Appropriate, given the context

Access to it is 100% a free speech issue.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Child_safety_on_Roblox

I grew up in the 80s, when we had these huge high profile congressional debates over everything from Mortal Kombat to Twisted Sister. It still stuns me to see modern game platforms become everything the hysterical Satanic Panic folks warned us about. But now that it really is a hothouse for scamming, grooming, and extremism, nobody seems to fucking care.

Nobody should be letting their kids play Roblox. This is probably the best thing the Russian Parliament has done since Yeltsin ordered tanks to shell it.

ARMs Race

Corporate Headline: “Why you might not want lower prices or higher wages after all”

Me, waving a giant Abolish Money placard: “Bitch, I know!”

Wilson and Reagan left office before the dementia really took hold

Wilson had intended to seek a third term in 1920, but was fully incapacitated and bedridden by October of 1919

Multiple Reagan staffers confirm he was fully in the thrall of dementia by his final year.

But at what cost?!

Wilson and Reagan would suggest otherwise

Allegedly struck a guy over an argument about the hierarchy of the godhead. Although this is recognized as apocryphal, not showing up in accounts until hagiographies hundreds of years later.

I think the resurrection thing is probably true, though.

Renaissance Artist Draw An Actual Child Challenge: Impossible

But Trump was showing early signs of dementia during his first term.

That’s what was reported. But, again, none of this reporting is reliable. It’s all just court gossip.

The difference here is evidence.

It’s credulity. Liberals are more receptive to “conservatives in decline” than they are when it is reported of their own politicians.

That’s why Feinstein got to die in office without facing any kind of serious challenger. And why Schumer will benefit from the same.

On our left hand we have a party who, while generally spineless in the face of opposition, at least understands the general principles of governance

Andrew Cuomo couldn’t govern himself out of a paper bag and he ran one of the largest and richest states in the country for eight fucking years. So many of the Dem Senators that got kicked to the curb in '10 and '14 and '22 sucked ass. We’re still stuck carrying around dead weight like Fetterman and Slotkin holding winnable seats, while the occasional “Trump Democrat” like Amy McGrath sucks up hundreds of millions of dollars to face-plant during a blue wave year.

Can we maybe put down the theory that these people know what they’re doing? Dianne Feinstein could barely form coherent sentences by the time she was being wheeled into votes on life support. Chuck Schumer’s got his own party base in full revolt. Newsom can’t decide if he’s running for President or running a podcast.

None of these people can govern.

It’s the cross I’m willing to bare.

Which politicians, exactly?

Trump, back during his first term (the rumors about him being on death’s door with COVID were rampant). Biden, for nearly his entire term in office. Hillary was going to die in the middle of her 2016 run. I remember people insisting Vladimir Putin was on his way out any day now all the way back in 2005 - there’s even a wikipedia article about how many times his death was misreported. And there’s an endless parade of rumors about Kim Jung Un keeling over, Ayatollah Khomanie being terminally ill, ffs “Castro is dying, get in the boats!” was a thing people said about Fidel from his mid-fifties until he handed over office to his brother Raul in 2008.

Pretty much anyone the US government / media doesn’t like gets a scattershot “dude could die any day now” headline from time to time. And the more reactionary the source, the more credulous the allegations.

Get on Kalshi and place your bets.

But all this naked speculation about how Trump is on death’s door has been going on since he was running for President the first time way back in 2015.

you would simply an ignorant moron who doesn’t understand the fucked up problems that are baked into any “first past the post” system

Idk if I’d call someone who hasn’t mastered the electoral math of various esoteric voting systems a “moron”.

The system is working exactly as they fucking intended

Really depends on who you ask. You’d be hard pressed to convince a bunch of 2016 mega-donors that the optimal result of the season was a Donald Trump presidency. That’s certainly not where all the big money went during the primaries.

FPTP doesn’t play well with gerrymandering or hyper-partisanism. If your elections are decided by the primary, and your primary is closed or otherwise stacked to favor the most ideologically pure candidates, you end up with an elected bureaucracy that looks like a fun house mirror reflection of the base.

Ask Jeb Bush if this is the outcome he intended ten years ago. Ask Liz Cheney and Cindy McCain. Politics is way off the target drawn by the neocons back in 2000.

I don’t know why they can’t single-handedly win a war against a country 10x their size using only our obsolete overpriced leftovers

I mean, ask Afghanistan, Vietnam, or Korea.

But also ask why these wars popped off to begin with and why they dragged on long after any foreign country had a material interest in continuing the fight.

Also maybe look into the UON and question why the Canadian Parliament was applauding an elderly SS Officer who described WW2 as the best years of his life.

Tons of profit in war mongering.

And in another five years, I’m sure he’ll look even worse. But will he still be breathing out that noxious brew of smarm and bigotry? So long as he’s still breathing.

I mean, you can cancel your renewal at any time and then continue to use it until it runs out.

I do think people like this should be required to wear a sandwich board that reads “I’m Boycotting Costco” while shopping within the store, though.

My politics is Red Team Wins. And if you aren’t on Red Team and saying “Red Team Is Winning” then you are a fake loser communist pedophile.

Now, I’m sure you’re going to feel very smug reading this. I want you to hang on to that feeling when you’re being asked to vote for the Pete Buttigieg / Stacey Abrams ticket in 2028 while people scream “Vote Blue No Matter Who” at you.

Well if we’re not going to bother helping them win

We’ve been happy to lard them up with debt and sell them overpriced military surplus. Idk if that counts as “helping them win” but we’ve made a handsome profit off it.

Fuck Ukraine, not our problem

Hey now. Don’t look at Ukraine as a problem. Look at Ukraine as a big play for recently vacated real estate. Jared Kushner is going to make so much fucking money leasing Ukraine’s land back to its residents.

Now Ukrainians? They’re going to get fucked.