No, you say both sides because you can’t admit your “team” has a problem that isn’t ubiquitous.
Again, I show you dozens of individuals intentionally voting multiple times, dozens of campaigns and the party itself engaging in ballot harvesting and other schemes that together equate to hundreds of thousands of stolen votes, you answer “both sides” with absolutely not a single case on the Democrats side (besides the one entrapment case I handed you)….and pretend you won’t provide examples because they’ll be dismissed not because you have none….being dismissed doesn’t stop you from posting all the other propaganda. Knowing you will dismiss the verifiable facts I present you hasn’t stopped me from posting them in contradiction to your baseless propaganda.

I admit Democrats self deal, do insider trading, and sell their votes to deep pockets….but on a scale that’s microscopic compared to the complete lack of ethics and morals on the right. The right was significantly less honest, more money hungry, more corrupt than the left BEFORE Trump….after Trump it’s comparing the Mediterranean to an Olympic sized pool. Technically both have water. Comparatively the pool is completely insignificant….but you only want to focus on what happens in the pool.

Trump and family made literally BILLIONS selling favors. Never been a bigger crook in any office in the land. Greene went from pennyless to a multi millionaire in 2 years. Same for Santos who is a total fraud in every way, a fugitive, and supported by your party…apparently made millions from his campaign. You’ll be hard pressed to find any Republican that hasn’t made millions in office by ignoring ethics completely. You won’t find ANY trying to get big money (bribery) out of politics…only the left is interested in that, the right wants MORE bribery legalized (citizens United was their case, proving Republicans fight for MORE corruption in politics while Democrats fight to end it), the right refuses to divest, and opposes any strengthening of ethics rules EVERY TIME Democrats push for more/stronger ethics rules/laws.

Of course I’ll dismiss your hyper biased, unthinking, no fact idiotic claims, especially since they NEVER have references (because everything you believe is partisan nonsense and lies). It’s not worth the time because it takes no time at all to debunk your constant consistent lies and pure fantasy. If you had any actual facts it would be worth posting them, but you just don’t. You don’t bother to post lately because the stupid lies have gotten dumber and are being debunked as fast as you guys can lie them. It’s past the point where it’s safe to simply deny anything you say as a partisan lie with no investigation at all….chances are 99.96% you are lying or repeating lies any time you type. You never have facts or even references to show where your lies came from….which is totally intentional because you know that only makes debunking them much easier.

In congress….98% of corruption, 100% of child molestation, 100% of treason, 100% of calls to rescind the constitution, voting, and democracy and become a dictatorship are on the right. You call that “both sides” and pretend it’s really mostly a problem on the left with a very few outliers from the right….ignoring the facts….as usual.

You know the old saying….
“To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason, and whose philosophy consists in holding humanity in contempt, is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.” -Thomas Paine

You sir abandoned fact and reason well before the Traitor Trump rode his golden escalator of lies into your heart. I don’t argue with you except as practice, you have no actual argument to offer, only the far right party lines. I simply tell you the verifiable facts. You then argue with the facts and pat yourself on the head in congratulations. Silly boy.

BTW…have you grown up enough to discuss Ashley Babbitt yet? The treasonous traitor who violently attacked the capitol with an armed gang of thugs trying to overthrow democracy at Trump’s urging and got what they all deserved….your hero.
No, I’m sure you’re still just too embarrassed of how idiotic supporting domestic terrorists is and just hope everyone will forget you stand firmly with the treasonous terrorist traitors against democracy, law, and order.

Really?! Just like all knew Jan 6 was ANTIFA, like everyone knows Trump won and Democrats cheated to the tune of tens of millions of votes, but perfectly with zero traces, like everyone knows Covid is just a cold and won’t last 3 months? It’s true, both sides have corruption, but one side punishes and ostracizes those in their camp caught being corrupt, one side makes corruption their party platform and celebrates their members caught flagrantly violating ethics and finance rules, gladly donating towards paying their fines and shielding them from most consequences.

Point to the time Republicans put forth a serious bill to remove dark money that Democrats said no. I don’t think you can, nor can you deny Republicans just voted FOR corruption in government…and not for the first time….you just need to make up fake and false equivalents to pretend blatant Republican corruption is normal.

I’ll point you to Citizens United, the main cause of dark money in politics today, which started as an anti Clinton Republican movie that filed suit and appealed up to the conservative Supreme Court to allow corporations to spend essentially unlimited amounts in secret on political advertising and campaigns (because their “movie” was clearly a political advertisement with secret backers), or to say it plainly, they sued to legalize corporate bribery and conservatives loved it.

Again, point to some “egg on their face” instances that were Democrats fighting for dark money and Republicans trying to ban it, I can point to many times Democrats tried to ban it and Republicans blocked all efforts.

Republicans won’t even limit dark money, and can’t compete on equal funding so refuse to consider getting rid of it.

If you want bribery to be illegal, vote blue.
If you want freedoms beyond just what’s church approved (like in Iran), vote blue.
If you want ethics in government, vote blue.
If you want to fund border control better instead of using its lack of funding as a political ploy knowing your constituents are too dumb to see who caused the surge, vote blue.*
If you want publicly funded campaigns, vote blue.

*https://rollcall.com/2022/04/27/senate-republicans-balk-on-funds-related-to-bidens-border-move/

You are 100% insane and intentionally ignorant.
The court has been majority conservative since the 70’s, it’s now 6-3 conservative and you claim to believe it’s still liberal, just one conservative decision came out. So delusional bob.

Yeah, no one had any issues with the 100% liberal decisions from the liberal Supreme Court…like Citizens United.
Just. So. Ignorant. And. Dumb. Bob.

The right has regressed hard fought freedoms and rights by 50 years. The free world is aghast at what the symbol of freedom and liberty became over such a short 5 year stretch thanks to our core being decimated by magats.

Your ignorance knows no bounds, comrade. No American is so clueless that they think the court JUST became conservative.

Children aren’t in wombs, you brainless slug.

And wow, you are so bat shit crazy you actually go after comedians doing a comedy show for telling jokes. I know they don’t do that in con comedy, but REAL comedy has jokes, not just vitriolic hateful verbal assaults against common enemies. You might try it some time.

So, no college makes a person uneducated and dumb….no high school must make them moronic, like your dear old dad, grandpa, and from your grammar, math, science, and history skills, you too despite your claim, and let’s not forget Boebert. No intelligent thought between the four of you. Didn’t think we wouldn’t remember how proud you are of your ignorant uneducated ancestors, the long family history of people that didn’t finish high school? Considering your abilities, and how easy you are duped into believing nonsensical lies with no facts or logic to them, I wouldn’t be surprised to find you didn’t graduate 8th grade. Wait…is your real name “Hershel”?

No intelligent thought. Hasn’t been an intelligent thought from you since you signed up here, Bob. Just regurgitation of blatantly false propaganda and infantile preschooler insults and whining. Lots of your lies being debunked which you answer by simply telling more lies hoping people didn’t notice you were just thoroughly debunked with corroborated facts and called out as the moronic liar you are for the 972nd time.

PS- way to try posting your discarded idiotic fact free propaganda in comments. Lucky you comments don’t get discarded for negative votes or you would have only about a dozen left from your unpopular and largely unwanted time here….silly little troll.

I suppose you agree that mean man shot Rudy in the back with his invisible gun, right? Almost tackled him, but Rudy is so strong he maintained his balance. Never a true word from Republicans, every syllable you utter is false. If you guys got your wish, a culture like 70’s Saudi Arabia where only white men have power and everyone else is subservient, it wouldn’t make you happy because you would all be begging on the streets with no hands or tongue, because they cut off your hands for stealing and your tongues for lying in that culture.

You’re 1/2 right…we did have a leader, Obama, now we have a joke of an ex president who’s as unpresidential as possible and a whining, sniveling coward…but we do have a leader as president again. Sleepy Joe, kicking ass and taking names in his sleep! Wiped the floor with Dumb Donny.

America had an ex president that was a leader. Now we have an ex president that’s a bad joke. FTFY

This is what a leader looks like, Bob.
Not the privileged cowardly draft dodger who tried to blackmail Zelenskiy by withholding military aid during a Russian invasion and divided the nation irreparably, but the Ukrainian Jon Stewart who stayed and took up arms with his citizens uniting them against a super power.

This is a leader, Bob.

Now, look back at what the utter failure, traitorous Trump had to say about him when the blackmail attempt failed.
Or watch a leader lead….

https://videosift.com/video/We-will-find-every-bastard-Zelenskiy-Condemns-Russians

Potential.
Historically; freedoms, rights, and opportunities, both economic and social.
Until recently, governmental system.
Wealth (per capita).
Military might (although I accept the argument that this is more often a net loss, not a net gain).

Yes, it swings both ways, as you also have the freedom to be as terrible as you like, to hate as irrationally as you like, to be as ignorant and dumb as you like, to be as spiteful and self serving as you like. Before we allowed our system to be purchased by the deepest pockets for purely personal gains of the powerful few with Citizens United, our system was well designed to serve the people, which while imperfect was still better than almost all others. There is still the possibility, however slight, that that democracy killing decision can be remedied with an amendment and we can get back on the right track. Most other systems are lacking in such self correction.

I'm not claiming perfection, far from it, but our overall potential outweighs any other nation's (at least it used to). Yes, we have bigots, but less than many nations by far. Some countries still allow murder of improper worshippers or don't allow certain races to become citizens.
Yes, we have more than our share of loudmouth ignorant morons, but there are other nations that beat us there too. We (as a whole) don't believe aids comes from homosexuals eating each other's poop, for instance, or that women's brains are 1/2 the size of men's. The opportunities for educational advancements are better here than most countries, but not all I admit, and far too many don't avail themselves of said opportunities, granted.
Yes, we have poor people, but fewer per capita than many if not most others, and the opportunity for ethical advancement both financial and social are still good, but admittedly that's changing.
Equality under the law, while far from perfection in that respect, we are (or were) still moving in the right direction.

We have a long hard Sisyphusian slog towards perfection, but overall, historically, we have been crawling towards justice more than away.

That said, New Zealand has been nipping at our heels for a while, and arguments could be made that they presently are ahead in all meaningful ways besides size and weather.

Please don't misconstrue my abhorrence of today's republican party as an endorsement of the democratic party....but there's no question which is worse imo. I've said for decades that I would vote republican if only they would. I didn't leave the republican party, it left me.

'They weren't the only ones sticking it to democrats' isn't an argument, defense, or excuse...it's a dodge imo. Americans are allowed to participate in political propaganda (if they do it legally), other nations aren't. Russian intelligence hacked democrats at Trump's public request to help him. Period.

As for who is G2, "Working off the IP address, U.S. investigators identified Guccifer 2.0 as a particular GRU officer working out of the agency’s headquarters on Grizodubovoy Street in Moscow."

https://www.thedailybeast.com/exclusive-lone-dnc-hacker-guccifer-20-slipped-up-and-revealed-he-was-a-russian-intelligence-officer?ref=scroll

https://www.businessinsider.com/dnc-hacker-guccifer-confirmed-as-russian-agent-after-forgetting-to-conceal-identity-2018-3

I totally agree citizens United (i mean the court ruling bearing that name) put a poison pill in all of our political cups. I would support any candidate who I believed would make a constitutional amendment fixing that priority one, for any and every office high to low. Sadly i don't know of one from any party.
Selling our political system to corporations and billionaires can only end in it's demise.

You know what's really good for stopping tyrannical governments? Free and open elections.

How about instead of perpetuating this fantasy where a bunch of guys with AR-15s are gonna take on a government with fucking PREDATOR DRONES, you try and fix your insanely broken electoral system?

Start with repealing Citizens United, then you can move on to fixing gerrymandering, dismantling the electoral college and finally, find a way to get rid of the lobbyist block.

Do all that, and you won't need to overthrow your government. Not that you could anyway.

*doublepromote , I guess we know which candidate is going to get the harshest, best funded opposition come election time.
I only wish Julie Archer (the next speaker) had gone up and continued listing donations.

We can be certain those benefiting from the legal bribery system they set up will not be working against it, so there is no legal remedy. There isn't a federal ballot initiative we can start to force a finance reform law, and Trump would veto it anyway.
"Throw them all out of office" sounds nice, but isn't even possible in one election, much less likely at all. Even if it were, finding enough people willing to work for others and not their own interests is pretty hard when dump trucks of money are involved.
This is what citizens united was all about, legalizing bribery, and it clearly did exactly that.
Lobby your representatives to write an amendment limiting contributions to actual human beings, even only registered voters, with a clear, low limit (<$1000?), that might be a start....but that's also a non starter.

He makes a very persuasive argument.

But then, I think about how there are lots of counterexamples to the "legislation that gets out will be good legislation" bit. Patriot Act. DMCA. Citizens United. Homeland Security and Aviation and Transportation Security Acts.

I dunno. If there is a weakness in the system, perhaps it is that while the separation of powers theoretically makes it hard to get garbage in, it sure as hell also makes it nigh-on-impossible to get it out when any sneaks through.

The idea that Trump will change anything in Washington, because he's an outsider, is so far beyond absurd that I have to wonder how people come to the idea. Let's ignore for the fact that the President doesn't have much power, certainly not as much as Trump seems to think it does (and it's clear from the last debate he doesn't understand the power one Senator has) and that he'd have to deal with a Congress that is mostly insiders... let's look at the idea that the next President is likely to appoint up to 3 Supreme Court justices, and keep in mind cases like Hobby Lobby and especially Citizens United, both of which give big corporations, the rich, and powerful elite, huge advantages over regular people. Those cases were decided by a court that was fairly to the right already, now imagine losing two of the three liberal voices in the court to very far right justices, moving the court very far to the right for decades to come. Cases like Citizens United would just be the start of the move to give the powerful elite even more control of Washington and moving it further from the people. In the end a vote for Trump isn't a vote for an outsider, but a vote to put even more power into the hands of insiders and disenfranchise the American public even more...

Both candidates are not the same based on their platforms which he equates to the be same which is a laughably naive notion. Beyond that, he fails to see the importance that the next president will seat at least 2 if not 3 judges on the supreme court. That isn't up for an election every 4 years. That is 30+ years. 1 supreme court vote made a difference between having Citizens United and not. Alito being dead has already had an influence on how some rulings went e.g. Whole Woman’s Health v. Cole and United States v. Texas.

Furthermore, his whole contention lies on the ability for the American people to vote people out of office. Well in 4 years George Bush managed to invade 2 nations and destroy relationships around the world and creating an even larger terrorist threat that Obama had to deal with drones because the American people wanted safety and didn't want troops deployed and you needed a third way. Then the economy tanked. I can't believe people have this view that we didn't need to bailout the banks, it was a difficult decision but the other choice was a complete collapse of the financial system. Obama just came into office. What would you have done?

I don't understand this bizarre view Americans have every 4 years that when a new president gets elected the whole thing resets like the fucking Matrix or something. A lot of what Obama had to do was to undo the damage of the previous administration. 2008 crash can be linked back directly to Bush's promise that every American deserves to have a home. All while the right and the GOP constantly undermined him. Tell me the last time the government was shut down by the GOP over a health care act meant to help Americans?

Nader got 2.74% of the popular vote in 2000, the people who voted for him might as well as burned their votes because there is no post for 2nd or 3rd place. You just lose. Nader was very well known among the American people. Who is Jill Stein or Gary Johnson?

We've all been here before. Last time it was Ron Paul. But Sanders did succeed in creating a new class of fired up people who I hope will focus on the actual battlegrounds of any progressive movement mayoral, state, senate and house races. Not just wake up every 4 years.

The President does have enough power to totally sink us IF they're volatile enough. Simple incompetence in a president doesn't sink us. However, that can cost lives. 1,833 people died officially from Katrina, although obviously not that many were directly from the utter incompetence of the Bush administration. 4,500 Americans have died in Iraq during the invasion and subsequent occupation. These things don't "sink" the US completely, but they're VERY consequential.

But Trump is incompetent AND volatile. Bringing both of those qualities to the table as president, and you've got much much bigger issues.

Finally, I absolutely do not get the charges of personal corruption against Hillary Clinton, especially when compared to Donald Trump. Hillary Clinton, so far as I can tell, is an agent who is operating within a system that has been corrupted, and not personally by her. The system needs to be reformed. She's done things to win within the system that you'd ideally not do. But I don't get how she is personally corrupt.

But you speak as if Clinton is the competent but corrupt one, and Trump is the incompetent but non-corrupt one, which blows my mind. How is the only way you can be corrupt is through accepting campaign contributions? How is Trump University not an indictment of how corrupt Trump personally is? How is it not corrupt to appeal to white supremacists? How is it not corrupt to name call, incite your supporters to violence, and dismiss women because they must be on their periods? How is it not corrupt to have your daughter make a speech at the RNC and then tweet how to buy the dress she was wearing, so she could make some coin?

Because one of those forms of corruption is being potentially corrupted by a corrupt system, but they're at least trying to reform that system. Hillary Clinton is the one against Citizens United, officially calling for a constitutional amendment to get rid of it. Has Donald Trump?

I don't think HRC will be a great president. I don't particularly like her much. However, she is qualified to be President. She's done nothing illegal, which is the hallmark of whether someone is corrupt.

And don't kid yourself about our government's ability containing a fascist. The Weimar Republic's government had structures in place to prevent the rise of Hitler, too. They had separation of powers. The government was one of the most democratic governments in the world. Fat lot of good that did.

I'm not saying necessarily that Trump is the next Hitler. But I am saying that there are enough similarities that I can't vote for him, and the mere fact he got a major party's nomination is scary beyond all reason. And voting for someone like that proves out their blueprint for future candidates across the board for offices in the executive, legislative, and judicial branches at all levels of government.

As much as I don't like HRC, Trump is easily the worse major party's nominee in a very very very long time.

First up, bring back the old quoting system!

"I'm of the opinion that both Hillary and Trump would make bad presidents."

Agreed.

"That being said, I don't really believe the narrative that Trump would be the worse of the two; the "apocalyptic" one to elect. Trump is incompetent and chaotic. Hillary is greasy and corrupt."

Which one has campaigned for a law that flagrantly violates the first amendment? Which one has called an entire demographic of US citizens rapists and murderers?

" I think the system (which is actually pretty well designed at its core..."

The American political system is a complete clusterfuck. You have a two party monopoly, the electoral college is a disaster and then there's Citizens United.

"The DNC had a chance to put in another option that would have easily had as much support from core Democrats as Hillary, but also would have energized younger voters AND been a very attractive option for Republicans who don't buy in to Trump (of which there are many). But instead, they left their fingers on the scales and tipped things in favor of Hillary."

Completely agree. Instead of the excitement of a Bernie running, you have the "ugh, Hillary, I guess" attitude.

"So, I'll vote for one of the 3rd party candidates (I like Stein's stance on Snowden, so probably her) or write in the option that crooked DNC and Hillary denied us. Either of those actions is de-facto more likely to result in President Trump, and I acknowledge that. But like I said, I'm OK with that -- I honestly believe Hillary would be worse, and the main thing is that me and other people like me have to send a message to both parties that they need to present us with more reasonable candidates if they expect us to have any degree of the "party loyalty" that both sides expected / enjoyed in the past. This election cycle shows that they are taking that for granted -- so screw 'em."

And here we have the major issue. I have NO IDEA how people think electing Trump will somehow bring down the system. "Screw 'em"?? As in the dems and the gop? It won't bother them in the slightest.

But it will bother Mexicans, Muslims, LGBT people and em.... damnit, there was another demographic that the Republicans want to fuck over.... oh yeah... women.

Forget Trump. As much of an unconscionable arsehole as he is, look at the GOP platform for 2016:
- tax cuts for the rich
- repeal environmental protections
- an anti-abortion amendment
- oppose stem cell research
- prop up the electoral college
- ignore climate change agreements
- repeal obamacare
- abolish net neutrality
- oppose same-sex marriage
- abstinence-based sex education
- increase military spending
- the ridiculous and wasteful border wall

and finally, appoint a new Supreme Court Judge to push all this through. And THAT is the real reason Trump can't be allowed to be President. Say what you want about Hillary, but at least she won't choose a complete loon for the supreme court. Trump might pick David Duke, for all we know.