If you’re going to have a former(?) KGB officer as a dictator for life, you gotta be prepared to have people identify you with some throwback iconography.
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… how exciting. we can ride out another year on this alone! I hope something happens sooner though, acting-president Pence has a nice ring to it 
Trump is not the problem America. Trump is a symptom. Maybe there will be a Democratic landslide next election, what does it matter if they are all beholden to money, foreign and domestic?
Just want us all to keep our eyes on the prize. Trump being ousted is not the prize, that is a carrot on a stick.
Stay focused, think bigger.
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…who believes the Russian sphere of ‘influence’ (a euphemism) should extend at least as far as the former borders of the USSR, and sometimes acts as if it still does…
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For all that Putin wants to reconstruct the Russian/Soviet empire in order to please his nationalist base, we could use the double-headed eagle as easily as we could the hammer-and-sickle emblem to represent that ambition.
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He’s both. Like all good demagogues, he both reflects and amplifies the worst aspects of his base. Getting rid of him doesn’t solve all the underlying problems, but it’s sure as hell an absolutely necessary good start.
What does it matter!? After seeing Trump put Neil goddamn Gorsuch and Brett fucking Kavanaugh on the Supreme Court, where they will shape our country’s laws and policies for the next thirty years or so, I honestly don’t know how one can reasonably ask that question.
Yes, Democrats could and should be better. And yes, too often they lack the courage of their convictions (or in the case of Schumer et al, lack convictions of any discernible type), but having Democrats take control back from McConnell and Trump matters a LOT.
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Headline from a Fox opinion piece: “Gregg Jarrett: Mueller strikes out trying to nail Trump – Flynn sentencing memo is a big nothing”
Do I really need to click the link and read the op-ed to know that it’s a pile of horseshit? Is it safe to assume that the author hasn’t actually read any more of the memo than anyone else outside of Mueller’s team?
This is the latest narrative from the cultists… no jail time for Flynn so, uh, obviously he pled to a measly parking ticket, nothing to see here! The redacted bits are probably just a Neiman Marcus chocolate chip cookie recipe!
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Jarrett wrote an entire book claiming the Mueller investigation is a witch hunt. If Il Douche can recommend it as one of his favourite books of the year based on the cover (because he’s aliterate if not illiterate) I can safely advise you on that basis not to click the link to reach the conclusion you did.
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Indeed we could. I have no issue with whatever emblem anyone wants to use. I just wanted to note that in Putin’s mind Russia should never have become a subset of USSR, and whose naked ambition is to remedy that.
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Yes the Democrats are much better, but we only tell ourselves that so we can sleep at night.
There FTFY. But then, we ARE talking about a very low bar to jump over.
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Oh, c’mon, that’s too clever by half. There are real, demonstrable differences between having Democrats in power and Republicans in power, that make real, demonstrable differences for our world and in individual lives. If someone wants to argue that they wish Democrats would be better, then I’m right there with that sentiment, but ignoring the real differences is just silly and inexplicable in 2018.
Honestly, I thought this “not a dime’s worth of difference” nonsense that Nader and his voters kept telling us in 2000 would have been utterly discredited after Bush and Iraq, but apparently not.
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Many of the consensuses have No Labels. Won’t you join me and my fellow hedge fund managers in promoting an elite consensus against the rather tiresome partisan demands of the hoi poloi?
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Of course there are differences. One is right of center the other is far right of center. Neither is reasonable. Keep going to bat for them though, like having to suppress third party candidates is part and parcel of a functioning democracy… democrat… democracy… The irony… Two party system is the pits. Stop settling.
Considering the National Security Advisor reports directly to POTUS…
I will happily support any movement to replace our voting system with any of the known-to-be-far-superior options out there. Until then, failure to be strategic in taking account the actual real-world consequences of whatever voting choice you make under the actual rules that currently determine who wins elections makes you complicit in those consequences, and having a noble sounding reason for doing so doesn’t excuse you, and doesn’t keep you somehow above the fray.
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Thank you for bringing us Justices Gorsuch & Kavanaugh. Exhibit A in why the difference between the parties DOES matter!
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Yes, there is all too often not as much difference between Republicans and Democrats as there could or should be. I would argue that this is best addressed by voting for the most liberal/progressive candidate in both the primary and general election that has a reasonable chance of winning, not by splitting liberal/progressive voters away from the Democratic party and assuring Republican dominance of government.
For example, one can make a very reasonable argument that HRC was a corporatist candidate whose progressive bona fides left a lot to be desired. I was one of those people who argued as such during the primary and wanted her to move leftward on a lot of stuff (and, to be fair, she did on several things).
In the general election, one of two people was going to win, HRC or Trump. That wasn’t “settling,” it was reality. And if HRC had won, our country would still have problems, but would be immeasurably better off in any number of ways, and our grandchildren wouldn’t be quite as embarrassed by us in 50 years.
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“Perfect is the enemy of good,” or even halfway decent… because it doesn’t fucking exist.
The Nirvana Fallacy will solve no problems, nor will it ever ‘save’ anyone.
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Do you prefer a one-party system, with second/third/fourth parties tolerated only as long as they pose no real threat to the One Party? Because that’s the trend now.
I’m not an American so I’ve got no skin in the game (aside from the risk of becoming collateral damage if the US keeps goose-stepping down this road)… but as an outsider it looks to me like you’re going to have to thwart the one-party takeover before you can give serious attention to the multi-party dream.
And IMO that means the second party, unpalatable though it may be, is going to have to get up off the mat before there’s any point in putting effort into third, fourth or nth parties.
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Yes, and that’s not all. We need to implement ranked voting in every election it can be legally applied. That way voters can with clear conscience support 3rd parties at every level of government. Where I live in NJ the Democratic hegemony leads to endemic corruption, and we need alternatives other than the GOP. I have frequently voted Green in elections where there was no chance of sending an R to DC.
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Especially enticing considering that Mueller is actually known for upholding his end of a bargain and Trump isn’t.
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