ā€œJill Stein is a useful idiot for Russia. After parroting Kremlin talking points and being propped up by bad actors in 2016 sheā€™s at it again,ā€ DNC spokesman Matt Corridoni said in a statement toĀ The Bulwark. ā€œJill Stein wonā€™t become president, but her spoiler candidacyā€”that both the GOP and Putin have previously shown interest inā€”can help decide who wins. A vote for Stein is a vote for Trump.ā€

  • @[email protected]
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    8ā€¢6 hours ago

    I doubt anyone dumb enough to vote for Stein are Harris voters anyway. So now than likely a vote for Stein will be one taken for Trump. So Trump and Putin can waste all the money they want on her campaign.

    • @[email protected]
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      Theyā€™re probably trying to scoop up the Republican voters that are disillusioned with Trump and prevent them from going to Harris. Itā€™s actually a decent strategy in that light.

  • @[email protected]
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    12ā€¢6 hours ago

    Forget debates. I would pay good money to see an episode of Jeopardy with Harris, Stein, and Trump.

  • @[email protected]
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    4ā€¢6 hours ago

    Is the DNC actually trying to woo Stein voters? They could shift swing states into Blue States, but for some reason they think bashing her will get her voters?

    Has the DNC learned nothing from 2016?

  • @[email protected]
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    154ā€¢
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    11 hours ago

    iā€™m glad the ā€œyouā€™re pro-genocide if you vote anything but 3rd partyā€ morons finally shut the fuck up around here

    edit: LOL

    have you had ANYONE turn around and say " you know what, youā€™re right!" on lemmy? or ANYWHERE?

    gtfo russian cumfarts

    • @[email protected]
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      10ā€¢6 hours ago

      Those MAGAs cosplaying as lefties will have an even harder time now that the Uncommitted group have said they cannot support Harris but Donald will be worse. The same as we have all be saying.

      • @[email protected]
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        7ā€¢6 hours ago

        Not just Trump will be worse as some sort of abstract moral statement. Their statement is that Uncommitted voters should actively vote against Donald Trump no matter how inadequate Harrisā€™s statements and commitments have been.

    • @[email protected]OPM
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      Probably doesnā€™t help that Stein refuses to call Putin a war criminal.

      https://www.newsweek.com/jill-stein-vladimir-putin-war-criminal-1954965

      "Hasan later asked Stein why she had labeled Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu a war criminal, but not Putin.

      ā€œWell, as John F. Kennedy said, we must not negotiate out of fear and we must not fear to negotiate,ā€ she replied. ā€œSo, if you want to be an effective world leader, you donā€™t start by name-calling and hurling epithets.ā€

      ā€œSo, how will President Stein negotiate with Israel then if youā€™ve called Netanyahu a war criminal?ā€ Hasan asked in response.

      ā€œWell, because he very clearly is a war criminal,ā€ Stein said, prompting Hasan to ask: ā€œSo Putin clearly isnā€™t a war criminal?ā€

      ā€œWell, we donā€™t have a decisionā€”put it this wayā€”by the International Criminal Court,ā€ Stein said.

      The ICC has issued an arrest warrant for Putin, alleging that he is responsible for war crimes. No such warrant has been issued for Netanyahu, whose war on Gaza has killed more than 40,000 Palestinians. However, the chief prosecutor of the ICC has applied for an arrest warrant for the Israeli prime minister.

      ā€œThereā€™s an arrest warrant for Putin and there isnā€™t an arrest warrant for Netanyahu, so why is Putin not a war criminal, but Netanyahu is?ā€ Hasan asked.

      ā€œYeah. Well, let me say this. We are sponsoring that war. We are sponsoring Netanyahu,ā€ Stein responded. ā€œHe is our dog in this fight. That is why we have a responsibility to pull him back.ā€"

      • @[email protected]
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        21ā€¢12 hours ago

        Fwiw after that whole thing made news she released a press statement that did call him a war criminal

        • @[email protected]
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          21ā€¢7 hours ago

          And anyone paying attention realizes she only put out the statement after she got called on it and had time to think about what it meant that she was actively avoiding doing so. This is 100% optics and nothing more.

          Her statement is about as believable as a kid with crumbs on their face saying they didnā€™t eat all the cookiesā€¦

          • @[email protected]
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            4ā€¢4 hours ago

            Unfortunately, third party candidates are made exactly for people not paying attention

        • sarcasticsunrise
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          13ā€¢8 hours ago

          Way too little, way too late. Medhi cut her up so surgically I donā€™t even know if sheā€™s gonna have the stones to resurface four years from now. Hopefully being a Russian asset pays well, Shill is done

        • @[email protected]OPM
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          46ā€¢12 hours ago

          ā€œHey, Vladimir? I need to actually call you a war criminal now, yeah, I almost got found out. Thanks! I knew youā€™d understand!ā€

        • @[email protected]
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          10 hours ago

          LOL, that just proves his point. I read the transcript, and Stein had every opportunity to clearly and definitively repudiate Putin. Not only did she refuse to do so, she continues to refuse, dishonestly misrepresents being called out on her bad faith as a ā€œmisunderstanding,ā€ and doubles down with bullshit "both sides"ism.

          In fact, that press release has sealed the deal on convincing me that sheā€™s a deeply unserious piece of shit and a Russian asset.

          So congratulations troll farm vatniks, youā€™ve played yourselves.

          • Cadeillac
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            9ā€¢10 hours ago

            She had to get the fax from Putin. Puppets donā€™t talk for themselves

            • @[email protected]
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              12ā€¢7 hours ago

              Just out of curiosity, do you think it would help her win the election if she did? She boycotted his speech in congress. She is treading a really thin line, and the only winning gambit seems to be keeping her messaging neutral until after the election. Rocking that boat right now gives the Republicans further ammunition to use against her, and will embolden Netanyahu to militarily escalate.

              At the moment she can hide behind the veil of the current policy being driven exclusively by Biden rather than inserting herself in the middle of things, and therefore presenting additional leverage to her enemies. I donā€™t like the situation, but I donā€™t see how it was possible to play things any differently while still preserving a serious chance to win the election.

              We normally see eye to eye on a lot of things, but in this case I think it is disengenuous to conflate the motivations of Jill Stein & Kamala Harris.

              • @[email protected]
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                7 hours ago

                I donā€™t think it would help Harris to call Netanyahu a war criminal. I understand the reasoning. But, to attack Stein for inconsistencies in an interview, which she has since corrected by releasing a statement, is hypocritical. If Harris isnā€™t willing to call Netanyahu a war criminal, because of the election, then how can it be possible to hold Stein to a different standard?

                • @[email protected]
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                  9ā€¢6 hours ago

                  Because Stein has notthing to lose. She could easily take a stand on something like Netanyahu but it was pulling teeth to condemn Putin. When the stakes are so low she can make any statement she wants.

                • @[email protected]
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                  Well, I think for one thing because Jill Stein seemingly had nothing to lose in that interview with Mehdi. The whole thing just came off as weird to me, and clearly that sentiment was pretty widely shared. I just donā€™t understand it I guess. If she had provided more context around her initial hesitancy perhaps I would feel differently.

                  I am also totally willing to admit that it is an intellectual double standard, but it isnā€™t a strategic one because the outcome of Kamala Harrisā€™ speech has the ability to affect the outcome of this election in a huge way. I guess you could argue that Jill Steinā€™s does too since she is potentially peeling votes from the Democrats, but if she was actually serious about affecting change she could be lobbying Kamala Harris for policy concessions behind the scenes instead of just virtue signaling.

                  Jill Stein in that Mehdi interview really gave off the same energy as Kim Iversen in her debate with Destiny yesterday. Neither one of them did much to counter the narrative that they were at best highly sympathetic to Russia, or at worst closeted Russian assets. It was all just really bizarre and extremely suspectā€¦

      • @[email protected]
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        9ā€¢11 hours ago

        You forgot this part from the beginning

        "Mehdi Hasan: Vladimir Putin is a war criminal?

        Jill Stein: Yes, we did condemn ā€”"

        She called him a war criminal several times in the interview

            • @[email protected]OPM
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              28ā€¢11 hours ago

              ā€œYes we did condemnā€¦ā€ is not the same as ā€œYes, Putin is a war criminal.ā€

              The passive accusations run all through it.

              ā€œSo, what we said about Putin was that his invasion of Ukraine is criminal. Itā€™s a criminal and murderous war,ā€

              ā€œWell, by implication, by implication,ā€ Stein said.

              ā€œIn so many words, yes he is,ā€ Stein said. ā€œIf you want to pull him back, if you are a world leader, you donā€™t begin your conversation by calling someone a war criminal.ā€

    • @[email protected]
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      42ā€¢12 hours ago

      Ahahaha oh no the ā€œoffice workersā€ are still all over here, their content usually just gets downvoted into being permanently hidden and theyā€™ve stopped picking fights outside of their own posts.

      • @[email protected]
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        28ā€¢12 hours ago

        Donā€™t forget there was also a bunch of government-backed troll farms shut down recently

      • @[email protected]
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        3ā€¢8 hours ago

        their content usually just gets downvoted into being permanently hidden

        At first I read this as something that existed at the post level, too. Man, I sometimes wish something like that existed - posts below a certain rating could just be hidden (like Slashdot, for instance).

    • @[email protected]
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      10 hours ago

      How does it feel when you rationalize ethnic cleansing? Did you ever imagine youā€™d be this person?

    • @[email protected]
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      13ā€¢12 hours ago

      You are pro genocide if you are supporting those funding and providing weapons for genocide

      • YeetPics
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        2ā€¢33 minutes ago

        Are you saying ā€œthe US is a fully functioning democracy whose actions represent the will of the peopleā€?

        I just want to make sure Iā€™m hearing you right, that America is a functioning democracyā€¦

      • @[email protected]
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        50ā€¢11 hours ago

        LOL it took a whole hour

        you kids are slacking

        and no. voting for harris does NOT make me ā€œpro-genocide,ā€ no matter how much you wish it did.

        have fun watching jill stein get a single digit percentage of the vote. if that. but donā€™t feel like you accomplished something by throwing your vote away, because you didnā€™t

        • @[email protected]
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          5ā€¢8 hours ago

          and no. voting for harris does NOT make me ā€œpro-genocide,ā€ no matter how much you wish it did.

          Of course not. You being pro-genocide means that you have two candidates to choose from.

          • @[email protected]
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            4ā€¢8 hours ago

            They donā€™t infantilize the right. Then again, you did say everyone they disagree with.

              • @[email protected]OPM
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                17ā€¢10 hours ago

                The problem is that ā€œsupport genocideā€ is being used overly broadly.

                The stated policy of the Biden/Harris administration is that Israel has a right to defend itself.

                Surprise! They do. Every sovereign nation has that right.

                As a result of that stated policy, Biden and Harris both support providing weapons and funding for the continual defense of Israel.

                https://www.npr.org/2024/08/23/g-s1-19232/kamala-harris-israel-gaza-dnc

                So follow me here:

                1. Israel has a right to defend itself.
                2. The US will support that defense.

                Where it breaks down is Bibi and Likud taking that defensive support and directing it into the Genocide.

                Thatā€™s on THEM. The United States is making a good faith effort to provide support for the defense of Israel. Israel is intentionally misapplying that support.

                Trumpā€™s stated policy is that Israel needs to kill everyone quicker.

                https://apnews.com/article/trump-biden-israel-pr-hugh-hewitt-21faee332d95fec99652c112fbdcd35d

                ā€œTheyā€™re losing the PR war. Theyā€™re losing it big. But theyā€™ve got to finish what they started, and theyā€™ve got to finish it fast, and we have to get on with life.ā€

                Only one of these two policies is pro-genocide, Trumps.

                Biden/Harris is pro-defense which is illegitimately being used for genocide, not at all the same as being pro-genocide.

                • @[email protected]
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                  2ā€¢6 hours ago

                  Thatā€™s on THEM. The United States is making a good faith effort to provide support for the defense of Israel. Israel is intentionally misapplying that support.

                  This is not a good argument. Theyā€™re not infants, they have agency and the ability to perceive the impacts of their actions.

                  Biden/Harris is pro-defense which is illegitimately being used for genocide, not at all the same as being pro-genocide.

                  Eh, it certainly means theyā€™re not proactively anti-genocide.

                  But more importantly itā€™s not going to move someone uncomfortable with the Democratic material support for the genocide a single iota closer to accepting that there is still a better candidate both for Palestine and for all the aspects where theyā€™re actually good, not just not as a bad.

                • @[email protected]
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                  9ā€¢10 hours ago

                  So is your argument that the Biden/Harris administration is blind, or stupid?

                  If I give my kid an AR-15 and they shoot up a school, I may or may not be culpable.

                  But if I hand them another AR after the first shooting, they kill again, and then I give them another, and another, and keep handing them weapons for months, and theres a pile of 15,000 dead children, then I am definitely culpable.

                  It doesnā€™t matter how many times I tell the kid ā€œthis AR is for defense onlyā€.

                • @[email protected]
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                  2ā€¢7 hours ago

                  This shit is so disjointed. Its not a genocide, its only a genocide because the countrys leaders want it to be, Biden is only arming a genocide because those leaders want to use the weapons for genocide. Youā€™re stuck, man, you cant get past any of the uncomfortable truths. You cant make an argument that its not a genocide. You cant make an argument that our government is not arming and funding that genocide. You cant make an argument that youre not supporting a candidate that is likely to continue to arm and fund that genocide.

          • @[email protected]
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            16ā€¢11 hours ago

            LOL ok, youā€™re cool with throwing your vote away

            that doesnā€™t mean anyone else is obliged to waste time ā€œrationalizingā€ NOT throwing their vote away to you

            do what you want. just know that your third party vote did NOTHING for palestine. and NOTHING for anyone else either.

            • @[email protected]
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              8ā€¢11 hours ago

              I wish it meant we did nothing for palestine. Instead of it meaning bombs and funding continues to pour into the arms of the country thats killing them.

            • @[email protected]
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              6ā€¢10 hours ago

              Telling someone they are throwing away their vote because they wonā€™t support your team is right wing authoritarian voter suppression.

              • @[email protected]OPM
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                6 hours ago

                ā€œTeamsā€ donā€™t enter into it.

                One candidate poses an existential threat to our country and way of life.

                One other candidate can defeat them.

                Taking a vote away from the 2nd candidate has the same net effect as voting for the first one.

                You either help beat Trump or you help elect him. A 3rd party will not win, so voting 3rd party doesnā€™t help beat Trump.

    • @[email protected]
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      10ā€¢11 hours ago

      Youā€™re pro genocide if you vote for anyone that has explicitly voted to arm and fund the genocide

      • YeetPics
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        Are you saying ā€œthe US is a fully functioning democracy whose actions represent the will of the peopleā€?

        I just want to make sure Iā€™m hearing you right, that America is a functioning democracyā€¦

      • @[email protected]
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        30ā€¢12 hours ago

        Oh oh but if I mention it to certain folk, thatā€™s ā€œold newsā€ and ā€œwhy do you only ever bring that image upā€ and ā€œlol libs sure are grasping at strawsā€

        Fascism and political interference does not have an expiration date.

        • @[email protected]OPM
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          21ā€¢12 hours ago

          Worth bringing the image up because itā€™s from 2015ā€¦ 6 months after she announced she was running.

        • @[email protected]
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          7ā€¢11 hours ago

          political interference does not have an expiration date.

          Sure as fuck doesnā€™t, as we are still being impacted by the Clinton administration interfering in 1996 Russian elections that ended up resulting in Putin as President.

      • @[email protected]
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        7ā€¢11 hours ago

        Provide links from the Senate Intelligence Committee investigation showing there was wrong doing with the event. Theyā€™ve investigated and found nothing. Implying guilt by association is dishonest and should be labeled misinformation.

    • ThePowerOfGeek
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      4ā€¢11 hours ago

      No, you see they just happened to put her at the same table as Putin and the other scumbags. She had no say in it! And she couldnā€™t do anything about it! Sheā€™s the victim here, donā€™t ya know!

      ā€¦This is the common response you see from the Stein cultists when this photo is brought up. And itā€™s pure horseshit. If she had anywhere near the principles and ethics she claims to have she would have got up and left from that table immediately. But she didnā€™t. Because sheā€™s a hypocritical con-artist, a charlatan.

      Stein plays the morally-upright crusader, waltzing around casting sanctimonious judgements on others. But at the end of the day sheā€™s a far right stooge who is only interested in stroking her own ego and discretely ingratiating herself to tyrants. She can say what she want and has no accountability held against her.

      She had done so much damage to the Green movement over the past decade+. She only pops up at election time to try to make life easier for far right movements whose policies are often the antithesis of what she pretend to support.

      The Democrats should be doing more on environmental issues and holding Israel accountable for whatā€™s going on in Palestine. But at least they arenā€™t hiding behind their own self-righteousness to anywhere near the degree that Stein is.

  • @[email protected]
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    14ā€¢12 hours ago

    Theyā€™re not wrong, but they could stand to recognize that some of their own policy shortcomings opened the door to her challenge.

    • can_you_change_your_username
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      Thatā€™s always going to be the case with a first past the post election system. There can only be 2 parties with a chance to win at any one time and both are forced to be big tents. Because they have no chance at winning third parties get more choice on the issues they focus on and more freedom in how they talk about those issues.

      We need election reform. We need a voting system that gives more power to minority voices and we need an election system that makes Congress better reflect the actual vote. I like STAR voting and want to move the house to proportional representation. We would most likely still have 2 big tent more or less center parties that will trade the plurality but the big tents would have to work with the minority party representatives to get enough votes to pass legislation. Itā€™s possible that more minority party visibility and them being taken more seriously would lead to a more ideologically diverse Senate and it would almost certainly boost minority party power in state and local elections.

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    10ā€¢12 hours ago

    Seems a little cruel.

    Her policies are far better than the DNCā€™s, though I understand that part of being a candidate with zero chance to win is being able to say whatever you want without consequence.

    I donā€™t think thereā€™s any pragmatic reason to vote for Stein, since itā€™s so incredibly important that Trump not win, but I think calling her a useful idiot isnā€™t helpful.

    • @[email protected]OPM
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      31ā€¢12 hours ago

      In this instance, ā€œuseful idiotā€ has a very specific meaning:

      https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/useful idiot

      :Ā a naive or credulous person who can be manipulated or exploited to advance a cause or political agenda

      It is one task of the KGB [in 1982] to apply its skills of secrecy and deception to projecting the Soviet partyā€™s influence. This it does through contacts with legal Communist Parties abroad, with groups sympathetic to Soviet goals, with do-gooders of the type that Lenin once described as ā€œuseful idiotsā€ ā€¦ .

      Re: the Lenin thing:

      https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Useful_idiot

      ā€œAĀ useful idiotĀ orĀ useful foolĀ is aĀ pejorativeĀ description of a person, suggesting that the person thinks they are fighting for a cause without fully comprehending the consequences of their actions, and who does not realize they are being cynically manipulated by the causeā€™s leaders or by other political players.[1][2]Ā The term was often used during theĀ Cold WarĀ to describe non-communistsĀ regarded as susceptible toĀ communist propagandaĀ andĀ psychological manipulation.[1]Ā A number of authors attribute this phrase toĀ Vladimir Lenin, but this attribution is not supported by any evidence. Similar terms exist in other languages.ā€

    • @[email protected]
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      6ā€¢11 hours ago

      She can say her policies are whatever gets votes. She has no chance of winning and having a chance to implement them.

      If you know you wonā€™t ever have to follow through, thereā€™s no punishment for promising anything.

    • @[email protected]
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      6ā€¢11 hours ago

      Policy that never gets implemented is meaningless. It cannot be better. I mean if that werenā€™t the case youā€™d be a fool not to elect me. Because of my policy is that every person in America gets a million dollars. And I guarantee you that will help people far more than anything Stein is proposing.

      What the Simple Minds donā€™t comprehend or want to understand. Is that Jill Stein is in many ways exactly like Donald Trump. They will tell you what you want to hear. Regardless of their ability to deliver on it.

      All liberal policy sucks. Regardless of whether itā€™s conservative or progressive. Their reflexive recoiling from anything even tangentially related to socialism. Their need to shove capitalism in everything especially in places it should never be. If you vote for conservative. You get sodomized against your will. Dry and rough. When you vote for progressive. They sodomize you against your will still. But they will be gentle about it provide lube and even sometimes a reach around. Voting for Jill Stein you are lied to and told that the outcome will be better than either of those. Only to find that you will still be sodomized dry by a conservative. Only now Jill Stein and Putin will be standing behind you high-fiving. Which is actually worse.

      Not to demean or Kink shame those that like sodomy. But even they like some consideration from their partner. Something which sadly only one of the parties currently in this presidential election can actually offer.

  • @[email protected]
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    5ā€¢11 hours ago

    Russia is bad and all, but sheā€™s much more directly a useful idiot for Republicans who are not only more directly focused on directly harming the people Steinā€™s campaign is targeting, but have a significantly greater ability to actually accomplish it. No one needs to trust the US establishment that Russia is bad, they know Republicans and how theyā€™re bad.

    Also, DNC, why are you make this new on The Bulwark? Way to undercut your message.