Everything is Political

[Curtis, baby]

Canada's most recent conservative leader started playing with his band full time after he was ousted. They play the worst assortment of dad music imaginable
They are called the Van Cats. Vingt-quatre means 24 and the prime Minister lives at 24 Sussex Dr

Seriously, everything about this is the worst thing ever

[thoxans]

fuckin canucks

[rischka]

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa- ... A42J0?il=0

ROFLMAO subpeona this muthafucker

oops i know i'm supposed to hate biden and everything but i'm trying to be more positive to avoid shooting myself sry not sry. Can't help but note the many, including supposed leftists, piling on AOC for her emotional speech.

[sally]

https://twitter.com/lewis_goodall/statu ... 5813715969

[rischka]

on that note

eh not actually real

https://twitter.com/butchthebiller/stat ... 89952?s=20

[sally]

i should have gone to bed hours ago, but i'm crying my eyes out at that, it's like the vicar of dibley goes brexit done by mike leigh

[kanafani]

i should have gone to bed hours ago, but i'm crying my eyes out at that, it's like the vicar of dibley goes brexit done by mike leigh

Please refer to me as Britney Spears from now on

[kanafani]

A plague on both your houses

https://twitter.com/JonathanCohn/status ... 5620640768

[MrCarmady]

wonder what all the rabid warren haters on the left think of that

[greennui]

[kanafani]

wonder what all the rabid warren haters on the left think of that

Good vote by warren. I live in her state, so I’ve heard her answers to questions about Israel in past senate primaries. She’s held typical shitty pro-Israel positions in the past, supporting the war on Gaza a few years ago for example. But she was against the anti-BDS boycott movement/bill, and she criticized the move of the embassy early on. Kudos, Liz. You ran an awful presidential primary, you betrayed many of your supposed values in the hopes of getting some nice position in the Biden administration, and you should have withdrawn and supported Bernie before Super Tuesday. But kudos.

[sally]

the biden honeymoon didn't last long then

at least we'll always have four seasons total landscaping which is the funniest thing i have ever seen in my life

& thanks greennui that's nice, very amusing to read whilst we're all still in lockdown here & i've forgotten what real flesh & blood people look like. i watched that sanz & the secret of his art livestreamed from valencia last night and it showed the cinema and there were people in it and it was just unbelievable. i may be agoraphobic by the time i ever get to go to a restaurant again

[Lencho of the Apes]

withdrawn and supported Bernie

I'm pretty sure her only role in the Primaries was to split the Bernie vote, so faint chance of that. She's one of those people that thinks they're playing others when they're actually *being* played. Sadly, Bernie just *gets* played with no apparent thought to playing others. (And that's the most charitable explanation of his weaknesses.)

[kanafani]

I'm pretty sure her only role in the Primaries was to split the Bernie vote

Yep, that is essentially what her run amounted to once it was clear she was personally getting no traction. Now whether or not she explicitly coordinated with the Biden campaign, and was asked to stay in the race until after Super Tuesday, who knows, I’d say it’s very likely. In the mass primary, Biden won with 33.5%, Bernie was second with 26.7%, and she finished third with 21.5%. Bernie would have had a great chance to win here if she had endorsed him, or even just stepped down. Same in a bunch of other places.

[rischka]

[Lencho of the Apes]

Sorry, Rischka. Some of the people I criticize are women. Can you suggest a way for me to avoid that?

[rischka]

it's ok i'm getting much better at this self control thing was just demonstrating that

greennui started a whole new topic to keep me from going off again lol. anyway i think you're more or less right about the dynamics here

*conspiracy theories of the left*

[flip]

warren killed the debates, was running well ahead of sanders for a month, and sanders had a heart attack. why is it she should have dropped out to endorse him instead of the reverse? they were both polling well and were old enough to think they wouldn't have another shot, so you don't need any conspiracy theory to explain why they both stayed in the race a bit longer than they maybe should have. and democratic primaries aren't winner-take-all anyway, so whether warren+sanders beat biden in massachusetts is pretty much irrelevant. though i did check the super tuesday data, and if you consider warren+sanders as a single candidate, and (since we're just randomly combining people in similar zones of the political spectrum) biden+bloomberg as a single candidate, none of the state winners change outside of massachusetts and maine.

[kanafani]

“Warren killed the debates” is a highly subjective statement, so I won’t dwell on that. She might have been polling ahead of sanders for a month, but that was probably early on, where the media was desperate to boost anyone who was not sanders, jumping from candidate to candidate, hoping something would stick. She finished a crushing forth in New Hampshire, a state that neighbors ours, and got zero delegates there. Bernie won that state. She did not do well at all in Iowa either, which Bernie also won. She finished fourth in Nevada, which Bernie won. Bernie won the first three contests! She finished third in her own state, a pathetic result that shows the shallowness of her support. No one can seriously doubt that by Super Tuesday, if pushing her progressive agenda forward was truly her priority, the right thing would have been to withdraw and support Bernie. The fact that primaries are not “winner takes it all” does not mean that “it does not make a difference”, Bernie would have got a significant boost that would have translated to more delegates in many places. Two candidates withdrawing on the eve of Super Tuesday and andorsing Biden created the narrative that he was now inevitable. Had warren done the same for Bernie, along maybe with a couple other more minor candidates (say yang), that would have created a counter-narrative. Who knows what would have happened then. Even in states where “Bernie+warren” was smaller than Biden, or Biden-plus-some republican billionaire, that does not mean that Bernie would have not won anyway. It’s more nuanced that that. A lot of people voted for Biden because they got convinced that he is the only choice. If she and others had countered by supporting Bernie before Super Tuesday, who knows how many people would have changed their minds?

[flip]

had warren known she was going to come third in her home state on super tuesday, she surely would have dropped out to spare herself the embarrassment. she did much worse on super tuesday than she was expected to. you can say the same for bloomberg though - had he known he'd do so badly, there would have been no reason for him to contest the elections either.

if you were to divide all of the candidates into two groups, moderates and progressives, the moderates got more votes. i think biden was going to win no matter what anyone else did. tulsi gabbard and not warren is the candidate i think most deserving of progressive ire, and the one most likely to be involved if there was any conspiracy going on.

[kanafani]

had warren known she was going to come third in her home state on super tuesday, she surely would have dropped out to spare herself the embarrassment.

Surely? How do you know that? I don’t think anyone thought she was going to win her state, even before the Biden consolidation, so it was very likely she was going to be embarrassed anyway. Maybe bringing Bernie down and getting brownie points with Biden was worth the embarrassment though. I’m certainly speculating, but so are you. She did endorse Biden later, and grovel for the vice-presidency, so who knows, what I’m saying is not so far-fetched.

if you were to divide all of the candidates into two groups, moderates and progressives, the moderates got more votes. i think biden was going to win no matter what anyone else did.

I agree that the moderates in total get more votes that the progressives. The reason why Bernie was able to win the first few contests was that the moderates were divided. That does not mean that Biden was going to win no matter what though. There was an extraordinary early consolidation (sponsored by Obama and others) around him to remove the Bernie risk. If Pete and Amy had not withdrawn, then Super Tuesday would have looked very different, and who knows, Bernie might have built a lead that would have been too much to overcome, especially taking his domination in California into account. The extraordinary moderate consolidation should have been met by an extraordinary progressive consolidation, but it is not surprising that it did not happen, as there is no organized, disciplined “left” in the us. The mainstream dems got their shit together just in the nick of time.

[kanafani]

tulsi gabbard and not warren is the candidate i think most deserving of progressive ire, and the one most likely to be involved if there was any conspiracy going on.

Not sure what this is about. Tulsi was barely registering any support in the primaries. All I know about her is that She Who Shall Remain Unnamed casually accused her of being a Russian agent, with absolutely no proof, and no repercussions, as usual.

[Monsieur Arkadin]

I also think that any political analysis based upon adding up the total percentage of votes for "progressives" against the votes for "moderates" is inherently flawed. People just don't vote that way, as much as we'd like to think they do. Bernie was the #2 choice for a lot of Biden voters and vice versa. So the idea that moderates have more votes than progressives overall is a bit of a fallacy. Moderates had more votes overall because there were more candidates to get those votes. If there were 9 progressives and 1 Joe Biden the progressives would likely have more votes overall.

[kanafani]

I also think that any political analysis based upon adding up the total percentage of votes for "progressives" against the votes for "moderates" is inherently flawed. People just don't vote that way, as much as we'd like to think they do. Bernie was the #2 choice for a lot of Biden voters and vice versa. So the idea that moderates have more votes than progressives overall is a bit of a fallacy. Moderates had more votes overall because there were more candidates to get those votes. If there were 9 progressives and 1 Joe Biden the progressives would likely have more votes overall.

Sure, brother abou el arkadin, but there is a real, strong block of traditional democratic voters who are just not into Bernie, for a variety of reasons, which I won’t go through, but I do believe that this block exists. It was harder to overcome this in 2016, when they had a grand total of one non-Bernie candidate to choose from (I’m not counting the other goofy guy). In 2020, their vote was split among a few candidates, which allowed Bernie to prevail with about a third of the votes. It’s interesting to speculate on what would have happened if it was Bernie versus Biden from the get-go. I would think Biden would have won in a repeat of 2016, even though he looked shockingly out of it. The establishment/media/money conglomerate would have carried him across the finish line. There is just no equivalent left/progressive infrastructure of the same order that Bernie or any other left candidate can count on.

[kanafani]

Maybe you’re like me, and you’re clueless about stocks and short selling and such, and you were confused by the GameStop saga. Luckily, one of our leading public intellectuals is here to help.

People called lions, a hobbling wildebeest, magical hyenas, vultures that ate the hyenas... hakuna matata, baby.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4haC-Ct7PLE

[flip]

Not sure what this is about. Tulsi was barely registering any support in the primaries. All I know about her is that She Who Shall Remain Unnamed casually accused her of being a Russian agent, with absolutely no proof, and no repercussions, as usual.

gabbard was the lone candidate who pointlessly maintained a campaign long past its obvious sell-by date, and every vote for her was siphoned off from sanders or warren. there were obvious russian chatbots promoting her on youtube (and i'm sure lots of other places i didn't see), she was promoted by russian media, and it's beyond question she was the dem candidate russia supported. gabbard did file a defamation suit against clinton then withdrew it. whether she's a russian asset or not (probably not, but clinton could know more than we do, she was sec of state after all) she certainly had a pro-russian voting record in congress.

[kanafani]

Not sure what this is about. Tulsi was barely registering any support in the primaries. All I know about her is that She Who Shall Remain Unnamed casually accused her of being a Russian agent, with absolutely no proof, and no repercussions, as usual.

gabbard was the lone candidate who pointlessly maintained a campaign long past its obvious sell-by date, and every vote for her was siphoned off from sanders or warren. there were obvious russian chatbots promoting her on youtube (and i'm sure lots of other places i didn't see), she was promoted by russian media, and it's beyond question she was the dem candidate russia supported. gabbard did file a defamation suit against clinton then withdrew it. whether she's a russian asset or not (probably not, but clinton could know more than we do, she was sec of state after all) she certainly had a pro-russian voting record in congress.

Flip, come on, man. How much was she polling at? How many votes did she siphon off? 11 total?

Who cares what the Russians are doing and whom there are promoting? Many countries play these games, including the us of course. What do these chat bots amount to in the grand scheme of things? There is a world of difference between that (which tulsi can’t control) and saying she is a Russian agent or asset. These are serious allegations, you don’t just throw them around. “I’m sure Hilary knows something”, please. Is the FBI investigating this? Is she going to be brought to court and go to jail? I mean this is treason. If it comes out that the FBI/CIA/whatever has proof, I’ll apologize to you here. Otherwise this is nonsense. This reminds me of the Washington post floating “intelligence” on the Russians boosting Bernie on the eve of the Nevada caucus.

I’ll need to look back into it, but I think the origins of her feud with Clinton go back to the time when tulsi was vice chair of the DNC. She endorsed Bernie instead of her. In Hillary’s book that makes you a Russian asset.

She’s a fringe character with yucky connections to some anti-Muslim right wing Indian political currents. At least she spoke up against war when she got a chance. Cool silver streak though.

[flip]

whether she's a russian asset or not (probably not

[kanafani]

(probably not, but clinton could know more than we do, she was sec of state after all)

[flip]

i'd have thought that was the least controversial part of what i said, it's obviously true?