Lee Carter is a Kerbonaut… 
https://twitter.com/carterforva/status/1106788910204682240?s=21
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He got closer than any of the Hillary and/or Clinton stooges that ran since 1998.
Closer to what–beating Cruz? Woop de doo. He’s an entitled, centrist opportunist out for glorification. If he has any genuine interest in serving others, they clearly won’t include the likes of me.
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THIS makes me think the number of Dem candidates may double before the end of the year (assuming Trump isn’t out by then) and if state buy-in continues.:
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Damn, that is a great story. I think he probably has a snowball’s chance in hell of winning, but I think I love him! Will have to look into his positions more now.
This is a start, anyway. I sincerely hope he finds a way to be heard in the ever growing chorus of candidates!
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There is going to be no perfect candidate. And personally, I think a gay man from South Bend (even if he is white) stands about as much chance as a snowcone inside a smelter, even if he was perfect on policy, simply because too many PTB would think him too easy a target, and prejudice isn’t dead yet, especially in certain key electoral areas in the US.
But if we’re going to suffer through story after story about how cool Beto is because he was a member of a hacker collective, we can also talk about something that (to me) is even cooler – learning a language just because you want to read someone’s books.
ETA: no, predictive text and rapid scanning brain, “beach” does not automatically follow “south” and “bend” ≠ “beach”. This message is brought to you by a severely undercaffeinated Sunday morning.
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Word.
Also, just because someone has next to no chance of winning doesn’t mean that nothing good can come from them being in the race. I don’t think Sanders, for instance, has much chance at all of winning, but I’m glad he’s again spreading his message. More and more people, especially young ones, are finding them viable, thanks to him and others like him. AOC strikes me as a direct political descendant of him (which is not to say she wouldn’t have won if he hadn’t run, nor that she’d be much if any different if Sanders hadn’t run, and I’m the opposite of undercaffeinated and I’m going to force myself to stop typing now
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Sounds like she got smeared because of her ethnicity from this.
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Not a fan of Modi at all, but I agree with this assessment. I mean, not only is this a woman, but a POC!
I know there’s apparently some weird Hindutva thing she has (had?) going, but I need to invest some time in learning more about her.
The Gabbards (especially Tulsi’s father Mike) are not a mystery to those of us who live in Hawaii and pay attention to politics. Chris Butler/Jageb Guru’s Science of Identity Foundation is a cross between Hare Krishna, 70s hippie culture, and surfing, and I would say it is neither more nor less dangerous than Scientology. It has some pretty offensive ideas, and is hard to distinguish from a cult, but you could say the same about most traditional religions. (Butler used to run a show on public access TV here, so didn’t really try hard to keep any of the group’s views a secret.)
People here generally like Tulsi, and she has moved beyond her family in some ways, but there are still some issues connected with the Butler cult, for example Tulsi’s propensity to hire other members into staff positions (which of course could be because they are also friends with whom she grew up). One local paper ran quite a good story about all this several years ago, before her presidential ambitions were known outside the state but well after we all knew she was planning to run:
As for Buttigieg:
I’ve heard Buttigieg on a couple of interviews, he is very very sharp. I like having him in the race. Unlike Gabbard, whose run will probably hurt her political career (the local party has already lined up quite a good candidate to oppose her in the next congressional primary run), Buttigieg’s will probably help him, maybe make him a good candidate for the Governor’s seat in Indiana (which in turn is a good launching point for the Presidency).
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Faffenreffer:
Let’s just limit the campaign to 1 month before the election and give all the candidates the same amount of money, say, 1 million dollars, for publicity. Anyone discovered violating that 1 month window, directly or indirectly, will be kicked out of contention on the first offense and dropped from the top of the Washington Monument on the second.#theEternalCampaignHasToFuckingStop
Forget the promise of progress and understanding, for in the grim darkness of the 21st Millennium there is only campaign. There is no breathing room between the elections, only an eternity of carping and swift-boating, and the laughter of thirsting candidates.
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The Butler cult is one of those nasty little cults of personality, extremely homophobic. It’s hard to guess how much she’s moved on from that. She couldn’t have broke with them completely because they seem to have the usual disconnection/disfellowship rule of members cutting all connections with an apostate. (Leaving quietly is sometimes acceptable.)
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That’s pretty damn dark. Not wrong, mind you, just dark. Actually sounds a bit Lovecraftian.
If it’s anything like Scientology, it’s hella bad.
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Agreed. “No less dangerous than Scientology” is a pretty damning description.
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There are all kinds of problems with Scientology, starting with the way it polices its image, but you could say the same for more mainstream religions, even the old ones like Catholicism. While a candidate’s religion says something about their worldview, it isn’t obvious to me that Scientology would assert more explicit control over a politician’s decisions than, say, LDS or Islam or Charedi Judaism or Mary Kay Cosmetics. I think I would rather have, ceteris paribus, a Scientologist in the White House than a Dominionist Christian.
Just to be clear, this isn’t meant as and endorsement of Scientology or any other cult.
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If those are my choices, I would likely vote “Giant Meteor.”
I have known many people of faith that are able to set it aside and compartmentalize enough to be an objective scientist, politician, etc. I cannot say that for Scientology. They seem to have a much tighter rein on their adherents than most mainline religions do.
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