In before they nominate fucking Hillary… again. It would be one thing to claim name recognition if people actually liked Biden, but nobody fucking likes Biden. People stomach Biden because the alternative is so much worse. This is why we so desperately need some kind of proportional voting system, literally any kind. The public needs a way of telling the parties “here’s how we feel about these issues” without it being a binary choice between bad and even worse.
You shouldn’t underestimate people’s tendency to just do what they’re told and not rock the boat. Network head likes Trump interviews because it generates views, which attracts advertisers. Trump is a petulant child and will refuse to do interviews with any network that points out he has the mental capacity of a child. So the network head mandates that nobody is allowed to question Trumps mental state for fear of him refusing future interviews. Since their boss said so, the network talking heads just go along with it.
As for the politicians, they can’t recalibrate to the reality that is Trump. They’re used to playing political chess with their equals and along comes the pigeon known as Trump to walk all over the board knocking pieces over and shitting everywhere. They literally have no playbook to deal with him. Normally this would be where the “referee” steps in which depending on context would be a debate moderator, the Supreme Court, or Congress, but the debate moderators won’t touch him because of the previously mentioned reasons, the Supreme Court has been stuffed with puppets that have a vested interest in protecting him, and Congress is so deadlocked and dysfunctional they can’t even pass legislation with bipartisan support nevermind impeaching him.
Trump is the perfect storm of everything the US political system was never designed to counter. Every single check that was supposed to prevent this sort of thing has either been subverted or just plain failed because the supposition it was built on was faulty. He has highlighted that far too much of the US political apparatus has functioned purely by convention and concepts of fair play and as soon as someone came along that didn’t give a shit about any of that it all crumbled.
Because his supporters don’t care if he’s a gibbering idiot as long as he tells them their particular deplorable -ism is perfectly valid and fine. He gets the racist votes because he tells them that they’re right and all the non-white people are inferior and out to get them. He gets the Christian votes because he tells them that the US has, is, and always will be a Christian nation that should be run by their particular flavor of Christianity and btw all the non-Christians are out to get them. He gets the homophobe and transphobe votes because he tells them yes, LGBTQ+ is a choice, they’re all perverts, and they’re all out to get them and their children.
Basically he tells everyone that’s on the wrong side of history who have been told that they are terrible people for decades that they are in fact not terrible people, that they’ve been right all along, and that it’s all a conspiracy by liberals/democrats/minorities/homosexuals/satanists/whoever to get them, and they eat that shit up. As long as he keeps spouting support for their particular prejudices he’ll keep getting their votes, because they rather elect a gibbering moron who validates them than someone sane and competent that tells them their prejudice is wrong.
So the crux of it is the definition of wet. A couple definitions: “covered or soaked with a liquid such as water” or “Not yet dry or firm”. While you could maybe argue water is “not yet dry”, that also implies the expectation that it will at some point be which it won’t, because if it’s “dry” it’s not water anymore. Similarly water is not “covered or soaked in a liquid” as it is a liquid. It’s a subtle point but highlights a quirk of English. A liquid almost by definition can’t be “wet” unless it also has a dry state (E.G. paint).
While I totally agree with you, fun semantic question, is water wet, or does it only make other things wet?
Trump is like a walking Onion article. It’s impossible to parody him because he’s already stranger than fiction.
It’s really a variant of the tragedy of the commons, but yes it does have parallels with prisoners dilemma.
It’s a commons dilemma, by moving out you’re prioritizing your short term self interest over the long term group interest. If you leave a conservative state for a liberal one for the immediate future your quality of life will be greatly improved, but if enough people do so in the long term everyone’s quality of life will be worse.
So standard projection from the GOP. Nice of them to confirm that they consider the KKK to be their military wing, not that that’s a surprise to anyone.
The good news such as it is, is that they’re not really malicious about it. This isn’t the US style “we don’t like your kind around these parts”, so much as it is “how cute, the silly foreigner thinks he’s people”. They probably won’t even say anything negative to you, they’ll just side eye you and bad mouth you behind your back, maybe pretend not to understand what you’re saying even if you’re speaking perfect Japanese. Not that everyone in Japan is that way of course, but it’s very common there.
If you’re just visiting, particularly if you stick to the touristy parts, you probably won’t have any problems at all. It’s really only once you try to stay for more than a week or two and start having to do normal day to day stuff like trying to establish a bank account, or taking a daily commute that the xenophobia really kicks in.
Yeah, I read the headline and my first thought was “and? Japan is practically legendary for xenophobia”. Talk with literally anyone who doesn’t look Japanese who has spent any time in Japan and they’ll have at least one story of a time they were discriminated against for not “being Japanese” even if they’ve lived there their entire lives. They’re usually fairly polite about it, but they’re absolutely xenophobic (with a healthy dose of low key racism).
I think currently they’re not. They’re registered to their state as they’re still technically illegal at the federal level. The DEA has taken kind of a don’t ask don’t tell approach to marijuana and is currently relying on a patchwork of state regulations to manage it because for a variety of (terrible) reasons they haven’t taken the sane step of reclassifying it. It honestly shouldn’t be a scheduled drug or at worst a schedule 4. Moving it from schedule 1 to 3 is better than nothing, but it’s still a chicken shit maneuver.
And I hope it results in better candidates in the future
That won’t happen.
and maybe a 3rd and 4th party emerging to fill the voter gaps.
Only way that happens is if we swap to proportional voting instead of first past the post. As long as it’s a choice between the DNC and GOP neither party is going to let that happen either. Most likely scenario that sees that become a reality is that the GOP finishes imploding and in the confusion and power vacuum left behind enough of a coalition forms to get it passed. Still a long shot though.
Weird how a criminal also has a bunch of friends that are also criminals.
They’re getting smarter about this. Instead of charging Trump immediately they’re saving him for after all his conspirators are convicted. They know that Trump will leave his people out to dry if he thinks it won’t impact him, and by leaving Trump out of it the guilty verdicts become significantly easier to achieve. Once they’ve got a whole slew of air tight convictions to point to their case against Trump becomes really simple because they just need to show be was working with all these people which is practically a matter of public record at this point.
This has always been my take on him. He’s basically a Republican but too chicken shit to challenge Trump for the GOP nomination directly so instead he’s running as a Democrat. The reality is he never stood a chance in either party, the GOP because Trump has cornered the market for gullible idiots, and the DNC because he’s blatantly conservative.
I think the key takeaway there though is that Trump controls that account. KSIC can take control of that account within 24 hours, but nothing is stopping Trump from just draining that account if he loses his appeal.
Trump is a clown and the media wants to run the circus. The only reason they want Biden there is to play the straight man and add an air of legitimacy to the show.
Aaaaaand the patient is dead, turns out Jesus is a really bad surgeon. And then they’ll sue when it turns out relying on thoughts and prayers makes for a really shit healthcare system. Somehow they’re unwilling to accept “it’s all part of gods plan” as a malpractice defense either.
Absolute best case scenario, Biden dies of natural causes and Trump rots in jail. Only concerning thing in that scenario is that I’m not convinced Trump being in jail is enough to stop the morons from voting for him.