Skywalkre

I'm reminded of something David Brooks had to say over this modern dysfunction with our budget. Given it often comes down to the last second and is often just some continuation of spending levels that came before... this has been going on for so long now you have significant parts of the budget that are pure waste because the work that needs to be done to prune, adjust, eliminate, replace isn't being done. All of this because both sides refuse to work with each other in a system that only works when compromise happens. Americans as a whole want compromise and functioning government... but not enough of these Americans show up during primaries where the base treat working across the aisle as negatives.

Once again, your state governor (an R) has stated he is more than willing to listen to anyone who can come forward and under oath present evidence of a stolen election. No one has. That same state government (as has mine in AZ) has investigated various claims and found nothing. Cases presented in court have been thrown out for being laughable or turned up nothing in the end. Whatever metric you think will finally prove it is irrelevant (and I imagine you'll just keep changing that metric even if what you wanted was done and it found nothing).

I'm not seeing this. Let's take Ds and the Constitution. Tim the Tank Nut had that post recently about the D Gov of NM. He kept mentioning something about it 'being a test run'. I get the reference... but I don't get that there's any reason to believe that's what was going on. Talking to actual Ds and listening to pundits and D political leaders I keep hearing the same message - they're focusing on winning so they can pass legislation and get sympathetic judges appointed. That's how our system works. I grew up believing the same thing you talk about... the Ds didn't believe in the Constitution. As I've gotten older I think that was a bit... disingenuous on behalf of them. Many of them simply have differing approaches to interpreting it. We disagree with those interpretations... but they're allowed to have them (and said interpretations have shaped this country from the beginning). Let's not also forget the lesson from '22. No matter what you think about Ds and how they view the Constitution the reality is a lot of voters were motivated to come out and vote against Trump and his candidates because they felt they were a threat to democracy. I never thought that day would come in my lifetime... that a substantial number of Americans voted against Rs because of that reason... but it's true. Trump and the MAGA crowd aren't doing anything to change that going into '24 and that same message will likely be another rallying cry for the Ds. That's entirely on Trump for still pushing the notion of a stolen election and for supporting candidates back in '22 (and likely again in '24) who claimed they would overturn or ignore the vote despite any evidence of wrongdoing.

The government, many positions (like the IRS) filled with employees that basically can't be fired short of an act of God, has terrible employees fucking up? I'm shocked, SHOCKED I tell you. I'm not laughing at it... you can go through my post history over the years to see I've been a proponent of implementing policies that make it easier to get rid of the dead weight. Let's take a step back, though. This all started when several folks made the bold claim that these agencies are solidly in D control and all we had to do was open our eyes to see it. That's... an incredibly weak argument. I mean... it's not an argument at all. We live in an era of 24/7 news with everyone from a teenager up carrying a smartphone that can record and send video the moment something happens. Everything is tracked... and outlets/FB groups pick up on everything they want to push to their demographic/echo chamber ready to exploit and exaggerate said stories in a heartbeat. This leads to the question - is there actually something going on, such as Ds secretly taking over government agencies and using them to wage war on Rs, or is it just filtering what folks want to see to shape reality? Take that IRS story from years ago. That's something thrown out as proof... yet multiple government reports at the time showed the IRS was cracking down on all types of groups, not just conservative, and the lawsuits launched in regards to this supposed issue by said conservative groups stuttered until Trump took office and forced the government to settle. That's not proof of wrongdoing... that's a political move to appease your base. Just like 'stolen elections' I'm not saying this couldn't happen... but just like the 'stolen election' nonsense no proof has really been provided. When I 'open my eyes' I often find much of what several posters on here talk about/link to has far more nuance or their angle is just plain wrong.

That basically sums up how many of you view Ds. Both simultaneously morons (how many threads do we have here on TN pointing this out?) and yet so incredibly cunning to have pulled off a stolen election without a shred of evidence after years of a large % of Rs looking for some.

Right... and they weren't laughing before... nor were they ok with any of the demands Russia had put out before the invasion... so not sure what you're arguing for here. You just seem to be twisting whatever you can so far from reality to lay the blame of this on Biden when the only blame lays with Putin. Ukraine was not some pawn or puppet for us to dole out chunks of or make strategic choices for on behalf of a nutjob from Moscow.

You'll have to source what you're referring to here. I'm not turning up anything when trying to search for this.

Not that interesting at all. First off there's zero reason to believe any of it... and second if it were true it makes Boebert out to be more of a braindead bimbo than the Ds already paint her as since nothing about this guy's background was hard to find out... This is a pretty open/shut incident. What she did was stupid and embarrassing... there's no defense.

Have some finally stated they're annoyed by it? Last I saw (granted, this was a few weeks ago) either other Rs were voicing support or had no comment. The whole affair and how some are reacting to it is... interesting. As we see in this very thread some have lamented we have too many high ranking officials so this is a good thing. Problem with that line of thought is you don't address the problem through dysfunction... you address it through serious reform that would get rid of many positions and make those changes permanent. Tuberville's effort is meant to inflict pain on the Pentagon so they change their position... yet defenders of him claim it's not causing any pain at all. if that's the case... why is he doing it?

In my lifetime at least Catholics have historically been majority D and pro-choice. The church may not be that way... but the actual US members leaned that way. This page from Pew seems up to date and highlights this and some other interesting realities. It's showing 44% of Catholics in the US are D, 37% R, and 19% Independent. What's really interesting is the breakdown of who is pro-choice and pro-life (it's near the bottom of the page). Even amongst Ds and Rs you have quite differing views on abortions. For Catholic Ds you have 58% who think abortion should be legal in all/most cases and 37% who think it should be illegal in all/most cases. For Catholic Rs that's basically flipped - 38% think abortion should be legal in all/most cases and 59% who think it should be illegal in all/most cases. Independents are basically in the middle (44% for legal/49% illegal). I would imagine if we looked at most religious groups in the country we'd probably see a similar, bizarre (as in compared to historically what we used to think both sides actually thought) breakdown.

Several candidates for POTUS have mentioned support for it - Pence and Scott for sure. Haley hasn't stated she's against it but that it's unrealistic and would never happen and has argued for more limited measures. That was all back in the first debate. I think a few more may have come out in support since? Regardless... there are definitely some in the R camp who are now pushing for it. I think you don't see many on the Hill talking about it because it's currently not an option with the makeup of the Senate and given what the reality of several elections since the Dobbs decision has shown it's politically not a smart move to push for it (outside of primary season... which is why the POTUS nominees are discussing it).

I remember the talks before the invasion... and Russia's demands were comical. Not only did the US not agree to them but neither did Ukraine (and they weren't some pawn of ours to do with as we like). You have some interesting... interpretations of how things happened. Biden's administration deserves all the fault for how the withdraw from Afghanistan occurred but the date was set by Trump's administration and the Taliban had no interest to renegotiate that deal. He didn't cave to the Russians... as mentioned above he rebuffed their comical demands before the invasion and since then has rallied support for the defense of that country while keeping us out of the fight. As for China he can point to continuing Trump's tariffs while enacting even further economic burden/tech limitations and strengthening alliances in the region.

Putting the destruction of Ukraine on Biden (just... how... do you come to that conclusion?) is on par with blaming the ensuing economic turmoil (inflation, supply side turmoil, etc.) from COVID entirely on Trump. It's the definition of disingenuous. All the experts/pundits I trust say there's no more a Sino-Russian alliance now than there ever was before. And losing the Saudis? That actually sounds like a positive. Looking at his policies in a more honest light (yeah, I know, that's asking too much of many of TN's posters these days) what you have is a POTUS who has stood up to autocratic aggression in both China and Russia. That was always a hallmark of R foreign policy for as far back as I can remember. Biden's been tougher on China than Trump was (keeping tariffs and limiting key tech transfers/purchases). He's given a firm stance on defending Taiwan and worked to solidify allies in the region. You can go back and look at my post over the years and I've said multiple times we should be looking at and addressing China the same way we did the USSR. Biden's done that more than any POTUS in my lifetime and I have to give him props for that. He's supported Ukraine, reinvigorated NATO, and toed the line between support while avoiding escalation. All admirable and right things to do. I don't care for his domestic policies but in these key foreign ones I have to give him high marks.

No principle involved... just the populist angle being played. Election results have highlighted that R polls were misleading about their stance on abortion. There appears to be a sizeable segment of the R bloc that is actually pro-choice when push comes to shove. I shouldn't be surprised by this as outside my family every R woman I've come across has been pro-choice. As for Iowa I don't think it'll hurt Trump. I've mentioned this before but apparently there's polling showing many of these Evangelical supporters of him don't even believe in basic Evangelical principles. (He's also had some flops in recent weeks struggling to articulate his faith... and that hasn't hurt him.) It seems clear all that matters is unwavering loyalty to Trump above all else. I can't even fathom what could possibly change that at this point. The nomination is solidly in hand for him.

No commentary on the Iran deal? $6 billion in funds released (supposedly for humanitarian purposes only... but Iran has already said they'd use it on whatever they want) and 5 Iranian prisoners freed (though, interestingly enough, some are choosing to stay here in the US or leave for somewhere other than Iran) in exchange for 5 Americans being held in Iran. Biden's administration claims we didn't just put a price tag on freeing Americans held by 3rd world shitholes... but it's a comically ridiculous statement to make with a straight face and no one is buying it. I think, even as a Conservative, you can argue Biden's foreign policy has been pretty solid... with the one exception being these prisoner swaps he's made. The one with Russia exchanged an entitled female athlete (while Russia exaggerated her sentence she still broke their laws) for a notorious Russian gun runner who the DoJ spent tens of thousands of hours working to convict (I still remember an interview after that one where an insider mentioned the DoJ was furious at the administration over it). These just haven't been... good moves. The only sensible follow-up to this should be the administration announcing a list of various countries where Americans being kidnapped/arrested is a concern and stating that any American who chooses to enter said countries outside of working for the US government on official business... is on their own. If anything happens we won't life a finger (and mean it). That won't happen... but feels like the best option to try and dissuade further incidents (and even then it probably wouldn't).