It's convenient that you let everyone know that you're unserious in the first two words of your comment.

Just a joke, bro.

And who benefits from weakening the US military?

Canada.

So, one guy out of two hundred reps and you blame Democrats. But 200 hundred out of 200 hundred aren't accountable whatsoever?

Bad faith batman right here.

Yep. But there's also a cross section of ages spewing propaganda. I mean, RFK Jr is ancient. He should remember the time of bloodletting yet here we are.

And the misinformation campaign is oppressive. When my first born was at his 6 month (?) pediatrician appointment, the doctor started in on, "I'm required to inform you that vaccination is a personal and religious choice ..." I cut him off and said, "I believe in science" and I could see the immediate relief on his face. I don't know what he didn't have to say, but it surely wasn't good.

Having read the transcript, no, he does not. There's absolutely no reason beyond "both sides" bullshit to connect the two. Unlike Kirk, he didn't go on hateful tirades about groomers, drag shows, or pedophiles.

Having been disappointed by Newsom several times, what he did say in the podcast continues his disappointing trend and gives unacceptable levels of support to crazy conservative garbage thinking.

You can think Newsom said something terrible without taking the opportunity to make Kirk seem like he isn't a hateful extremist.

Yes, we know. We even know the names of the spies: Gabbard, Musk, Trump, etc.

What little money USAID was allocated is going to be stolen or flushed down the crypto drain.

I agree with that.. sort of. They also need to do loud centrist events. Because rags like Politico will 100% run articles saying, "Democrats double down on leftist policies that cost them the 2024 election" without a moment of hesitation.

We know that the far right media gets its talking points from Russia. After watching their disingenuous takes and "anonymous insider" bullshit (e.g., Biden only running for one term was a Politico rumor) I'm convinced Politico is also intentionally sending misleading information into the public conversation.

I'd like a list of the attendees because the results read like a bunch of bluedogs getting together to fuck everyone over harder.

Oh, yep!

The gathering — organized by Third Way, the centrist Democratic think tank, and operated by Chatham House Rules — resulted in five pages of takeaways, a document Playbook obtained from one of the participants. (Not all attendees endorsed each point.)

As a voter, "Third Way" doesn't represent me in any way and Joe Manchin can take his think tank and shove it.

Meanwhile, Politico over here is misrepresenting them as being something they're not.

I guess that's my point. If the poll is not based on anything other than bullshit, what's the point of giving it any consideration?

We may as well be discussing a poll on everyone's favorite Teletubby.

Exactly. In order to promise to "fix the government" you need to lie to them and claim the government is broken, first. That's where liars have a leg up.

A lot of people here are developers or tech adjacent so I'll offer this strained analogy: this "the government is broken" narrative is tantamount to an intern hot off their Learning NodeJS course coming in and telling everyone that their complex production systems are trash and need to be completely rebuilt. That intern doesn't have any of the context, experience, or knowledge to make that determination and often creates conflicts within the team instead of just looking forward to the next iteration for improvement. Meanwhile, the professionals have to keep cleaning up their mess.

Elon Musk is this intern. Boebert, MTG, Tuberville, etc, are this intern. The GOP has been promoting and encouraging these interns and has since Reagan.

Can the government be improved? Absolutely. Should the interns be doing it? No.