thing for a change. Why do so many people let him get away with saying whatever convenient lie that pops into his mind?

Republicans are going to claim that anyway. The key is that they never, ever provide even a scrap of evidence to back it up, so ultimately it will end up being a nothingburger.

I don’t think you understand how government works.

Nobody is forcing this mythical Republican to accept the nomination. They’ll accept it voluntarily or she’ll move on to another qualified individual.

You can’t maintain your previous job in Congress while simultaneously serving in the President’s cabinet, so if they resign they forfeit all of their power and go back to being a private citizen.

That’s why is would be a career ending move for some to accept an appointment to the presidential cabinet only to resign in some vain effort to kowtow to Trump or spite the Democratic establishment. It’s silly.

After election season dies down, so too does the rhetoric that both sides fling at each other. Democrats and Republicans, even MAGA Republicans, are capable of reaching across the aisle when required.

Picking someone from the opposition is not just to keep up appearances of bipartisanship. It’s strategic. That person will have intimate knowledge of which Republicans are willing to play ball and which ones want concessions. It’s essentially like having an informant or spy on your side feeding you crucial intel about how the opposition is planning their next move, or what policies will resonate with their constituents.

If Zuck’s cheating keeps Trump out of the oval office, he won’t have the authority to send him to prison, now would he? Unless Trump is so delusional that he thinks he can win despite “cheating”, which of course he would.

But if Trump loses, it can only be because of cheating or election interference, it can’t possibly be because the American people opted not to chose him. Totally not the delusions of a sore loser, nope.

God, sometimes I wish he had his head blown off back in July. Not having to listen to this moron spew off nonsense day in and day out would have been nice.

The only people who are hurt by that stunt are Republicans who will then have no say in the matters of that aspect of government. Harris would instantly fill the position with a Democrat who wants the job and be no worse for wear.

If a Republican cabinet member wants to blow up their whole career to spite Harris, let them.

It doesn’t mean she has to listen to them. A cabinet member is someone who serves at the pleasure of the chief executive, so I wouldn’t expect some rogue Republican to do much damage on their own.

As for why, sometimes having someone from the opposition on your team can give you valuable insight on how to get shit done so it passes by party hardliners on congress.

Mine is Magic: The Gathering, except I fully realize that I am pulling away from it and why.

The game sparked an immense amount of joy when I picked it up in high school. Now I barely recognize the game anymore. It doesn’t truly have an identity of its own and exists in this permanent state of limbo where 3rd party IPs are taking over the demand for new product and the rules are becoming so bloated that they can’t fit them on cards anymore.

This is such an “old man yelling at clouds” moment for me, because I heard just about every reason under the sun for why people quit the game when I was playing from power creep to changing art styles to just getting priced out of the hobby in general. I realize now that those people were not wrong, they were just not the target audience anymore. I am no longer a profitable demographic to pander to. I never buy packs anymore, and I’ve even stopped buying singles and I don’t attend tournaments or collect anymore, so why would Hasbro/WotC make products for me? Especially when there are deep pocketed whales out there who will pay top dollar for their favorite crossover set, no matter how silly or out of place it might seem.

I wish I could enjoy the game the way I used to, but I just can’t be bothered to hop back in when it doesn’t feel the same anymore.

We need more than just that. I’m continuing to email the Biden administration monthly about implementing a vacancy tax for private owners with 3 or more single family dwellings. I’ll continue to do so under the Harris administration.

My only shot at every being able to afford a house is if the billionaires and real estate corporations get taken out of the equation. Taxing them for sitting on empty properties is much better than building more for them to snap up because they won’t be priced fairly to begin with due to market manipulation.

Clinton especially. That +8 margin of victory made Dems complacent.

If we turn out for Harris the same way we did for Biden on 2020, for the exact same reasons, we’ll win handedly. It wouldn’t even be close.

Turn out and vote. Make it a hate vote if you must. Remember the four terrible years under Trump the Traitor and consider him within striking distance of the oval office once again.

Nope, nothing. But he sure does like to talk about what he’s going to do but never about how he’s going to do it, or why he didn’t do it last time.

“Strategy without tactics is fake news. Tactics without strategy is the deep state cabal.”

Time to sue for Libel. DJT could only dream of having lawyers as good as Taylor Swift has. I sense another multi-million dollar money judgement coming.