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A story about a pathetic man's downfall [34 Felony Convictions]


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14 hours ago, MrBig said:

He’s been a police officer for over 15 years and was in the military for a few years before that. He’s a huge Trump fan but did not support Jan 6. He thinks Trump lost the election. But he also thinks of Trump as the ultimate savior for this country. If my brother wants to worship another man, I’d prefer it be Jesus instead of Donald Trump.

therein lies the difference between a cult and a religion. the head a of cult is alive. I seriously think there is a IQ cutoff somewhere that accounts for most it, but for some reason a large swath of our neighbors have unknowingly joined the largest cult in history (other than maybe Nazism, but i don't really care to look it up).

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So about these polls - they aren't accurate for several reasons, one of which is that people that are busy tend to ignore requests to be surveyed.  This typically lends itself to be skewed towards older and often retired people responding.  Also, you have consider methodology in how these polls are conducted.  For some polls, they do things like call land lines to get survey information, this is obviously dubious, as how many people do you know under the age of 50 that have land lines?  For ones that don't use land lines, how many people don't ignore what they would they consider to be a spam phone call?  There are other factors at play, but also consider that often times political polls are released that are deliberately skewed to produce outrage or draw attention, especially when run by a media company attempting to draw rating and produce talking points.  Fox creates bullshit polls to do exactly that, and don't think CNN is above it either. 
Pew is largely considered to be a good poll, but if you read their own methodology you will find that they concede it's far from perfect.  Even in unbiased polling there are significant margins of error, which when extrapolated over millions of voters isn't a small matter, quite frankly it's gigantic.  
https://www.pewresearch.org/our-methods/u-s-surveys/frequently-asked-questions/
I'm not saying polls don't have a use, but what I am saying is that a big grain of salt is necessary.  Additionally, when you see a poll, see if they back up their work and show methodology.  For all we know, that poll was conducted by surveying the "friends of the proud boys" facebook group.  

Slowly steps back an inch from the ledge….
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7 hours ago, RomaVicta said:

We prefer the story where we're not Hitler's Germany.

I can't recommend An Indigenous People's History of the United States enough. A salient point is how what was done was policy including scalp-taking of men, women, and children, laying waste to farmlands, and burning villages.

The author is a scholar, and she quotes the mandates of government. As did you, I learned new things. The new things and things I'd picked up here and there over the decades are woven together into a fabric depicting the uprooting and utter destruction of indigenous nations and peoples.

Even my mildly enlightened perspective was turned on its head then bitch-slapped.

 

The dissonance and sadness that occured for me once I realized I was lied to about both country and religion has never dissipated. It's always shaping my world view and will always be a part of me. Being bombarded with propaganda of being from a country of righteousness and freedom only to be hit with reality that we're an evil country in a unique position to poison the world with our selfishness and poor decisions is tough to live with. It's why so many people reject reality and choose to believe fantasy. Almost always reality is far worse than you were led to believe so believing the lies allows you to keep going and avoiding questioning our own culpability and actions. 

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23 hours ago, wildcat09 said:

That's not really true. There's a lot of historical debate that I'm not particularly well versed in over whether the emperor actually made an offer to conditionally surrender in January of 1945, and there were certainly elements of Japanese command that wanted to fight to the last man, but there were others who were absolutely looking for a diplomatic end to the war. 

I'm not particularly interested in the details of this historical argument because even the strongest "they would've surrendered" arguments rest on fairly loose evidentiary foundations, but "the Japanese people were unthinking fanatics who were totally committed to their emperor as a god and would've fought to the last child" is definitely one of those simplistic, comforting lies American people have told themselves over the decades.  It's hard to find much sympathy for the Japanese people though, given all the horrors they were more than happy to inflict on China and Korea. 

I hate to contribute to thread drift, but this topic fascinates me. I went down some research rabbit holes a few years ago and am convinced that Japan would not have surrendered without the bombs (or it would have cost more lives than the bombs). There's no way to know for sure, so it's an interesting topic of conversation. I also believe that once humans created the device, it's use was inevitable. If it hadn't been used to end WWII, I believe it would have been used during the cold war. "Mutually assured destruction" has a lot more bite with images from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and detailed reports of its functions and effects. Ultimately, I think humans have become too smart for our own good. The bombs exist, we are incapable of ever finding peace on a worldwide scale, they're gonna be used eventually, and we're all fucked.

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On 7/31/2023 at 8:31 PM, Js1 said:

I mean, if you have some weird expectation that the younger generation votes 100-0 for the Dem, you’d be very wrong and frankly quite stupid. It’s still about 65-35. 

They def seem to be more into the grievance politics / war on wokeness than the culture wars stuff against the gays.

I know a few younger types who are MAGA.

Obviously the Qanon crowd is kind of an outlier, since anybody buying into Qanon has mental health issues.  They are grateful that politicians actually pay attention to them long enough to get them to the voting booth.

The other younger ones I know though, they usually have serious issues going on in their lives/aren't happy where they are at in their lives, and they are looking for somebody else to blame. Trump and the GQP swoop in and tell them that their problem is all of the woke people, or people from other countries, or minorities.  Maybe they don't say "minorities" out loud, but when they attack DEI stuff or defend the Confederacy (removal of the statues/renaming of military bases)....you know what they are talking about. The slavery thing in Florida is the perfect example of that.  These are people that believe the economy has completely bottomed out in the shitter, regardless of what any evidence may prove otherwise, because if they are suffering, that means the entire country is suffering.

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4 hours ago, 'stache said:

I hate to contribute to thread drift, but this topic fascinates me. I went down some research rabbit holes a few years ago and am convinced that Japan would not have surrendered without the bombs (or it would have cost more lives than the bombs). There's no way to know for sure, so it's an interesting topic of conversation. I also believe that once humans created the device, it's use was inevitable. If it hadn't been used to end WWII, I believe it would have been used during the cold war. "Mutually assured destruction" has a lot more bite with images from Hiroshima and Nagasaki and detailed reports of its functions and effects. Ultimately, I think humans have become too smart for our own good. The bombs exist, we are incapable of ever finding peace on a worldwide scale, they're gonna be used eventually, and we're all fucked.

 

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Don't know if this really belongs here, but ....

Everything we needed to know about Trump was revealed to us when Sean Spicer (may he rot in hell) lied repeatedly, unabashedly about the crowd size during the inauguration. Contradicting photographs, even. Don't believe your lying eyes. 

Reminds me of the Star Trek episode (not that I'm a big fan, but a fan) when Picard is being tortured (more or less) and the bad guy says (iirc) hey, it's all ok if you just tell me that there are 5 lights instead of 4. No biggie, right? 

So, just tell me that the size of Trump's crowds were bigger than Obama's crowds. No biggie, right. 

Fuck those people. Trump supporters are the very definition of anti-American. 

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On 8/2/2023 at 2:47 PM, atomheartbevo said:

I know a few younger types who are MAGA.

Obviously the Qanon crowd is kind of an outlier, since anybody buying into Qanon has mental health issues.  They are grateful that politicians actually pay attention to them long enough to get them to the voting booth.

The other younger ones I know though, they usually have serious issues going on in their lives/aren't happy where they are at in their lives, and they are looking for somebody else to blame. Trump and the GQP swoop in and tell them that their problem is all of the woke people, or people from other countries, or minorities.  Maybe they don't say "minorities" out loud, but when they attack DEI stuff or defend the Confederacy (removal of the statues/renaming of military bases)....you know what they are talking about. The slavery thing in Florida is the perfect example of that.  These are people that believe the economy has completely bottomed out in the shitter, regardless of what any evidence may prove otherwise, because if they are suffering, that means the entire country is suffering.

Anecdotally, my son, who will be eligible to vote in 2024, used to read a lot about politics and seemed to identify way more to the right of center than I would have imagined (given my wife and my leftward position).  But as he's gotten older, he's become far more liberal, yet apathetic.  Obviously, I'm encouraging him to vote and will work against the apathy.  Also, of the people he grew up with and what they've posted on social media, his age group (friend group), is very progressive.  And this is in Tyler, Texas.  There is hope if we can get them to vote.

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6 minutes ago, dcbc said:

Anecdotally, my son, who will be eligible to vote in 2024, used to read a lot about politics and seemed to identify way more to the right of center

Young HS aged men being edgy and going a bit against their folks? No way

I also think a lot of kids grow up thinking they’re moderate/centrist and then realize holy hell they are not 

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On 8/2/2023 at 3:37 PM, Asithappens said:

Don't know if this really belongs here, but ....

Everything we needed to know about Trump was revealed to us when Sean Spicer (may he rot in hell) lied repeatedly, unabashedly about the crowd size during the inauguration. Contradicting photographs, even. Don't believe your lying eyes. 

Reminds me of the Star Trek episode (not that I'm a big fan, but a fan) when Picard is being tortured (more or less) and the bad guy says (iirc) hey, it's all ok if you just tell me that there are 5 lights instead of 4. No biggie, right? 

So, just tell me that the size of Trump's crowds were bigger than Obama's crowds. No biggie, right. 

Fuck those people. Trump supporters are the very definition of anti-American. 

1984 man

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3 hours ago, DigglerontheHoof said:

BTW, just brought up on MSNBC, dotard didn't have a single family member with him today.  The cunt's in the legal fight of his life and not one family member was near him.

 

To be fair, Eric wanted to come but Donald told him to stay at home and play in the street.

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5 hours ago, dcbc said:

Anecdotally, my son, who will be eligible to vote in 2024, used to read a lot about politics and seemed to identify way more to the right of center than I would have imagined (given my wife and my leftward position).  But as he's gotten older, he's become far more liberal, yet apathetic.  Obviously, I'm encouraging him to vote and will work against the apathy.  Also, of the people he grew up with and what they've posted on social media, his age group (friend group), is very progressive.  And this is in Tyler, Texas.  There is hope if we can get them to vote.

My daughter turns 18 in a couple of weeks and she will vote straight-ticket Dem as soon as she’s able. And she grew up in a VERY “red” part of Dallas.

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52 minutes ago, conVINCEd said:

It’s red because of the olds.  Below 50 trends blue.

I agree with that. But she does have quite a few Hitler Youth peers. But I have said on these boards multiple times that the younger generation is much more accepting of alternative lifestyles and seems to be overall more empathetic than previous generations.

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6 minutes ago, C-Man said:

I agree with that. But she does have quite a few Hitler Youth peers. But I have said on these boards multiple times that the younger generation is much more accepting of alternative lifestyles and seems to be overall more empathetic than previous generations.

Pics of Hitler Youth peers?

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1 minute ago, C-Man said:

I agree with that. But she does have quite a few Hitler Youth peers. But I have said on these boards multiple times that the younger generation is much more accepting of alternative lifestyles and seems to be overall more empathetic than previous generations.

My interactions with kids and parents in that area are when the kids are in elementary school.  So younger kids/younger parents which probably skews my perspective.  I suppose they evolve into Hitler youths as they grow up.  It is also entirely possible that my wife, who teaches there, simply declines invitations to do things socially with maga parents, because she despises them as much as I do, and also because if I get a couple of glasses of wine in me I am more likely to speak my mind.  

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14 hours ago, A-Tex Devil said:

If every eligible voter in Texas voted I think Texas might be blue.   A combination of apathy, ignorance and systemic voter suppression prevents it though.  

I kind of think that Texas democrats need to vote in large numbers in Republican primaries where there is a not crazy in the race. Of course there are not many Texas Republican candidates that aren’t crazy. 

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14 hours ago, dcbc said:

Anecdotally, my son, who will be eligible to vote in 2024, used to read a lot about politics and seemed to identify way more to the right of center than I would have imagined (given my wife and my leftward position).  But as he's gotten older, he's become far more liberal, yet apathetic.  Obviously, I'm encouraging him to vote and will work against the apathy.  Also, of the people he grew up with and what they've posted on social media, his age group (friend group), is very progressive.  And this is in Tyler, Texas.  There is hope if we can get them to vote.

How do you feel about bribery?

 

”Listen, son, I’m throwing an election BBQ for you and your friends. You get 20 friends to vote, and show up at the bbq with proof of voting, and I’ll give you a grand. Drinks and Q on me. Let’s fucking go.”

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Nice piece from the Miami Herald Editorial Board: https://news.yahoo.com/altered-state-trump-told-us-201410673.html

Quote

In 2016, voters went for Donald Trump, the showman, the bigot, the iconoclast, the sexist, the mean-spirited charmer quick with jab, joke or derisive nickname.

Now, given the mile-wide lead that the former president has in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, a majority of Republican voters seem ready to embrace Trump, the authoritarian.

And that includes Republicans in Florida, where Trump has a Palm Beach mansion, faces federal charges for refusing to turn over classified documents and has a commanding lead in the polls over the governor Floridians enthusiastically re-elected last year. Trump initially enthusiastic, too, about then-U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis. Now, the governor trails Trump by 20 points for the nomination, according to a Florida Atlantic University Mainstreet PolCom Lab poll of Florida Republicans.

Trump supporters here and across the country are not paying attention or don’t know history — or they aren’t the true Americans they believe themselves to be.

Trump and his campaign have been crystal clear: Should he regain the White House, he will consolidate every last bit of power he can into his own hands. The three equal branches of government will not be equal any more. The former president plans a sweeping makeover of the presidency and the constitutional foundations that actually make America great.

“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence,” Russell T. Vought, one of Trump’s policy advisers told that New York Times, “and seize them.”

A strongman

It would be a power grab — blatant, frightening and the tactic of a true authoritarian. We saw what Trump was able to unleash on Jan. 6. 2021. Now, he intends to run roughshod over Congress and the Constitution.

“Trump is a symptom of larger set of movements, different political threads that have come together,” Erica Newland, counsel for Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group working to defeat authoritarian threats, told the Editorial Board. “There’s a skepticism of expertise and a belief in strong executive authority. Portions of the conservative legal movement have spent the last 40 years casting doubts about the legitimacy of other institutions such as Congress.”

In a second term, Trump would pull the strings in just about every aspect of American life. He calls it Agenda47.

According to the plan delineated on his website, he’ll make stop-and-frisk, a criticized and discriminatory police tactic — ruled unconstitutional — the law of the land. He’ll deploy the U.S. military to fight street gangs, deport illegal migrants and execute drug dealers and human traffickers. He wants all parents to be able use state funds to send their children to the school of their choice, leaving public education on the ropes. Here, he would be following the lead of his closest rival, DeSantis, who signed such legislation into law this year.

Trump promises to wrest control from the Justice Department and order a criminal investigation into his predecessor, Joe Biden, an abuse of power that would top the Nixon White House and Watergate. Trump also says he will order the now-independent Justice Department to investigate charging decisions by local prosecutors, superseding constitutional separation of federal and local authorities.

Trump will bring independent regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, under his control. As a campaign website says: “President Donald J. Trump will liberate America from Joe Biden’s wasteful and job-killing regulatory onslaught.” In other words, he’ll be giving Big Business the green light to pollute and exploit.

Target federal workers

Trump will refuse to release money Congress has approved for programs he doesn’t like. He will remove career civil servants’ job protections, making it easier to replace them if they stand in the way of his agenda. He will fire officials he deems disloyal from intelligence and defense agencies, plus the State Department.

To many Americans, much of this is an attractive agenda. Who doesn’t want streets free of crime after uneven local efforts to tackle it? What parents don’t want to send their children to high-quality schools?

But Trump is promising something else: He will continue to reject our constitutional order and replace it with one-man rule, where he is the authority over laws and how they apply.

He’ll undermine Americans’ ability to govern themselves. And he’ll create more chaos, because it serves him. We saw that, unforgettably, on Jan. 6, 2021, when he worked up supporters at his rally until they stormed the U.S. Capitol to block Biden’s victory from being certified.

He lost election

Back when Trump was in office, his senior adviser, Kellyanne Conway, used the much-derided term “alternative facts” as she tried to dispute the size of his inauguration crowd. And Trump has continued use that strategy, telling insiders that if you repeat something often enough, people will believe it. He’s still doing it, promoting the lie that he won in 2020. Anyone who does not buy into the falsehood will pay in the next Trump administration.

How else can we interpret his chilling words to loyalists at a campaign rally in Waco, Texas? “In 2016, I declared I am your voice,” Trump said. “Today, I add I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”

Throughout, Trump’s campaign has been under-girded by the implication of brute strength and the threat of violence.

After Trump was indicted this week for allegedly working to overturn the 2020 election results, campaign spokesman Steven Cheung fired back: “The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes.” Too bad Cheung doesn’t seem to know what authoritarianism is, when he sees it, up close, every day.

None of this is happening in a vacuum, according to Protect Democracy. Policy advocate Ben Raderstorf offered a warning: “Unsuccessful coups are often followed by successful coups. If you don’t have accountability for attacks on democracy, you will see further attacks on democracy that will be successful.”

Americans already have endured an unsuccessful coup. To prevent one that succeeds, more of us must pay attention, learn from history and act like the true Americans we can be.

 

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I agree with that. But she does have quite a few Hitler Youth peers. But I have said on these boards multiple times that the younger generation is much more accepting of alternative lifestyles and seems to be overall more empathetic than previous generations.

Young generations, especially post atomic age, have pushed for social change.
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Nice piece from the Miami Herald Editorial Board: https://news.yahoo.com/altered-state-trump-told-us-201410673.html
In 2016, voters went for Donald Trump, the showman, the bigot, the iconoclast, the sexist, the mean-spirited charmer quick with jab, joke or derisive nickname.
Now, given the mile-wide lead that the former president has in the race for the 2024 GOP presidential nomination, a majority of Republican voters seem ready to embrace Trump, the authoritarian.
And that includes Republicans in Florida, where Trump has a Palm Beach mansion, faces federal charges for refusing to turn over classified documents and has a commanding lead in the polls over the governor Floridians enthusiastically re-elected last year. Trump initially enthusiastic, too, about then-U.S. Rep. Ron DeSantis. Now, the governor trails Trump by 20 points for the nomination, according to a Florida Atlantic University Mainstreet PolCom Lab poll of Florida Republicans.
Trump supporters here and across the country are not paying attention or don’t know history — or they aren’t the true Americans they believe themselves to be.
Trump and his campaign have been crystal clear: Should he regain the White House, he will consolidate every last bit of power he can into his own hands. The three equal branches of government will not be equal any more. The former president plans a sweeping makeover of the presidency and the constitutional foundations that actually make America great.
“What we’re trying to do is identify the pockets of independence,” Russell T. Vought, one of Trump’s policy advisers told that New York Times, “and seize them.”
A strongman
It would be a power grab — blatant, frightening and the tactic of a true authoritarian. We saw what Trump was able to unleash on Jan. 6. 2021. Now, he intends to run roughshod over Congress and the Constitution.
“Trump is a symptom of larger set of movements, different political threads that have come together,” Erica Newland, counsel for Protect Democracy, a nonpartisan, nonprofit group working to defeat authoritarian threats, told the Editorial Board. “There’s a skepticism of expertise and a belief in strong executive authority. Portions of the conservative legal movement have spent the last 40 years casting doubts about the legitimacy of other institutions such as Congress.”
In a second term, Trump would pull the strings in just about every aspect of American life. He calls it Agenda47.
According to the plan delineated on his website, he’ll make stop-and-frisk, a criticized and discriminatory police tactic — ruled unconstitutional — the law of the land. He’ll deploy the U.S. military to fight street gangs, deport illegal migrants and execute drug dealers and human traffickers. He wants all parents to be able use state funds to send their children to the school of their choice, leaving public education on the ropes. Here, he would be following the lead of his closest rival, DeSantis, who signed such legislation into law this year.
Trump promises to wrest control from the Justice Department and order a criminal investigation into his predecessor, Joe Biden, an abuse of power that would top the Nixon White House and Watergate. Trump also says he will order the now-independent Justice Department to investigate charging decisions by local prosecutors, superseding constitutional separation of federal and local authorities.
Trump will bring independent regulatory agencies, such as the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission, under his control. As a campaign website says: “President Donald J. Trump will liberate America from Joe Biden’s wasteful and job-killing regulatory onslaught.” In other words, he’ll be giving Big Business the green light to pollute and exploit.
Target federal workers
Trump will refuse to release money Congress has approved for programs he doesn’t like. He will remove career civil servants’ job protections, making it easier to replace them if they stand in the way of his agenda. He will fire officials he deems disloyal from intelligence and defense agencies, plus the State Department.
To many Americans, much of this is an attractive agenda. Who doesn’t want streets free of crime after uneven local efforts to tackle it? What parents don’t want to send their children to high-quality schools?
But Trump is promising something else: He will continue to reject our constitutional order and replace it with one-man rule, where he is the authority over laws and how they apply.
He’ll undermine Americans’ ability to govern themselves. And he’ll create more chaos, because it serves him. We saw that, unforgettably, on Jan. 6, 2021, when he worked up supporters at his rally until they stormed the U.S. Capitol to block Biden’s victory from being certified.
He lost election
Back when Trump was in office, his senior adviser, Kellyanne Conway, used the much-derided term “alternative facts” as she tried to dispute the size of his inauguration crowd. And Trump has continued use that strategy, telling insiders that if you repeat something often enough, people will believe it. He’s still doing it, promoting the lie that he won in 2020. Anyone who does not buy into the falsehood will pay in the next Trump administration.
How else can we interpret his chilling words to loyalists at a campaign rally in Waco, Texas? “In 2016, I declared I am your voice,” Trump said. “Today, I add I am your warrior. I am your justice. And for those who have been wronged and betrayed, I am your retribution.”
Throughout, Trump’s campaign has been under-girded by the implication of brute strength and the threat of violence.
After Trump was indicted this week for allegedly working to overturn the 2020 election results, campaign spokesman Steven Cheung fired back: “The lawlessness of these persecutions of President Trump and his supporters is reminiscent of Nazi Germany in the 1930s, the former Soviet Union, and other authoritarian, dictatorial regimes.” Too bad Cheung doesn’t seem to know what authoritarianism is, when he sees it, up close, every day.
None of this is happening in a vacuum, according to Protect Democracy. Policy advocate Ben Raderstorf offered a warning: “Unsuccessful coups are often followed by successful coups. If you don’t have accountability for attacks on democracy, you will see further attacks on democracy that will be successful.”
Americans already have endured an unsuccessful coup. To prevent one that succeeds, more of us must pay attention, learn from history and act like the true Americans we can be.
 

Straight up nightmare fuel - We must defeat this POS.

I’m furious that a straight up tribunal didn’t occur in the days immediately following 1/6 that held all these fucks to account. Every member of Congress that voted to sustain this traitor should have never been seated, but here we are…

Leaving stakes these high to the voters, in an incredibly manipulated system I might add, is a recipe for disaster.
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Just now, Party_Taco said:

 

Straight up nightmare fuel - We must defeat this POS.

I’m furious that a straight up tribunal didn’t occur in the days immediately following 1/6 that held all these fucks to account. Every member of Congress that voted to sustain this traitor should have never been seated, but here we are…

Leaving stakes these high to the voters, in an incredibly manipulated system I might add, is a recipe for disaster.

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