Dr. Strangelove

Both had concealed carry permits. The Founding Fathers are no doubt beaming with American Pride.

Deaths of despair is a real thing plaguing rural America.

...if it's Democrats fault then why are the safest states run by them?

Even adjusted for homicides, the most dangerous states are: 1. Mississippi 2. Louisiana 3. Alabama 4. Missouri 5. Arkansas 6. South Carolina 7. Tennessee If you include suicide by guns, the numbers and differences become even more extreme.

Republicans live in their own world. It's a s#!tty, dangerous world with high crime rates, low life expectancy, poor healthcare and weakened institutions where its difficult for governments to help people... but they live there.

Eh, why even send T&P anymore? After a 40 second conversation with any conservative voter, it's a complete waste of time to do anything other than shrug. They won't change their voting behavior. All we can do is hope we're not in the wrong place in the wrong time.

Eh, if Republicans want to use the judiciary - who's entire design is supposed to be non-political - as theater for political hackery by nominating complete and total morons - don't act surprised when the legitimacy of the court is called into question. Like, I get it: having a judge that will literally do whatever moronic culture war nonsense pushed by Tucker Carlson is probably great of you're a right wing nut job. But you can spare the faux outrage if people rightly question the stupidity of this judge, the apparatus that empowers him, and the Federalist Society that rewards and pushes similar moronic judges into positions of power.

I don't see the problem. They voted for incompetentcy. The electorate voted and they're getting the government and politicians they deserve.

No denial of the obvious corruption, funny. Raw numbers mean something, but if you had to choose between the following: 1. Living in a city of 1 million people where 2 murders take place per year. 2. Play Russian roulette with 6 people once per year. @teachercd is arguing that because it has more deaths, option number 1 is much more dangerous than option 2.

Being okay with expelling members of the opposition party in a gross display of being authoritarian and antidemocratic is the absolute peak @Archy1221. I didn't say he broke time law. Do you not understand what quid pro quo corruption is? Anybody who has a brain not completely melted by right wing news can see that's what's happening here.

If their transgressions are as bad, then I hope they're voted out of office. The problem with Thomas's obvious corruption is that they're is no mechanism for voters to punish his behavior. He's untouchable and he knows it.

Is the National Review - a totally and completely unbiased "news" outlet - arguing that Thomas took these "gifts" and its okay because the ethics just tightened some of the rules? I mean, it's pretty unlikely that a friend is gifting the Thomas' hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of gifts, trips, etc. every year without some sort of quid-pro-quo corruption going on. Does it just so happen that the other people on the vacations are other powerful Republicans and right wing insiders?

What? I don't get it.

Well documented ethics violations by Clarence Thomas is going to send shockwaves through the Federalist Society, as they march the judiciary ever further into the oblivion of right wing jurisprudence. Thomas will have to issue an extra, super duper strong statement that says "I don't know what you're talking about" or "I'll only give a detailed interview on a super Yacht, but my going price is pretty high". This, of course, is likely to happen shortly after SCOTUS issues a ruling granting white children an AR-15 at birth, citing totally legitimate "originalist" views of the Constitution.

If only it was an AR-15, that way you could defend this guy in a voting booth.

Certainly possible. Ultimately it's going to come down to economic conditions in about a year. It'll depend on job losses, the severity of any recession and what inflation numbers are like. That being said, Trump and Republican policies are extremely unpopular. It would probably take a modest recession for Trump to win. Although this is certainly within the realm of possibility.

Since Rs deeply care about Children and aren't accusing Democrats of being groomers in a stupid, misguided, and losing attempt at political theater, they should do the right thing and ban the Catholic Church.

It turns out that Republicans not having any policy and running on a platform of election denial and that schools are pits of CRT/Trans/Sexual Indoctrination centers is extremely unpopular. But they have to go with those positions because the actual policy they advocate for - tax cuts for the wealthy, dismantling the social safety net - is even MORE unpopular.

Donald Trump and his voting base are the gift that keeps on giving.

I completely agree. I do think Democrats have pushed for weird policies, like trans-women playing in Women's Sports. Athletics are separated by sex, not gender, so it's strange. However, Republicans seems to think pushing bans on drag shows - in clear violation of free speech and our constitution is the correct course of action, which is a far worse choice.

It turns out that running terrible candidates is a bad strategy. It's also difficult for Republicans to pivot away from losing policy positions when huge swaths of their voting base thinks election results are rigged. They think that running on a platform that Democrats are child groomers is actually winning, and a Republican that acknowledges election results as fair and valid is a RINO.

Fair, but Democrats are pushing policies that seemingly blur the boundary. Pushing to allow trans-women to play in women's sports is an example. While it's perfectly acceptable to understand that gender is merely social-construct, Democrats take a policy position that ignores the biological reality sex plays in Athletics. It's pretty stupid to say that gender is a social phenomenon while simultaneously pushing policies that seem to conflate gender and biological sex.

Really my comment is meant to caricature right wing voters. Socialism greatly benefits Red states. Yet their politicians and voting base hate it because they're brainwashed into thinking Ronald Reagan will smite them if they acknowledge as much. Thus, they vote in ways that harm their communities, decrease their life expectancy compared to Blue states, have lower GDPs per capita, the list goes on.

So is Governor Huckabee a socialist for requesting these services? Archy1221.... it's okay to admit that sometimes socializing certain services benefits everybody. Ronald Reagan won't roll over in his grave if you do, your Republican friends will never know you said it. You already realize that's the case, just say it out loud.

Of course! But that's socializing the costs of cleanup. The people of Arkansas are staunch anti-socialists. Is Socialism good sometimes and bad in others? The people of Arkansas can pick themselves up by the bootstraps and pay for the cleanup themselves. No Socialism needed.