USA elections 2020 - 2021

[Coughdrop addict]

Georgia secretary of state says Graham, other Republicans have pressured him to toss legal ballots

Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger said Monday that Republican leaders such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) have been putting pressure on him to exclude legal ballots in order for President Trump to be declared the winner and earn the state's 16 electoral votes.

In an interview with The Washington Post, Raffensperger said Graham asked him on Friday if he had the authority to toss out ballots in counties with high rates of nonmatching signatures. Graham also questioned if poll workers had accepted ballots with nonmatching signatures due to political bias, according to Raffensperger.

While constantly accusing Dems of cheating, Republicans are the ones who constantly get caught. If there's one positive thing about Trump's presidency, it's that it's exposed the utter lack of character and integrity in most Republicans.

[Cope]

Of course not. I did not see the link.

Note the low variance between 1992 and 2004. As the article in question itself notes, the trend of strong partisan divisions started in 2008. Not the rather absolutist assertion that, "Trust in the electoral process is strongly correlated with partisan interests". Rather than always being the case, this level of partisanship is a new phenomena driven, most likely, by repetitive and unfounded allegations of voter fraud, rather than the actual problem of voter suppression.

The claim was a reference to the 2020 election, not an "absolutist assertion". It was noted that similar trend occurred in 2016. Even so, the data shows that in seven of the last eight elections, supporters of the party which claimed the presidency were more likely to view the electoral process as free and fair. This establishes a general, albeit less significant, correlation. The insistence on partisan framing vis-a-vis alleged electoral improprieties rather proves the point being made; foul play is only determined to be "actual" when it suits.

[Love Mountain]

The claim was a reference to the 2020 election, not an "absolutist assertion". It was noted that similar trend occurred in 2016. Even so, the data shows that in seven of the last eight elections, supporters of the party which claimed the presidency were more likely to view the electoral process as free and fair. This establishes a general, albeit less significant, correlation. The insistence on partisan framing vis-a-vis alleged electoral improprieties rather proves the point being made; foul play is only determined to be "actual" when it suits.

The data up to 2008 offers a weak link for a discernible pattern. Though I suppose we could say, that a portion of the electorate is always sore about a loss. Though really, the only useful thing we can divulge from Morning Consult's poll, is a significant departure from the norm since the 2008 election. As for the "alleged" improprieties, there are facts and there are feelings. Occurrence of voter fraud is an insignificant percentage that serves as a rallying call for the right. On the other hand, hundreds of thousands of voters were purged from voter rolls before this election alone. Voter purging behavior is particularly intense in counties with a history of voter discrimination. To summarize, Democrats have legitimate reasons to complain about elections, whereas Republicans, at least in regards to voter fraud, do not.

[antaeus]

Pacifism facilitates fascism, though that's an argument for the EMM.

Meh *shrug*

Most countries were forged by violence. That said, the Civil War, not the Revolution, is typically used as a historic point of reference for framing prospective political violence.

The Civil War does not lay the framework for the defence of the constitution through military means, rather, if anything it evidences my point: that having a militarised basis for legitimacy of the state can lead to multiple factions within that state all calling for militarised solutions to their debates - all using the same source of legitimacy (their own interpretation of the Constitution).

Both my country of birth (New Zealand), and my country of residence (Australia) saw heinous violence during their formation periods, but that violence wasn't foundational in nature, it was exploitative. In fact the foundation of both countries was, and often still is painted in a utopian framework. Both countries have long military traditions, are assertive when it comes to policy disputes, but view themselves as structurally "better than that" when it comes to mainstream political violence. While most modern countries have experienced some form of revolutionary foundation or formation, this is in no way a necessary human state, and in fact is problematic when different positions can dissonantly claim the same source of legitimacy.

[Coughdrop addict]

Trump senior advisers dissuaded president from military strike on Iran: report

President Trump’s senior advisers dissuaded him from conducting a military strike on Iran in the final weeks of his presidency to halt its growing nuclear program, The New York Times reported Monday.

Four current and former U.S. officials told the Times that the president asked senior advisers in an Oval Office meeting Thursday if he had options to attack Iran’s main nuclear site.
His request came a day after the International Atomic Energy Agency reported that the country’s uranium stockpile was 12 times higher than allowed under the Iran nuclear deal that the administration left in 2018. The international watchdog also reported Iran did not let inspectors enter a location where there was evidence of past nuclear activity.
The advisers who urged the president against such an attack reportedly included Vice President Mike Pence, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, acting Secretary of Defense Christopher Miller and Gen. Mark Milley, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.

Trump was (and probably still is) thinking of starting a war to stay in power. Or maybe just to make things harder for Biden out of petty spite.

[Morifea]

He tries to up things as far as possible, see the complete capitulation of the current Administration in regards of covid.

If the spoiled child cant keep the toys, no one shall have them.

[Ludicus]

With all due respect, my dear US friends, please allow me to express a political consideration, a political criticism.In Europe,tout court, we have two electoral systems.
1) A majoritarian voting system, the popular vote (presidential elections)
2) Proportional representation systems (parliamentary elections)
In the US, the majoritarian voting system by states (not by citizens) is an old anachronic system dating back to 1787. This has consequences. What's happening today in the US is a profound crisis of the democratic system, a crisis of the constitutional system- and a crisis of the political community. Forgive me, that's the way I see it.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) argued Friday that progressivism isn't to blame for Democrats falling short of expectations on Election Day.
Rather, she charged the underperformance in House and Senate races resulted from a failure to effectively address GOP attacks and invest in turnout strategy.

Ocasio-Cortez, in a series of tweets, cited an underinvestment in digital campaign strategy by "struggling" campaigns and questioned the decision by some Democrats to cease knocking on doors due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

"There are folks running around on TV blaming progressivism for Dem underperformance. I was curious, so I decided to open the hood on struggling campaigns of candidates who are blaming progressives for their problems. Almost all had awful execution on digital. DURING A PANDEMIC," Ocasio-Cortez tweeted.

https://thehill.com/homenews/campaig...-of-democratic

So-called progressives always like to blame turnout for losses, portraying themselves as a silent majority. It sounds good and is ultimately unfalsifiable. But in an election where turnout was highest in a century,

https://theweek.com/speedreads/94957...urnout-century

and where multiple GOP down-ballot candidates in tight races are confirmed received more votes than Trump, and/or to have benefitted from split tickets,

https://www.11alive.com/article/news...1-e1a5eadddf36

https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/11/06/...ndidate-texas/

https://bangordailynews.com/2020/11/...know-how-much/

does the turnout excuse make sense? Not this time.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/20...ive-districts/

In competitive districts, Democrats were hurt by the radicalism of the DNC’s national brand. In safe districts, pandering to the radicals can help boost turnout since Democrats don’t need to worry as much about losing moderate votes. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. The US is a center right country.



While the percentage of people identifying as “liberal” has increased about 10 points since the 90s, they have always trailed moderates and conservatives considerably and by a margin that renders them a minority in absolute and relative terms.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

So long as radicals on both sides try to hijack party politics and the political establishment cynically empowers them, they’ll continue doing America’s enemies’ work for them.

[Gaidin]

Trump senior advisers dissuaded president from military strike on Iran: report



Trump was (and probably still is) thinking of starting a war to stay in power. Or maybe just to make things harder for Biden out of petty spite.

This country is perfectly capable of transferring power during wartime...not sure what the point would be.

[Lord Thesaurian]

The problem with the Iran deal has manifested since the US backed out. Iran is willfully violating all provisions of the deal as a bargaining chip, and there isn’t much anyone can do about it. Biden wants to rejoin the deal, but even if Tehran returns to compliance beforehand, this merely illustrates how the Islamic theocracy is able to strongarm the entire world through a mechanism meant to restrict her nuclear capabilities. The deal is not, Tehran agrees to limit its nuclear capabilities or face punitive consequences up to and including use of force. The deal has proven to be, Tehran gets to be integrated into the world economy despite being a mass-murdering theocracy (A B) that destabilized the Middle East, or else the rest of the world gets to watch them steadily work towards developing nukes. In such a bad peace, war is inevitable, sooner or later. We’ve seen how “well” the “just make them rich” approach has worked in convincing the CCP to reform its totalitarian, murderous ways. Not sure why anyone would expect different results with Iran.

[antaeus]

The problem with the Iran deal has manifested since the US backed out. Iran is willfully violating all provisions of the deal as a bargaining chip, and there isn’t much anyone can do about it. Biden wants to rejoin the deal, but even if Tehran returns to compliance beforehand, this merely illustrates how the Islamic theocracy is able to strongarm the entire world through a mechanism meant to restrict her nuclear capabilities. The deal is not, Tehran agrees to limit its nuclear capabilities or face punitive consequences up to and including use of force. The deal has proven to be, Tehran gets to be integrated into the world economy despite being a mass-murdering theocracy (A B) that destabilized the Middle East, or else the rest of the world gets to watch them steadily work towards developing nukes. In such a bad peace, war is inevitable, sooner or later. We’ve seen how “well” the “just make them rich” approach has worked in convincing the CCP to reform its totalitarian, murderous ways. Not sure why anyone would expect different results with Iran.

I don't see this as the Islamic Theocracy strongarming the world. I see it as them responding to an act of bad faith in a punitive way. While I dislike the Iranian government, I can't begrudge them their actions when the agreement they were pressured into signing is then set aside by the nation primarily responsible for them signing it in the first place. Their government claims substantial domestic legitimacy by diplomatic success - in this respect it was virtually impossible for them to not respond in this way to Trump's abandonment of the deal. It is easy for them to spin this "the US pulled out of the deal because they no longer liked the terms, so we're going to move ahead with what we planned before the deal".

Seeking to hold out on integrating "the Theocracy" into the world economic system until all desires are met (that they stop being a "mass-murdering theocracy" etc etc) has been unsuccessful since the 1970s. The problem with this approach has always been a lack of pragmatism. By asking for every hope and dream to be met in a zero-sum way, there will never be any sort of deal. But I suspect this is intentional.

Obama's approach was always to 'chip away' at the theocracy by undermining the domestic legitimacy it gains by placing itself on a moral high ground in opposition to the rest of the world. I can see how this would upset a zero-sum political mindset though, because it doesn't force a complete capitulation.

[Love Mountain]

So-called progressives always like to blame turnout for losses, portraying themselves as a silent majority. It sounds good and is ultimately unfalsifiable. But in an election where turnout was highest in a century,

https://theweek.com/speedreads/94957...urnout-century

and where multiple GOP down-ballot candidates in tight races are confirmed received more votes than Trump, and/or to have benefitted from split tickets,

https://www.11alive.com/article/news...1-e1a5eadddf36

https://dfw.cbslocal.com/2020/11/06/...ndidate-texas/

https://bangordailynews.com/2020/11/...know-how-much/

does the turnout excuse make sense? Not this time.

https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/20...ive-districts/

In competitive districts, Democrats were hurt by the radicalism of the DNC’s national brand. In safe districts, pandering to the radicals can help boost turnout since Democrats don’t need to worry as much about losing moderate votes. This shouldn’t be a surprise to anyone. The US is a center right country.



While the percentage of people identifying as “liberal” has increased about 10 points since the 90s, they have always trailed moderates and conservatives considerably and by a margin that renders them a minority in absolute and relative terms.

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

So long as radicals on both sides try to hijack party politics and the political establishment cynically empowers them, they’ll continue doing America’s enemies’ work for them.

Incredible whining from Democratic moderates. They want to blame "radicalism" despite the fact that they ran a moderate platform and lost. Like I said before, they dropped the ball, and are asking why Progressives knocked it out of their hands. Let's see the track record of moderates.

Jaime Harrison - Lost
Sara Gideon - Lost
Cal Cunningham - Lost
Steve Bullock - Lost
Theresa Greenfield - Lost
Amy Mcgrath - Murdered

Congratulations to Mark Kelly and John Hickenlooper.

Meanwhile, what did progressives do?

Sanders - Campaigned hard for Joe Biden
AOC - Urged people to vote and worked with Joe Biden

Moderates ran on a moderate platform and lost. Stop pointing figures, blame your own campaigning. As a WaPo contributor said,

"But if a candidate didn’t run on defunding the police, yet still couldn’t avoid being tied to “defunding the police,” that’s the candidate’s fault. If a candidate ran on reaching across the aisle, yet got defined as a socialist, that’s the candidate’s fault. And if that candidate couldn’t manage to tie his or her Republican opponent to almost a quarter of a million covid-19 deaths in the United States, a tanked economy or a dozen other policy fiascos, at least one of which was probably directly relevant to the candidate’s district, that’s the candidate’s fault."

Blame progressives when progressives get to run their own progressive campaign and lose to Republicans.

[Lord Thesaurian]

I don't see this as the Islamic Theocracy strongarming the world. I see it as them responding to an act of bad faith in a punitive way. While I dislike the Iranian government, I can't begrudge them their actions when the agreement they were pressured into signing is then set aside by the nation primarily responsible for them signing it in the first place. Their government claims substantial domestic legitimacy by diplomatic success - in this respect it was virtually impossible for them to not respond in this way to Trump's abandonment of the deal. It is easy for them to spin this "the US pulled out of the deal because they no longer liked the terms, so we're going to move ahead with what we planned before the deal".

Seeking to hold out on integrating "the Theocracy" into the world economic system until all desires are met (that they stop being a "mass-murdering theocracy" etc etc) has been unsuccessful since the 1970s. The problem with this approach has always been a lack of pragmatism. By asking for every hope and dream to be met in a zero-sum way, there will never be any sort of deal. But I suspect this is intentional.

Obama's approach was always to 'chip away' at the theocracy by undermining the domestic legitimacy it gains by placing itself on a moral high ground in opposition to the rest of the world. I can see how this would upset a zero-sum political mindset though, because it doesn't force a complete capitulation.

It has nothing to do with complete capitulation. Capitulation, if anything, is giving something for nothing and calling it a deal, and that’s exactly where we are now. The “pragmatic chipping away” was, as I said, tried against another seemingly intractable problem: Beijing. Since the 70s, they were given increasingly unfettered access to world trade. And now, instead of a poor and weak third world outlier, we have in the Chinese Politburo an increasingly wealthy, powerful, first world existential threat that is paradoxically central to the world economy. There’s nothing “pragmatic” about integrating Iran into the world economy in the hopes they’ll just decide to be nice one day. Pragmatic is allowing the Saudis to fill the role Iran once did. Stable oil prices and a compliant approach to mutual interests in the Gulf. We offered the same deal to the Ayatollah and he held our people hostage instead, so we had no choice but to cut ties there and deepen them with her rival.

Tehran made her own mess and now she wants out of it for free. She has nothing else to offer, and with a US pivot to Asia becoming increasingly mandatory, even the Saudis are beginning to fear abandonment by their American protectors. Like Beijing and Moscow, Tehran knows what she can and can’t get away with, deal or no deal. And as rising authoritarian powers steadily re-write the rules of the world order, these rogue states are barely even biding their time anymore waiting for US power to wane to the point of being ejected from their desired spheres of influence. All the US can do now is delay these ambitions by using what power she has left to restrict them in the hopes the natural enemies of these countries can form a coordinated defense (normalization of relations with Israel, shifting manufacturing out of China, a European army, etc). And that means the opposite of allowing the Iranian regime to nourish itself through the flow of world trade. The Iran deal may serve its official purpose of staving off nukes. But it merely cements the reality of another crushing defeat for US foreign policy interests. The deal doesn’t “chip away” at anything to do with the Iranian regime. The idea that Joe Biden, a man who has been in office since the beginning of these problems, will now devise some pragmatic long game to solve them, is delusional.

Incredible whining from Democratic moderates. They want to blame "radicalism" despite the fact that they ran a moderate platform and lost. Like I said before, they dropped the ball, and are asking why Progressives knocked it out of their hands. Let's see the track record of moderates.

Jaime Harrison - Lost
Sara Gideon - Lost
Cal Cunningham - Lost
Steve Bullock - Lost
Theresa Greenfield - Lost
Amy Mcgrath - Murdered

Congratulations to Mark Kelly and John Hickenlooper.

Meanwhile, what did progressives do?

Sanders - Campaigned hard for Joe Biden
AOC - Urged people to vote and worked with Joe Biden

Moderates ran on a moderate platform and lost. Stop pointing figures, blame your own campaigning. As a WaPo contributor said,

"But if a candidate didn’t run on defunding the police, yet still couldn’t avoid being tied to “defunding the police,” that’s the candidate’s fault. If a candidate ran on reaching across the aisle, yet got defined as a socialist, that’s the candidate’s fault. And if that candidate couldn’t manage to tie his or her Republican opponent to almost a quarter of a million covid-19 deaths in the United States, a tanked economy or a dozen other policy fiascos, at least one of which was probably directly relevant to the candidate’s district, that’s the candidate’s fault."

Blame progressives when progressives get to run their own progressive campaign and lose to Republicans.

You can ignore facts that contradict your narrative all you want.

At first blush, there seems to be a positive relationship between ideology and vote share for Democrats in 2020, as shown in Figure 1 below. As incumbent liberalism increases, so does the expected vote share. However, this initial interpretation defies causality. Instead, we should interpret this as follows: as districts become safer for Democratic candidates, those incumbents can adopt more liberal positions. Meanwhile, other incumbents felt they needed to adopt more moderate positions because of the competitiveness of their districts.
https://blogs.lse.ac.uk/usappblog/20...ive-districts/

No matter how moderate a candidate is this cycle, they aren’t going to escape a national party leadership that shilled for these unpopular positions all summer and beyond. All Republicans had to do, instead of defending Trump or talking about the pandemic, is say, “I’m against that.” And instead of a blue wave, they picked up seats. The moderates in tight races are right to be pissed that the leadership is pandering to the fringe to whip the vote in blue districts, and more importantly, the facts are on their side. “Talk to the hand” indeed.

[Cope]

I don't see this as the Islamic Theocracy strongarming the world. I see it as them responding to an act of bad faith in a punitive way. While I dislike the Iranian government, I can't begrudge them their actions when the agreement they were pressured into signing is then set aside by the nation primarily responsible for them signing it in the first place. Their government claims substantial domestic legitimacy by diplomatic success - in this respect it was virtually impossible for them to not respond in this way to Trump's abandonment of the deal. It is easy for them to spin this "the US pulled out of the deal because they no longer liked the terms, so we're going to move ahead with what we planned before the deal".

Seeking to hold out on integrating "the Theocracy" into the world economic system until all desires are met (that they stop being a "mass-murdering theocracy" etc etc) has been unsuccessful since the 1970s. The problem with this approach has always been a lack of pragmatism. By asking for every hope and dream to be met in a zero-sum way, there will never be any sort of deal. But I suspect this is intentional.

Obama's approach was always to 'chip away' at the theocracy by undermining the domestic legitimacy it gains by placing itself on a moral high ground in opposition to the rest of the world. I can see how this would upset a zero-sum political mindset though, because it doesn't force a complete capitulation.

The Iranian regime sought to, and was successful in, using nuclear blackmail to establish itself within the global order. It used its nuclear weapons programme (which threatened to make the Ayatollahs militarily untouchable) to gain access to the international community. The JCPOA legitimized the regime diplomatically and facilitated its economic interests.

During the time that the agreement was in effect, Iran continued to destabilize the Middle East by running militias in Iraq, supporting the Assad regime and assisting terrorist organizations. These efforts to dominate the region (which stood in plain contradiction to western interests) were aided by the lifting of sanctions which the agreement provided for.

The deal, then, was an act of appeasement by the US and the EU for which neither got anything substantive in return. At best, it was an expedient way of appearing to lift the prospect of war with Iran and stabilize the Middle East, even as it was being ravaged by ISIS and the Syrian Civil War.

[alhoon]

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/pfizer...ry?id=74267353

The headline should have been: "Trump was right."
I am not insinuating Trump did a good job managing the Coronavirus because he nailed when the vaccine would be ready... but he nailed it.
Now, I am pretty sure Trump was speaking out of his butt with his usual unfounded optimism. But he nailed it.

The people vehemently denying Trump's prediction and calling that prediction a dangerous lie should offer him an apology.

[PointOfViewGun]

https://abcnews.go.com/Health/pfizer...ry?id=74267353

The headline should have been: "Trump was right."
I am not insinuating Trump did a good job managing the Coronavirus because he nailed when the vaccine would be ready... but he nailed it.
Now, I am pretty sure Trump was speaking out of his butt with his usual unfounded optimism. But he nailed it.

The people vehemently denying Trump's prediction and calling that prediction a dangerous lie should offer him an apology.

July 5: Coronavirus: FDA chief refuses to back Trump's vaccine prediction

Dr Hahn, a member of the White House coronavirus task force, was asked about the timeframe after President Trump suggested that a "vaccine solution" to the pandemic would be ready "long before the end of the year".

Nope.

August 6: Trump says coronavirus vaccine possible before Nov. 3

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Donald Trump said on Thursday it was possible the United States would have a coronavirus vaccine before the Nov. 3 election, a more optimistic forecast on timing than anything suggested by his own White House health experts.

Nope.

August 28: Trump promises COVID vaccine this year despite current progress

During the final night of the Republican National Convention, President Donald Trump, speaking on the White House lawn in front of a large, mostly unmasked audience, said his administration will have a vaccine against COVID-19 within the next 4 months.

Nope.

September 17: Donald Trump sees mass COVID-19 vaccinations 'soon', contradicting experts

Openly contradicting the government's top health experts, President Donald Trump predicted Wednesday that a safe and effective vaccine against the coronavirus could be ready as early as next month and in mass distribution soon after, undermining the director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and calling him "confused” in projecting a longer time frame.

Nope.

November 13: Trump: Coronavirus Vaccine Widely Available by April

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP said Friday that a coronavirus virus vaccine would be widely available in the U.S. by April and praised the efforts of Operation Warp Speed, the public-private partnership to develop and distribute a vaccine, in his first public remarks since losing the presidential election to President-elect Joe Biden.

Bingo... Basically, he kept moving the goal post and scored eventually. You're congratulating that. Bravo!

[Love Mountain]

You can ignore facts that contradict your narrative all you want.

Says the person peddling contrived narratives that are entirely void of any facts whatsoever.

No matter how moderate a candidate is this cycle, they aren’t going to escape a national party leadership that shilled for these unpopular positions all summer and beyond. All Republicans had to do, instead of defending Trump or talking about the pandemic, is say, “I’m against that.” And instead of a blue wave, they picked up seats. The moderates in tight races are right to be pissed that the leadership is pandering to the fringe to whip the vote in blue districts, and more importantly, the facts are on their side. “Talk to the hand” indeed.

That's not the fault of any progressive. If moderates suck at campaigning then they suck at campaigning. You can talk about "facts" as much as you want, but you're talking about your feelings, not anything substantive.

The Iranian regime sought to, and was successful in, using nuclear blackmail to establish itself within the global order. It used its nuclear weapons programme (which threatened to make the Ayatollahs militarily untouchable) to gain access to the international community. The JCPOA legitimized the regime diplomatically and facilitated its economic interests.

Childish. The Iranian regime was legitimate ever since it seized power in 1979. Tearing apart the Iran deal did nothing but motivate Iran to pursue nuclear weapons.

During the time that the agreement was in effect, Iran continued to destabilize the Middle East by running militias in Iraq, supporting the Assad regime and assisting terrorist organizations. These efforts to dominate the region (which stood in plain contradiction to western interests) were aided by the lifting of sanctions which the agreement provided for.

Which is what everyone does. Iran is well within her rights to pursue her interests, the manner in which she does so is a separate issue from the nuclear deal.

The deal, then, was an act of appeasement by the US and the EU for which neither got anything substantive in return. At best, it was an expedient way of appearing to lift the prospect of war with Iran and stabilize the Middle East, even as it was being ravaged by ISIS and the Syrian Civil War.

He says with a straight face as Trump's policy has only increased the chances of conflict, and Iran shows no willingness to stop in spite of empty Trumpian bravado. Quite the contrary, Trump and neo-cons have only made the prospect of open war in the Middle East as likely as it ever was.

[Lord Thesaurian]

Says the person peddling contrived narratives that are entirely void of any facts whatsoever.

That's not the fault of any progressive. If moderates suck at campaigning then they suck at campaigning. You can talk about "facts" as much as you want, but you're talking about your feelings, not anything substantive.

This is pure projection on your part, and relies on willful ignorance of the conversation. So-called progressives can keep telling themselves they are the majority, and they can keep lashing out at “corporate Democrats” when reality fails to validate their expectations.

[Vanoi]

Childish. The Iranian regime was legitimate ever since it seized power in 1979. Tearing apart the Iran deal did nothing but motivate Iran to pursue nuclear weapons.



Which is what everyone does. Iran is well within her rights to pursue her interests, the manner in which she does so is a separate issue from the nuclear deal.

Iran still isn't developing nuclear weapons regardless of the deal. I couldn't care less if they did either. Iranian interests are the problem. Their influences destabilizes countries around them from Lebanon, to Iraq, to Yemen, and Syria of course.

[AqD]

The people vehemently denying Trump's prediction and calling that prediction a dangerous lie should offer him an apology.

He's not a fortune teller or an expert in pharma industry. It's people who listen to his words, or the words of any public figures, should apologize to themselves, whether they agree with him or not.

Why can't people just see him as someone doing his job in a public office?