For sure, here’s the whole thing.

That’s such a valuable perspective, thanks for sharing your experience.

The fact that the people pushing against Platner—by mischaracterizing his personal growth and discounting his trauma—are the very people who sent you guys to war unnecessarily, makes it even more infuriating. This is a disgusting move from Democratic leadership.

That’s a totally legit question, and the host followed up with that same rebuttal during the interview. I won’t get his exact wording right, but his answer was something to the effect of him still being fucked up when he went back as a contractor, but thinking that seeing things from the other side might be better (pretty sure he worked in diplomatic security as a contractor). But it turned out to be worse, and seeing it from that side ended up being the thing that convinced him how pointless it all was. He also said it was the only thing he was ever good at, so he didn’t feel like he had any other options. Makes sense to me even if it’s not something I would ever do.

Ugh so true. Fuck Fetterman.

The democratic establishment has labeled him a communist one day, a Nazi the next day and an antifascist another day. You can’t be an antifascist and a Nazi at the same time.

I listened to the entire Pod Save interview with him, and I’m convinced he’s a solid dude who made some bad decisions when he was younger. He owns up to absolutely everything, and says he has learned from it. He sounded completely genuine to me.

His background is really important and honestly explains all of this controversy away. He was in combat in Iraq and Afghanistan for multiple tours, and he talks an about how much that fucked him up. He struggled for a long time and shitposting was one of his outlets. Who among us hasn’t regretted something we’ve posted? Owning up to and learning from it is the key.

If we want to stop electing vanilla spineless establishment candidates, the alternative is electing normal people who haven’t spent their lives hiding themselves from public view to maintain a “clean” persona. Nobody is perfect, everybody has made mistakes, and to me the strength of a candidate comes through most clearly when they take responsibility and demonstrate how their current self has evolved from their younger selves.

He seems like an awesome candidate to me.

Ugh I’m disappointed that she ended up apologizing. Nothing she said was wrong, and it’s refreshing to hear a slightly different take than usual on mainstream media. I recently listened to an interview Amanpour did (I think on Jon Stewart’s podcast?), and it’s clear she understands what actually went on in this genocide.

The fact that any of the hostages were kept alive means that they were fed with food, which is more than most Gazans have had these last years. There’s no arguing that they were treated badly, they were hostages in a horrific genocide, but her point is totally valid.

Oh for sure, I have no sympathy for her either, she’s fully complicit. Just saying his lack of defense for his own family speaks volumes.

Just a reminder that JD has three kids (actual kids, not 35 year olds) with his wife, who is a woman of color. If he won’t defend them against blatant racism, do his supporters actually think he gives a fuck about them?

Also, a good parent would take the opportunity to teach their children why what they said is wrong, not just tell them how to avoid responsibility:

Vance said he would tell his three kids—“especially my boys”—“don’t put things on the internet. Be careful with what you post. If you put something in a group chat, assume that some scumbag is going to leak it in an effort to try to cause you harm or cause your family harm.”

Our Vice President is a huge piece of shit.

I’m curious, genuinely, what you think the practical result of shooting all the evil people would be? Do you think everyone across the political spectrum would just be happy about it and move on? Would it solve any actual problems other than temporarily vacating their seats so someone even more extreme can be elected in response to your shootings?

I want folks who advocate for violence to just follow the thought a little further, take it on a walk and see where it ends up in four or five or ten years. I get the instinct to be angry, I’m furious, but do you think the country would be a better place with more violence than there already is?

Leaving aside the billionaire-bashing, which I wholeheartedly agree with, it is nice to see that such a huge and influential fandom seems to genuinely care about “AI” slop.

You are 100% right that the correct term is actually Pack of Nazis.

Yeah exactly, which is why it showing up in these out of office replies is that much worse. The Hatch Act is meaningless.

This definitely isn’t the part of the story that matters, but I hate that they use the term “Democrat Senators.” They’re Democratic senators FFS. Do we call Republican senators Republic Senators? No, no we don’t.

I bet these specific kidnapped children would take issue with your characterization. This is brand new. It just happened. The narrative may be similar to past events, and it’s definitely some believably awful American bullshit, but let’s show some empathy for the specific victims of state violence, while also criticizing the state for committing said violence. Dismissing the news as just more of the same only normalizes this kind of violence, even if that’s not your intention.

Unfortunately there’s a reason for that, many of the same architects who designed prisons also designed schools.

Wow, that’s a lot of state-sanctioned murder. These assholes definitely deserve to be punished, but I can never get behind the death penalty.

Can someone explain the two-year death sentence suspension to me? Does that just mean they’ll be killed in two years? Will they have opportunities to appeal during that time? Deferring the sentence somehow seems even more cruel, if they get to rot for two years just waiting to die…

Besides the 11 members who received death sentences, another five received death sentences with two-year suspensions; 11 were jailed for life; and the rest were given jail sentences ranging from five to 24 years.

I don’t doubt that this kind of thing has always been happening just out of sight of the majority of affluent and/or white Americans. America has never been the “good” country some people like to think it is. But the frequency and visibility with which it’s been happening lately, as well as how widespread the acceptance of the behavior seems to be on the right, is not the status quo.

That’s straight up child exploitation, by the government. Blackmailing a parent with the safety of their child is one of the most villainously evil tropes around. This shit happens in movies all the time, and it’s almost always used as a big flashing “this person is bad and evil, and the villain of the movie” trope.

There has been some incredibly fucked up and immoral treatment of human beings in this country, but this is next level evil.

Problem is, it’s so evil that the brainwashed 40% of the population won’t believe it, so they’ll just go on about their business.

So……perjury really isn’t a thing is it? RFK flat out lied about why he fired her. He told a blatant and unequivocal lie to Congress while under oath.

I know “the truth” can always be a bit wishy washy for people testifying, and skirting around it really just takes rhetorical skill, so charges are rarely brought. But hell, it’s also rarely such a clear facial lie.

I love that she felt the need to explicitly say she’s not leaving to spend more time with her family.