Or just choose to ignore them, like they do most of the 14th and the 2nd.
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Watch as Governor Newsom gets roasted by Republicans by being “soft on crime” for pardoning a convicted killer (who happened to be a child protecting herself from an abusive sex trafficker).
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that seems promising.
wish we had more of a “never desantis” group here, but i fear that most of the bastards like his fascist bent.
at any rate, i am actively “never desantis” all the way down here in the islands. fuck that guy and his “Villages Idiots”
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The way this has been worded and reported by some outlets does make it sound like she was let off the hook. Let the GOP/GQP make fools of themselves so it can be pointed out that pardoning someone after they’ve spent 18 years in prison isn’t “soft on crime.”
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I am really struggling to decide whom to vote for in tomorrow’s parliamentary election. This will be my very first time voting in a Japanese election. My first thought is just, “Holy shit, there are a lot of political parties!” There is a political party whose only purpose is to stop NHK (the national broadcaster) from charging people the so-called “telly tax.”
I am really tempted to vote for the Communist Party of Japan, which is exactly what it sounds like. I am also thinking that my vote might go farther for the Constitutional Democratic Party of Japan, which is more center-left. The current representative of my district in Kobe is from the Liberal Democratic Party and he is actually the Minister of Culture. It is very likely that he will retain his seat.
I am amazed to see that almost all of the candidates have responded to a questionnaire asking questions about their views on over-the-counter morning after pills and gay marriage alongside the usual economic issues, COVID response, foreign policy positions and stuff like that.
Japanese elections are also really weird and I still need to get used to this part. Every parliamentary election has two parts: one where you vote for specific candidates and one where you vote for a political party. The people who win in the first part get their seats, but then the political parties also get to appoint members to seats proportional to the amount of votes they got. I’m thinking I might split my vote between the Constitutional Democratic Party candidate in the first part and then the Communist Party in the second part.
ETA: I’ve been reading through the party platforms and I can’t help but think, “Damn, even the right wing parties are further to the left than the Democrats in the US.” Virtually all of the parties want to lower consumption tax (at least temporarily) in response to the economic downturn brought about by the pandemic. Most of them want to make college education free. All of them want to expand the social safety net.
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A good reminder that people might WANT to vote, but if they’re from a demographic that Republicans don’t want, it can be hard to be properly registered:
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I was handed a simple slip of paper and a pencil and asked to actually write in the name of the candidate by hand. I turned in the slip of paper and was then given a different colored slip of paper and told to write in the name of the political party. Luckily, they had lists of candidates and parties to copy from.
ETA: Here is a sample of what the ballots looked like.
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If the parties with that agenda that I know of in other countries are any indication (UK, Switzerland, Germany) then they also harbour some fascist tendencies, even if it’s hidden behind rants about paying for fake news media and being forced to pay taxes.
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They are one of the few parties saying that Japan should consider having nuclear weapons.
They also have two different candidates running in my district for a single seat, so they don’t seem all that interested in actually winning elections.
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The polls just closed about ten minutes ago, but the ruling Liberal Democratic Party (which is none of those things) is poised to handily retain its majority in the House of Councillors (the Upper House).
My candidate did not win…
ETA: Oh my. Ken Akamatsu, the author of the popular manga series Love Hina, Mahou Sensei Negima and UQ Holder (all of which feature a lot of naked underage girls), has been elected to the House of Councillors. I didn’t even know that he was running. He ran for the LDP on an anti-censorship and anti-piracy platform.
This is what a typical manga of his looks like. Those girls are not 18.
ETA Again: @beschizza This Ken Akamatsu story needs a writeup.
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He crossed the nerd streams!
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A good reply for the “voting doesn’t matter” crowd.
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Crosspost
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What the whatting what:
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