drewpey

I know it seems like a lifetime ago, but most news networks didn't touch the dossier initially either. Buzzfeed broke the story without verification and caught a ton of flak for it, and the story blew up and became it's own news because the populace wanted to know the extent Russia fucked with our election process. This story doesn't stick with the audiences because no one besides conservatives care, thus only conservative echo chambers are running with it. If you had a squeaky clean candidate running against him the message would stick better as the republican party would be offering a better product (no corruption) against Biden...but you aren't so what is a Democrat supposed to do? "Biden is corrupt, better abandon all my political positions and vote Trump because he totally isn't corrupt". Democrat's aren't single-issue voters, and you aren't going to dissuade voters because you found out a politician may be corrupt. Everyone has been paying attention to the Russian interference from 2016, and the many warnings that they are actively interfering with the election, and can't help but wonder if this is it. In 2016 I think a lot of democratic voters wanted a perfect candidate and they didn't get that, so they didn't show up to the polls. They learned the lesson that perfect is the enemy of good, and sometimes you have to just take the small win instead of the big win. Biden is far from what most Democrats want in 2020, but to echo Republicans from 2016..."at least he isn't Hillary Trump"

Just because the audience leans left doesn't mean the news does. The study you reported was specifically about where people get their news and whether they trust their news sources. Cons get news from a smaller pool and trust fewer sources. It's a good read, but doesn't really support the argument you are trying to make.

They approached news outlets with the story, and the reporters asked to verify the original emails and Rudy said no despite having copies. They asked more details about where it came from and he was evasive. The right has been crying wolf for years on stories fueled largely by Russian disinformation. You act shocked when the media process works like it is supposed to and verifies stories before publication. If you think the journalistic process is so shady, then call up these same outlets claiming to have dirt on a republican and send them only PDFs of proof and see where it gets you. You should have taken a journalism elective in college, it would have done you some good.

This sidesteps the original question. If we as a country are ok with it, then nothing to see and we keep walking on. If we aren't, then we should have an actual discussion about what should change in order to help that...does it involve state solutions, constitutional amendment, or expansion of existing programs, etc. Ignoring a problem that is affecting more and more people every year because it wasn't mentioned on a 200 year old document is a bit short sighted.

Why can't we start here: Are we as a culture ok with people falling into unrecoverable lifelong poverty and never returning to be productive taxpaying citizens for what amounts to losing a medical lottery? I think the large majority of people would agree something should be done. If so, what?

Who independently verified it? I can't find anything online about verification, only the opposite that no one can verify. Are you saying that if I claimed to have a laptop of yours, and I started posting private pics of you and videos of you smoking crack you wouldn't have your lawyer give me a call? What kind of world do we live in where a large law enforcement agency comprised of cops and headed by a trump-appointee is left leaning? Do you even listen to yourself? My bad, he relinquished control but didn't divest, and still funnels millions of taxpayer dollars back into his own pocket by taking everyone to his resorts and enriching himself. Just like the founding fathers wanted. Also you dodged that you can quite literally pay to have access to Trump through Mar A Lago. Who should I trust? A millionaire who lies repeatedly when it's convenient to him and repeatedly disrespects the office of the presidency, or a lifelong public servant who has been under public scrutiny for 40+ years and the worst you can dig up on him is dirt about his son...

Republicans before October 2020: OMG the media is all lies, and we can't trust unnamed sources! Republicans in October 2020: We should trust the media that was shadily given this mysterious hard drive and won't produce actual copies with metadata My favorite part of GRU-toberfest 2020 is how we pretend Republicans suddenly care about pay to play schemes. No tears were shed over the past 4 years as foreigners quite literally pay for access to Trump via Mar a Lago and other businesses that he maintains control over in direct violation of the emoluments clause of that precious document you swore to uphold and defend. Kushner and company are selling visas to chinese investors and soliciting investors on the taxpayers dime for his 666 5th avenue property. You guys are a hoot.

Unpopular opinion...but the black boots sucked, and I'll keep saying that until the day I die. They made a mess on your clothes when you packed them in your bag or rubbed them on anything not black, they were fucking hot and didn't breathe at all, and not all of us are the internet badass most of you are who claimed to strut around in scuffed up boots and tell every chief and FGO to fuck off when you get gigged on your boots. I like no maintenance clothing I never have to think about...and the black boots were far from that. Now if you want a black pair of Lowas or Salomons then I'm listening.

When they forced us into green boots and tan shirts everyone was howling. Now that we have the option to swap back to brown shirts and comfortable boots everyone is dragging their feet. I feel like some of my fellow aircrew have stockholm syndrome.

When it comes to uniform items, you betcha. Homie don't spend on uniforms.

Soooo....I'm sure there are other thrifty folks out there.... I used this: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B00UL9GRJI/ref=ppx_yo_dt_b_asin_title_o01_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1 to dye my stash of fancy XGO $50 ultrathin fire retardantshirts from sand to "chocolate coyote brown". Roughly 6 shirts per bottle. More to follow on how well it holds up, but good enough for government work!

I get what you are saying, but I think things are much simpler than a grand conspiracy of people orchestrating the compliance of the executive branch, and half of the legislative and the judiciary. It's all about money, and yes corporations and organizations are wildly spending money to influence our government and drown out our voices as the individual level in favor for these other agendas. Some people are bought and paid for, some less so, and I'm sure on occasion there are those who aren't at all. There's money to be made on pretty much either side of the political coin. It sucks, but that's the system we have until we come together and set some campaign finance laws limiting how much money can be showered onto our politicians. Imagine if most of the money that went into elections went to something good.

I hate to break this to you, but Bernie isn't a democrat. If you knew any of the history you'd know how tenuous his relationship is with the DNC, and how he isn't pulling any strings with anyone, quite the contrary. Just because you view anything to the left of authoritarianism as being democratic, that doesn't make it so. The DNC enjoys Bernie's success because he pushes for many of the same issues and drums up support outside of the mainstream centrist democratic party, but ultimately he funnels his voters towards the Democratic nominee. And as far as Harris being "radical"...ok sure. Move the goalposts all you want, but understand that she was by far the safe choice. There were plenty of options that would have been "Radical", but someone who was an attorney and then a senator is too spicy for you. Perhaps she should have been a reality TV star first to get more approval from the Republican party. Overall it shouldn't matter if you have 3 separate but equal branches of government with functional checks and balances. The problem is you've consolidated all the power to the executive and the legislative branch has entirely abdicated their responsibilities. Fortunately it's shown us all the holes in our government we relied on good faith to not be exploited, but the real test will be if our democracy can adapt and strengthen itself or continue to be torn apart.

At this pace I don't think Hunter Biden is going to win this presidential election thing. Either way I'm going to hold judgement on what the Feds say on the email. Initial look it appears to be fake news, not to mention the story surrounding it being "found". Imagine that.

"the democratic party has been taken over by it's radical wing" lol...ok. The "radicals" were so successful in their "takeover" they voted in the most milquetoast old white dude they had available to them. I get you guys are terrified of the Democrats winning, but you are going a little overboard with the hyperbole. If Sanders was up there...sure you could start howling, but neither of these two candidates are far from mainstream politics. In fact any "radical" ideas they have are likely just to motivate younger voters and are less likely to be fulfilled. Republicans have continually said over the last 4 years that "the president has no effect on 99% of peoples' daily lives" I'm inclined to parrot that back to you. The scary old man might tax the rich, alleviate student debt, and give people healthcare, but hardly anything "radical".

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-54522203

So the FBI has had his hard drive for almost a year, and this is what comes out of it? Dude introduced his business partner to his dad and some raunchy videos of himself on his hard drive? Lock this dude up! Why is it that Hilary, Obama, Biden and his son are all guilty of crimes, and yet with control of the executive, judicial and the majority of the legislative over the last 4 years you haven't been able to scrape together indictments against these criminals? Yet in the meantime almost all of Trump's inner circle have had charges brought against them for one reason or another? Do you really think there is an all-powerful deep state cabal protecting these people? If they are so powerful why is the democratic party so weak all the time? None of this makes any sense old man.

I say keep it up. It's a losing argument to convince undecided voters, but only one to shore up support amongst their base. No undecided voter will look at the two geezers and think one is worse off than the other when it comes to being mentally there. They are old men who talk like old men.

There's a saying...when the facts are on your side, pound the facts...if the law is on your side pound the law...and if neither are on your side, pound the table. When you have to cherry pick facts from secret documents to declassify to make your case while hiding the rest of the document, and despite controlling several branches of government you can't muster an indictment of these "crimes" then it just looks like you are pounding the table. If crimes were comitted then prosecute. If rules were broken then punish. If no laws were broken but we don't like the action, then lets change the law. I'm not a huge fan of secret courts and shady government processes as well, but we should have a full open discussion about it, and not have one based off a few declassified lines with little or no context. Unless it pertains to sources, declassify it all and lets see where the cards fall. IMHO abuse of power should always carry a severe punishment.

Thank you for proving the point that most people cannot differentiate between actual journalism and entertainment.

And who are these actual proper journalists I should be following? Who are these amazing journalists who have better investigative resources than the entire US government at the behest of the Senate that resulted in an intelligence report with said "fake news findings" written by republican senators? Please I must know!

https://www.c-span.org/video/?c4911544/user-clip-sen-whitehouse-ratclife-letter

I'll admit I was hesitant of this sort of talk initially, but after reading about it it does seem like a good idea. Having a different organization responding to mental health events with more specialized training might be a good way of alleviating much of the stress on the police force and allowing them to focus their training in other areas. We expect them to do too much and are shocked when combining poor training with low pay we get shitty results. Right now it takes me longer to complete barber college than to become a cop. I listened to an interesting podcast that talked about the parallels of this and how EMTs were first stood up in the states. Lots of resistance initially but after a while the value is seen and it becomes commonplace. Will be interesting to see the ideas that come out of solving this problem if the marketplace of ideas is allowed to flourish. https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/freedom-house-ambulance-service/ We can't have a realistic conversation about it, because of the extremes. Yes there are some on the fringe calling for no police at all, and at the other extreme you have people begging cops to just shoot the protesters and move on. In the middle is the opportunity to solve the problem of an overworked, underpaid and undertrained police force we want to handle all these sticky situations with no accountability.

This is in black and white, typed by your republican senators on the intelligence committee. Just because you don't read it doesn't mean its a conspiracy theory. Reals before feels man.

No, it wasn't. If you actually read the reports from the republican-controlled senate intelliegence committee, you would know otherwise. There was significant coordination between the Trump campaign and russian intelligence officers, wikileaks, etc.. Manafort, Stone, Flynn, Papa, Cohen, Gates all doing shady shit. Yet you, a "centrist" look past all of that, look past the actual spy Butina who was rooted out, her NRA ties which are being linked to funneling money through the NRA to republicans, the 8 (R) congressmen who spent an emergency 4th of july in Moscow, the repeated softening of republican policy against russia, Trump kowtowing to Putin in Helsinki, and all you see is Hunter. Hunter is a red herring. He isn't running for office, and the republicans just released their report on his involvement and found no illegal activity and said it didn't influence US policy. Again, your choices are "do nothing" or "do something" to save the environment. One party wants to open everything up for oil drilling and fracking, another wants to help curb CO2 emissions. Is it alarmism? Perhaps...only time will tell, but ultimately it is beneficial to the planet, so why not at least go in that general direction and have a good debate on how drastically we should commit? Again you are focusing on the most extreme of the party. Sure there are some randos claiming open borders, but they are not center of mass for the party and no one is actually trying to make that happen despite what fox news tells you. I think you'd be hard pressed to find a politician to say border security isn't vitally important to the US, particularly in post 9/11. You can't have a discussion about what are reasonable legal immigration levels, paths to citizenship for illegal aliens, amnesty policy, etc. without the right screaming "deport them all". It's not realistic, it makes for good sound bytes but ultimately it's a waste of everyone's time. There is little discussion on actual policy, and I'm sure the debates will be much of the same. Biden will discuss policy which is generally boring to the average american...trump will make some quippy soundbytes, drop a bunch of chaff about obama spying on him, insult Biden's wife and the crowd will hoot and holler. That's basically 2016 debates in a nutshell. I don't disagree and Citizens United has done more to undermine our democracy than anything we will see in our lifetime. That being said no system will ever be perfect and void of exploitation by a populace. Our current system is heavily exploited by the rich, and the democrats have worked to pass some (not a ton) of legislation to help care for the poorest of the populace. Healthcare is one of them. The republicans really screwed the pooch, and if they had lived up to their promises to repeal and replace the ACA with something more workable they would easily sweep democrats this election by beating them at their own game. Instead they just broke the system, threw a party and walked away. I've seen more republicans turn democrat over the US healthcare punching them in the face than anything else, and it's going to continue happening. It's easy to overlook things that never affect you personally, but when you have children dieing of cancer and families going broke to help keep them alive, it really shows how terrible our system is. What are you referring to specifically? The BLM/Police brutality issue? Is fighting for racial equality off the rails?