Why I left the Democratic Party

We already have decentralized registration.

Definitely no on centralized registration. Liberals want to abuse such a system to violate our rights.



We've had limits on caliber since 1934.

As far as firepower goes (I presume you mean ammo capacity and/or rate of fire), if you required all law enforcement to abide by the same limits I'd go along with it so long as people still had enough firepower to defend themselves.

After one of the shootings back in the Obama years, OmSigDavid and I started a conversation about how much firepower was necessary for self defense and what was in excess of our defensive needs. The conversation didn't get very far because pretty quickly all the liberals started to demand that we ban pistol grips and the fight became entirely about that. However, I'd not feel helpless if I had to protect myself from criminals with a lever-action .30-30.



That encourages gun theft. The government would become a fence paying criminals for the guns they steal.



Now you're talking!

Militiamen have the right to have machine guns (real ones, not bump stocks), grenades and grenade launchers, anti-tank bazookas, and Stinger anti-aircraft missiles.

And they have the right to keep their weapons at home with them.

I'm with you all the way on this one.

I've made this offer to other posters too, but if you or anyone else is willing to pay all the legal bills, I'll join the Michigan Volunteer Defense Force and then sue all the way to the US Supreme Court for my Constitutional right to have Stinger missiles.

No one will ever allow the violation of civil rights for no reason, and there is no reason for banning pistol grips.



We'll need enough bullets to be able to defend ourselves.

We'll also be wanting all law enforcement to abide by the same restrictions.

Was your vote in November of 2016 influenced by Russian meddling?
Not even the Republicans I know would answer yes. I heard comments from some the week before the election that indicated Trump's loss was fait accompli. Does anyone remember hearing that?

As I recall there were very, very few people who were undecided about who to vote for a year before November 2016 (when all those GOP debates with 20 candidates, like Michele Bachmann and Carly Fiorina, were happening).

I saw essentially no ads on social media -- I have my adblocker aggressively deployed, and anyway, this was long before Facebook adjusted their algorithms to embed more of them in the side panel and in the timeline -- and the premise that anyone could influence political opinion, or have their own influenced, by Facebook posts or Tweets is something I just find laughable. Especially given that it was Trump who emerged as the nominee, a notion most Republicans simply weren't accepting as late as spring of 2016.

The memes, bots, group pages, etc. developed and foisted on a gullible American populace by the 13 Russians and three orgs -- the ones indicted by Robert Mueller's team yesterday -- hardened political opinions. They did not change them. I believe the most influence they could have possibly had was on suppressing voter turnout with the various firehoses of negativity spewing all around. But even that does not explain why black voters stayed home.

In sum: the Russians tried to influence the election. They did not succeed. Even the indictments themselves do not connect those dots. The AP likened what the Russkies did to a burglar jiggling your doorknob. In this analogy, the suspect gets arrested and charged with attempted burglary. But he didn't steal anything (fortunately).

Ask yourself this: if we are so concerned about the government spying on us online, wiretapping our phones, etc. then why didn't one of our vaunted federal law enforcement agencies intervene and stop the Russians? Did they fall down on the job, as with the FBI not acting to stop the Parkland high school shooter?

You might recall a certain high volume of **** that George W. Bush deservedly collected for failing to respond appropriately to a presidential daily briefing entitled "Bin Laden determined to attack US" about five weeks before 9/11.

Yes, Obama expelled 35 Russian diplomats in retaliation for election meddling ... in December of 2016. If you accept the premise that the Russians hacked influenced the election in some significant way (but like Bigfoot, there's still no solid proof) ... wouldn't you also have to conclude that Obama's DOJ or FBI or CIA or someone in his administration should have moved faster to stop them?

Such as before November of 2016?

And if the Russians have been doing this stuff since 2014, then why weren't they arrested, charged, and indicted years ago? Did our government look the other way because of not wanting to rock the boat diplomatically with Putin? "Diplomatic immunity"? (Say it in the voice of the South African from Lethal Weapon 2.)

I don't know the answers here. Maybe they were no more interested in starting a New Cold War than the rest of us. But what's been going on in Syria and the Middle East and other places around the world, where the US and Russia are fighting hot proxy wars against each other and have been for some time, seems to undermine that logic.

What does seem improbable to me is that 13 spies and three organizations defeated a $1.2 billion dollar effort waged in favor of Hillary Clinton's election. That they overcame David Brock's million-dollar Correct the Record troll army. That they created a narrative of the greatest country in the world -- where 78% of Americans live from one paycheck to the next; where the minimum wage has not kept pace with the lowest inflation rate over the past two decades (but Hillary Clinton only supported an increase to $12/hour, and not $15); and where 31 million Americans remain uninsured (but even California Democrats fight against single payer and Medicare for All).



I don't believe those things can be blamed on the Russians. Or for that matter, Jill Stein.

But you keep on being you, Donkeys.
Posted by PDiddie at Saturday, February 17, 2018

Of course not, nobody wants to admit to being manipulated. Over here the top story of the last week has been that of paedophile Barry Bennell, who abused hundreds of boys during his career as a football coach. Many of his now middle aged victims when questioned about the abuse ten years ago denied it. They've only been able to admit it recently.

I know that's an extreme example, but the point is the same.

People casting about for somebody to blame will eventually find something to hang it on, justified or not. There is a mindset in the USA that cannot be shaken by facts or events. I recently went to a family get together, where all of the inlaws, outlaws and immediate family gathered and to a person they all agreed that Trump is a great president getting lots of good stuff done, unlike Obama who effed up everything. They don't need no social media or fake news to tell them crap. The wave of anti left thought AMONG THOSE MOST LIKELY TO VOTE has not wavered that much. The answer is to get some honest people to inspire non voters to show up at the polls. But if the Democrats win on a wave of "I'm not Trump," and haven't learned anything all this time they will get swept right back out once the voters perceive them to be all mouth and no ass. Nothing they have tried since Reagan has slowed the shift to fundamentalist attitudes among motivated voters.

Are you saying the Russians didn't interfere with the electoral process? If so you're starting to sound like Trump.

The fact is they did, how successful they were is open to debate. It's like advertising, most people when asked say they're not personally affected by it. Yet it's a billion dollar industry, it does work.

It's impossible to say what the result would be had the Russians not interfered because that would involve time travel and other dimensions, but I doubt the Russians would have spent all that money needlessly.

I'm sure it was a number of things that caused you to vote the way you did, but neither of us know how many, if any, of those things were sponsored by the Russians.

I can see why you wouldn't want to think you were played by Putin, nobody would want that. You may well have been.

Of course they interfered. They didn't decide the election.
In my case, that you can accuse me of being played by Putin, when I made up my mind before any of the interference occurred is just another instance of jambing a square pole at a round hole.

If I read during the election that the Russians were seeking to influence my vote by pushing Stein, I still would have voted Stein. It was my choice to make and before the next election is even considered, I could vote Stein next time. It all depends.

From the examples of the Russian ads, the suggestions ranged from humorous and harmless (Buff Bernie was my favorite) to inciting black voters to stay home because the Ds ignored their needs (a sentiment I agreed with in the 80s and still do).

Nothing those ads said (that I’ve read so far) was beyond the pale.

HOWEVER, the same type of bot ads paid for by the DNC and organized by David Brock were full of gross lies, race baiting, and did pervert the course of the election.

Now that we’ve ridiculously indicted Russians over this, I’m looking forward to the Brock, DNC, and Brock farm indictments.

*I just saw the birth of the exodus of black voters from the DNC, btw. That should quite effectively lay the husk of the cheating, duplicitous DNC on history’s ashheap.

Shaun King has joined with other Sanders supporters to start a PAC to grow the strength of Our Revolution a with the primary purpose of dismantling systemic racism. Can’t believe it took them this long, but glad to see it.

This was the unity the Ds were afraid of.

They all were, it was a foreign power interfering with your democratic process. You should be outraged.

If Americans had commissioned and paid for those ads it would be one thing, but they didn't. It was a hostile power that paid for them.

You don't know that.

I expect it of other countries—after all, my country does it electronically, by remote control, and at the point of a gun.

I’m outraged that my own country does it to its own citizens. It’s mind-boggling that you prefer the opposite.

I do. There was no way in hell I could stand in a voting booth and choose either of those monsters. Decision known before either of those two won their nominations.

I was happy to have a decent alternative, if for no other reason to be counted as one who would vote, yet rejected the two party nominees.

A multitude of other Americans felt the same way.

Oh my god, the commies are coming, the commies are coming. Check under your beds at night and at mid day!!

Russia didn't murder 500,000 Iraqi children like the US and the UK did, Izzy. Stop getting your panties in a bunch over nothing.

Is that you, oralloy?

And your absolutely stunning hypocrisy coming from a land of equal to the USA rapers and pillagers, murderers and thieves!!

That's a leap. I think the money in American politics is obscene. It means that only the incredibly rich can afford to run. Your use of PACs is an affront to democracy.

Allowing another country to influence and maybe change the electoral process is something else entirely.

The Russians also interfered in the Brexit referendum. At least the bloody leave side accepts that.

They used to joke about Harold Wilson being a KGB spy, with Donald Trump it's beyond a joke.

Yet you voted for a man who allowed 9/11 to happen and started an illegal war with Iraq resulting in the deaths of over half a million civilians by 2013 alone. You seem quite comfortable voting for monsters, very comfortable actually.

The iraq invasion was a bipartisan affair.

It was George W Bush who gave the order.

Anyway, I prefer to let the law handle any transgressions and I am not going to spend the rest of my time on a2k fending off the insinuations. What I demand to know of Democrats is are you ready to go the progressive route for a change or are we living a real live Groundhog's day?