• BurgerPunk [he/him, comrade/them]@hexbear.net
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    21 days ago

    Honestly, he should either have to drop out completely or be forced to remain on the ballot everywhere he’s already been authorized to be on the ballot. What he’s trying to do is deeply unserious. I mean uts a blatant attempt to interfere in the election for a different party while pretending to be a candidate. Not that i think what he’s doing would matter for the election, but if he wants to do that, just drop out altogether and go falconing

    • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
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      21 days ago

      It’s also absolutely illegal, and should be punished(!), to do ‘quid pro quo’ “If I drop out, will you give me a cabinet position?” shit. Is it prosecuted? Clearly not. Should it be? In my opinion, obviously yes. This shit is just another level of corruption in the nation of “free and fair elections! ™️”

      Yeah, it’s totally “free and fair” for like 4 nominees to get phone calls and hard promises of executive branch cabinet positions or VP position if they simply all drop out two days before a major primary date and unanimously, unprecedentedly, all back the most right wing corpse the democrats have managed to shove through since like fucking Truman. Really great shit. Oh and the “important primary” state that totally “swung” opinion was a deep red, “absolutely will never vote for ANY democrat” in the general election, “should be ignored” by democrats for their primaries state (South Carolina).

      Unserious dogshit country overall in every way

      • D61 [any]@hexbear.net
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        21 days ago

        If it were for money, sure, it would definitely be illegal.

        But I don’t think there’s any statutes anywhere in the USA that make “dropping out and endorsing or joining another candidate’s potential cabinet” illegal.

        • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
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          21 days ago

          It’s literally definitionally quid pro quo which is almost always illegal somewhere if you dig hard enough. It’s just become so totally normalized that no one seems to give a shit I guess.

          I kinda hate discussing it around Trump/RFK because it feels so annoyingly libbed up, so I’m time machining back to spring of 2020. Pete (and the others) got a phone call presumably from Obama. All we know is he got a call. Presumably the offer was “drop out, endorse Biden, keep your mouth shut, you’ll get a nice high up cushy job and we’ll speak well of you in 8 years if you try again.” You do for us, we do for you.

          §600. Promise of employment or other benefit for political activity

          Whoever, directly or indirectly, promises any employment, position, compensation, contract, appointment, or other benefit, provided for or made possible in whole or in part by any Act of Congress, or any special consideration in obtaining any such benefit, to any person as consideration, favor, or reward for any political activity or for the support of or opposition to any candidate or any political party in connection with any general or special election to any political office, or in connection with any primary election or political convention or caucus held to select candidates for any political office, shall be fined under this title or imprisoned not more than one year, or both.

          Source

          There’s that law that plainly by the language straight up bars a candidate for any office from offering a job to another candidate with conditions. “Proving it” might be difficult with most cases… which makes the RFK thing particularly hilarious because as with all shit around Trump they just do obvious corruption right out in front of us. Pete and Biden both suck shit but at least they didn’t run around admitting to rat fucking. RFK was literally like shitty voice “uhhh I could uhhh fuck you over Harris uhhh please let me be the uhhhh vaccine czar uhhhh”

          I don’t actually expect anything to come of any of this, obviously, just mostly using it to point out another way the US is full of shit. Those positions are “supposed to be” given to people by merit basis, not by favoritism or nepotism or whatever else. And yeah all the dumbass libs would just claim Pete knew about transportation (yeah, ok, sure) or that Kamala was especially qualified for VP. I don’t even know what Joe did for the others like Klob (sp and don’t care to look up) and whoever was left. Warren seems to have been told to NOT drop out. Maybe they got some money from the DNC to push around their states, I dunno. Giving cash to help candidates you personally like is one thing though. Just giving an important job to some nepo dipshit who was literally only ever an evil consultant (and VP to a cop basically) is, uh, not good no matter how much the media normalizes it. VP sorta makes sense, but the Pete and RFK thing and many others from the past are just obviously exactly what they appear to be

          • D61 [any]@hexbear.net
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            17 days ago

            Act of Congress

            Without any sources to back up my assertion, I am 100% certain that not every position in a Presidential administration requires Congressional approval. These are the patronage positions that can be doled out to whomever the President decides and Congress can complain but not really do anything to stop.

    • Justice@lemmygrad.ml
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      21 days ago

      Highly cliche to say at this point, but feels like watching Dr Strangelove on some sort of infinite loop that loops right before everything escalates to nukes dropping

  • it’s incredible how normalized it is in this country for the logistics of our “elections” are so shitty.

    the election is multiple months away, and “we can’t make changes to ballots, are you insane!! who could even do democracy at that speed!?”

    every individual asshole in America can send $100 from a wide selection of financial accounts to any or all candidates at 2am while sitting on a toilet in another state and ordering PPV porno, but changing a checkbox on a decision 60+ days from now is unprecedented.

    the justification that states determine how they do their own elections for federal elections is so antiquated and wack. not to mention, the basis for gerrymandering. even the article of the constitution prescribing it is misspelled in that “it’s the 18th century and the scribe has syphilis” way that we should be far too embarrassed to accept.

    • It’s fucking ridiculous. The UK is able to set up an election in what, a couple weeks after it’s announced? The election date doesn’t even change here, you should be able to change everything else about it until like 3 days before.