However I would also note that even 6 months ago, Establishment Dems would not approve a message of going after Epstein affiliates.

Which just proves they’re cowardly and opportunistic. Hardly evidence of sincerity.

I view the Democratic Party like a disobedient dog in need of training.

I’ll spot you the metaphor, but I’ve been bitten by this dog far too many times to believe a few treats and a clicker are going to change it.

The fact that Democrats have to even consider the population’s opinion is a progressive shift in strategy

It’s a shift in messaging… kinda. With the Hillarycrats largely on the sidelines this election, you’re stepping on fewer toes when you run ads like this. But compare it to the upsets in states like New York, Michigan, and Ohio. Nobody watching these ads who wasn’t already going to vote Dem will care. The issues aren’t at the top of anyone’s mind. We aren’t even seeing Dems put this as “Epstein’s War In Iran”, because the bulk of the Dem Party agrees with Trump on bombing Iran.

Just like with Obama criticizing Bush or Biden criticizing Trump, the issue isn’t the policy but the execution. Trump’s just doing a bad job of mass arrests and corporate bailouts and foreign invasions and market manipulations. Democrats (outside of the narrow band of progressives who have been upsetting party-favored campaigns) are running on “we’ll do Trumpism better” in the same way that the Obamacrats ran on “we’ll do Reaganism better”.

The Dem leadership is trying to stay in power by appealing to their left flank.

Democrats can retake the Senate without winning Michigan, Schumer suggests

El-Sayed’s progressive positioning and recent polling showing him narrowly trailing the Republican nominee, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), have raised concerns among Democrats that El-Sayed could lose what many in the party consider to be a must-win state. Some Democratic donors, particularly in the Jewish community, are also now backing Rogers after El-Sayed won the primary.

“A path to winning back the Senate clearly goes through Michigan, but we have a whole bunch of different paths,” Schumer told the Post.

That does not sound like a party leadership tacking towards its progressive flank. Just the opposite.

You won’t need to hand over your guns. You’ll just put them on the blockchain.

Are they sitting on a treasure trove of corporate secrets? Or is it just a thousand executives writing “Claude, synergize expediency to increase value for shareholders. Maximize usefulness. Implement Six Cigma methodologies to unlock a more agile work cycle. Generate a billion dollars in new cashflow. Make no mistakes.”

Voters on both sides of the aisle want pedos to be prosecuted

They want their rivals to be prosecuted. And they like to accuse their rivals of something heinous enough to shout down any supporter as a supporter of the heinous thing. But when you have a bipartisan sleezebag like Epstein, the web of supporters and affiliates between parties gets too tangled. You can’t go after Jamie Diamon or Elon Musk without goring your own ox. So you campaign as “anti-pedophile” or make a big show of saying “Lock Them Up!” with no real intention of going after anyone once you’re in office.

While it’s true that there are other levers that the Dems could be pulling, I’m just happy they are pulling a popular lever at all.

Dems burned through their credibility after Obama and Biden. Only the heaviest kool-aid drinkers seriously believe Mueller Time is an election away. FFS, you only need to hear Schumer and Jefferies talk to be utterly disabused of the notion that anyone in the Trump Admin is ever getting prosecuted for anything. These fuckwits won’t even entertain a 10th SCOTUS judge. They’re toothless and everyone knows it.

The political consultants the Dem leadership listens to must be feeling the pressure from the Progressive wing

Epsteinism isn’t a progressive force. It’s ambient internet blather.

Both sides arguments make people sound extremely stupid

What did the Biden Administration do to prosecute the Epstein client list?

What do you think the Pete Buttigieg administration is going to do in 2029? What do you think he’s going to do about the Silicon Valley sponsored rape gangs popping up all over the country? Aella the new Epstein and nobody fucking cares.

It’s because of the proven nazis and rampant pedophilia

Obama worked hand-in-glove with Elon Musk to funnel tens of billions of dollars of grants, tax credits, and government contracts into shareholder pockets. Biden handed TikTok to Larry Ellison’s failson. Abigail Spanberger and Mikie Sherrill are continuing to do enormous amounts of business with Palantir and Flock. Gavin Newsom vetoed a California bill to protect local doctors from extradition for abortion-related crimes in other states.

The Nazis and the Pedophiles aren’t confined to a single party. They are part of a wealthy upper class, dedicated to exploiting the labor of their neighbors and to extracting natural resources at everyone else’s expense.

Andrew Cuomo and John Fetterman are not your fucking friends just because they have (D) party affiliations. Henry Cuellar and Bob Menendez are not working towards your better interests.

They should really be running those nonstop to win all the elections.

I think Democrats embracing Epstein-ism are going over about as well as Republicans hysterical over transgender players in the WNBA. This isn’t a GOTV tactic, it’s a fundraising gambit. “Look, I’m totally owning the other guys! Send me more money so you can keep seeing these ads!”

Half the Epstein client list is running the Trump government right now.

And the other half is vacationing with the Clintons on Martha’s Vineyard.

That’s got nothing to do with the price of diesel, though. It’s got nothing to do with rent or childcare or AI data centers spiking your electricity bill or the latest recall of tainted grocery stock.

Ask the real questions but on TV and all the Facebook ads you can buy.

Or just run an ad of your candidate drawn South Park style, farting on Donald Trump’s head.

Just don’t talk about Palestine. Don’t talk about ICE. Don’t talk about how the City of Corpus Christi is in a permanent water shortage crisis.

I do kinda think there’s a through-line between people into horoscopes and people who never want to make a decision.

because like half of all women are into astrology

In the same way that half of all men are into video games, sure.

they get really really angry with you if you don’t take them seriously when they start lecturing you about it

I’ve definitely had girls explain it to me. And I’ve stepped in it when I teased one too hard, because she just read me as an obnoxious prick (which… in my early 20s… she wasn’t wrong).

But I see astrology get the same treatment as veganism. You mention, in passing, that you’re into a thing. People line up around the block to heckle you and argue with you and scream slurs at you. And for some reason this doesn’t really change you opinion on The Thing You’re Into. It just changes your opinion on dating or on talking to anyone outside your insulated The Thing community.

Dated a girl and, while we were walking through the park, she points up at the sky. “Oh look, Chemtrails”. I absolutely bust up laughing, because I assume I’ve accidentally stepped into a relationship with a conspiracy theorist. She looks incredibly confused. I explain what chemtrails are. She gets even more confused. We whip out our phones for a minute. She says, “Omg I meant contrails”

She’s a lawyer at a white shoe firm now and makes, like, twice as much as I do in IT. Also, absolutely incredible in the sack.

Millionaires aren’t really contributing

The multimillionaire used car dealer, the retired middle manager, and the seventh generation family money failson make up the backbone of the party going back to the Hoover Era.

Plenty will say whatever is popular, then donate to candidates who do the exact opposite.

A billion here. A billion there. Pretty soon, you’re talking about a lot of money.

The dirty truth is that it’s far cheaper to bribe officials not to tax you then it is to pay taxes.

It’s California. He won’t lose while Gavin Newsom and his friends are in power.

How the Hillary Clinton campaign deliberately “elevated” Donald Trump with its “pied piper” strategy

Losing to Trump was the punchline

I wouldn’t hold my breath.

They were rare bordering on apocryphal during the Draft days of Vietnam. In modern days, all these idiots and assholes are volunteering to be there.

Far more often, you’ve got people in the trenches who aren’t natural born killers and balk at pulling the trigger on anyone. It’s a reflex military training is designed to force out of you.

One of the things Hegseth’s obsession with War Fighters and Testosterone and steriods is intended to “fix”. He doesn’t want an army full of medics and engineers and mechanics and accountants. He wants a bunch of macho gun totting trigger pullers who go frothing berserk mode when the shooting starts.

His final words were

I have information that will lead to the arrest of Hillary Clinton

Japan has no responsibility to make amends

No, I said the US occupation has no role in reforming Japan.

The government has refused to apologize. Schools don’t say anything bad about imperial Japan. Every new years my local shrine hangs up the rising sun flag signed by all the local soldiers who were out commiting heinous acts in neighbouring countries. If you’ve ever visited Japan and stayed in an APA hotel, the owner is the Japanese equivalent of a Holocaust denier and has a book in the drawer of every room explaining Japan did nothing wrong. Even the Hiroshima peace museum starts its plea for pity with “somehow Japan found itself at war”. Not to mention government celebration of war criminals at Yasukuni.

How has US occupation improved that?

🧠

Unit 731 did things in China that would make an IDF officer puke in his boots.

The IDF took notes.

Regardless, the Japanese of imperial era have been dead and buried for over 80 years. I’m not sure what the continuous US occupation of is southern most island does to rectify century old crimes.