Yeah, the fact that this sounded a lot like one of his anti-Trump stump speeches, coupled with the fact that he barely mentioned Kamala, makes me think he’s been rehearsing this one since before July 21st.

That’s horrible, but I was relieved to learn that CPS doesn’t stand for, “ChIld Protective Services,” in the UK. I was expecting a much darker story when I clicked.

How would I know if I can see all the…? Oh. Well played.

I mean, that would make them…just good, no, “net,” qualifier necessary. Before they (for all intents and purposes) shut down, they had developed an anti-U.S. bias, and that sucks (though I guess it’s understandable when your founder has been pursued by U.S. government for a decade), but the amount of information we got out of them was a net positive for the world.

Also, we’re literally seeing the results of not having an organization like them right now. In 2016, we had an organization that would publish leaked campaign emails. In 2024, we don’t.

Literally none of the emails you just referenced were released by media outlets.

From the first link: “A previously secret trove of emails released Tuesday by the House Oversight Committee…”

From the second link: “The Florida Supreme Court ordered the release of 528 pages of emails sent between partisan political consultants and state officials…”

From the third link: “The email exchange between GSA officials and Harrison is one of more than 100 pages of emails and documents newly released by the GSA…”

The Clinton campaign emails were also published by Wikileaks. Once they were published, the media reported on them, but they had no hand in releasing them.

OK, but that’s not what you said. You said that, “Wikileaks selectively leaked material helping Trump get elected giving us the mess we are in now.” So if you weren’t complaining about the Podesta emails, what were you referring to that helped Trump get elected?

That’s a fair point, however I would like to point out that being indicted by the government you’re leaking information against is a foreseeable conclusion.

Well, that’s the thing, though; Wikileaks actually never leaked anything, they just published the leaks. When the Gaurdian published the Snowden leaks, Snowden immediately became a target of prosecution, but the journalists who worked on the story were never prosecuted. Even as hostile as the Obama administration was towards the press, they wouldn’t dare prosecute journalists for publishing a story. But it wasn’t just Chelsea Manning that they went after for the 2010 Afghan War leaks, it was Assange and Wikileaks itself. You can argue it was because they weren’t a traditional press group, but realistically, it was because the government could get away with it.

Assange personally has always seemed like a piece of shit, and politically, he has definitely gone off the deep end in the last 8 years or so, but then again, 7 years a single embassy room followed by 5 years in prison is probably going to mess with your brain. I wish Wikileaks had moved on without him, and I agree that he wasn’t operating from a neutral position anymore, but without a replacement emerging, I think we’d be better off having it than having nothing.

Well, that’s a bit of a misrepresentation; they published documents that hurt Hillary Clinton while declining to publish documents from the Russian government. But even if they had published both sets of documents, the effect on the election would have been the same. It’s not as though they declined to publish documents on Trump. Either way, if you’re opposed to Hillary Clinton’s campaign emails being leaked, I have to assume that you’re equally opposed to the Trump campaign’s emails being leaked, and you’re glad that these news outlets are not releasing the information.

You could also argue that being indicted by the Justice Department in 2012 forced Assange to seek the favor of governments who weren’t aligned with U.S. interests. It’s certainly a betrayal of Wikileaks founding principles that it passed in those Russian documents in 2017, but if I were already the target of the U.S. government, I probably wouldn’t want to piss off the Russian government as well. But again, that’s why I said it was a net positive, not a positive.

Also, please don’t take my defense of Assange against the U.S. government as a defense of Assange as a man. Just because I didn’t want to see him in a U.S. prison, doesn’t mean I didn’t want to see him in a Swedish prison.

For everyone complaining about these not being published: This is why Wikileaks was a net good.

I live in Massachusetts. There are a lot of working class people that support Trump in our state, but if you ask them to choose between Dunks and Trump, it’s not gonna end well for Trump.

To be fair, George W. Bush’s proxies successfully ran the original swift boat attacks on Kerry even though he served in the Air National Gaurd while Kerry fought in Vietnam. Not saying it’s an exact one to one comparison, but it wouldn’t be the first time a veteran managed to smear someone who actually served.

I could be wrong, but isn’t a blatant quid pro quo basically the only way to wind up on the wrong side of the Citizens United decision? Didn’t the Supreme Court rule that, unless a candidate was engaged in open bribery, campaign contributions constitute free speech? I could be misremembering/misinterpretating, and he’ll never face any consequences for it anyway, but it would be very funny if there was a Supreme Court ruling that said, “As long as you’re not dumb enough to admit it’s a bribe it’s not illegal,” and he still fucked that up.

Thank God. I can’t believe this actually came down to, “one of the most popular Democrats in the country vs. the worst possible choice for every state except PA (debatably).”

Because you claimed that the Uncommitted voters would still fall behind Biden in the general, and that article very clearly shows many Muslim Americans would not. But you’re right, there have been a lot of articles written in the last week about how Harris is trying to win back the Muslim groups that Biden lost. Those articles are also great examples of why Shapiro, who once said Palestinians are, “too battle-minded," for peace, is a bad VP pick.

Wow, what a great point. Except the context I brought the article up in was, “This is the baggage Harris inherents as a member of the Biden administration, she needs to distance herself from Biden’s position in Israel if she wants to win Michigan, this makes Shapiro a very bad choice.” So, what Muslim Americans were saying about Biden 3 months ago is actually very relevant given that context, and it’s not a great point.

But thanks for, “You really do have a habit of ignoring any point that’s inconvenient to you.” Watching you ignore your misinterpretation of Harris’ Michigan polls, misunderstanding that entire article, and that you’ve still provided no evidence to support any of your assertions, that legit made me LOL. Anyway, as someone else in this thread said, once it had become clear you had no idea what you’re talking about, “We’re done here.”

JFC, I guess I’m breaking the data down for you:

Public Opinion Strategies (7/23-7/29): Harris: 45% Trump 45%

Morning Consult (7/24-7/28): Harris: 53% Trump 42% (This is a HUGE outlier)

SoCal Research (7/25-7/26): Harris: 46% Trump: 49%

Redfield and Winton Strategies (7/22-7/24): Harris: 41% Trump: 44%

Glengariff Group (7/22-7/24): Harris: 42% Trump: 41% (Only other poll with Harris having a slight lead, and it’s within the margin of error)

Emerson (7/22-7/24): Harris: 49% Trump: 51% (Though this one does have them tried if you add in third parties)

So, when you said, “You must not have looked at the polling recently. She’s ahead in Michigan,” (and by the way, dont think I didnt catch that goalpost move with, “equal to Harris lead”) that wasn’t really true; she’s ahead in one of the 3 latest polls (by a margin so large it seems like a polling mistake), and she’s only ahead in two of the six polls done in the last month. You are right though, the 538 Average does have her up by 2.2%, but again, that’s probably mostly because one poll is giving her a ten point lead, which is a huge outlier from the rest of the data.

Anyway, is the data good enough for you yet, guy who demands data but only cites a signal polling average throughout his grand assertions about Shapiro, Harris, Pennsylvania, Georgia, and Michigan? Have I finally given you enough proof to meet your rigorous evidentiary standards? Standards which you yourself will not meet? Well, I actually don’t care. Here’s a bunch of quotes from the article you think proves, “they,” will vote for Biden:

“If it came down to Trump and Joe Biden, I will vote for Trump. Because it doesn’t get worse than Joe Biden,” a man named Salah told me.

I’ve now come to understand the incandescent rage many feel toward Biden. And in Dearborn, I heard a lot more than distaste for him. I heard many who fully believe that Donald Trump will fight for them more than Joe Biden—and plan to take that belief to the ballot box in November.

“What do they say? ‘What are they going to do, vote for the guy that banned Arabs?’ And the answer is yes,” Amer Zahr, a Palestinian American comedian and Dearborn local, told me at one of the city’s many Yemeni cafés one afternoon… “Imagine thinking it’s a good argument to say to a community that has lost 30,000 people, ‘Watch out for the guy that’s going to ban you.’ You’re really asking me whether I’m going to take a ban or a genocide? I’ll take a ban.”

I asked Hammoud. How does he square support for someone who was widely seen as favorable to the Israeli government? “Biden is deeply committed to Zionism, a true believer, not acting on the whims of some lobby. That scares me a lot more,” Hammoud said.

The truth is Ahmed was one of the only Arabs I could find in Dearborn who openly admitted they actually planned to vote for Biden in November. I spent much of my time there immersed in the city’s café culture, and the more I talked to people, the more I saw the full extent of what was happening in Dearborn.

I did manage to find one person who voted for Biden in the primary, a student named Shreya. But she’s already starting to change her mind. “I’m thinking about it now, and I’m not sure I want to vote anymore,” she said. “We only have bad options. And now I’m thinking uncommitted is a better option too. I can’t support what’s going on with Palestine,” she said. “The easiest choice now feels like voting uncommitted.”

BOY, I SURE WAS WRONG ABOUT THIS ARTICLE, WASN’T I?

Only one poll has Harris with a large lead, most polls conducted at about the same time show Trump with a slight lead, and the Five Thirty-Eight average has them in a statistical tie. Seems much more likely that the one poll is an outlier rather than Harris suddenly gaining a 10 point lead in a matter of days. Also, while the leaders of the Uncommitted movement may support Biden in the general, that doesn’t mean that they speak for the entire Muslim population of Michigan, and on the ground reporting indicates they definitely don’t.

I’m not going to withhold my vote over a Shapiro pick, but I think there are a lot of people in Dearborn who might feel differently. Harris is a part of the Biden administration, so if she wants to win back Muslim Americans, she’s going to need to show she differs from Biden on Gaza. Shapiro says the opposite.

Anyway, I’m getting a lot of conjecture and opinion here, but not a lot of data, so I think I’m gonna leave it at this.

Well, over 100,000 Democrats voted, “Uncommitted,” in the primaries because of the genocide in Gaza, which was already nearly the 150,000 that Biden carried the state by in 2020, and well more than the 10,000 that Clinton lost by in 2016. Most polls still have Harris behind Trump in Michigan, so picking an Israel apologist as VP is almost certainly going to make Michigan go red.

As for Tim Kaine, I can give you two main data ponts: 4.4 million voters who turned out for Obama stayed home for Clinton, and Clinton lost the 2016 presidential election. It’s hard to quantify how much of that lack of enthusiasm was caused by her poor VP pick, but it’s safe to say an obscure centrist senator certainly didn’t generate any enthusiasm.

Anyway, I don’t know if that data is up to your standards, but since you didn’t supply any to back up your assertions, I’m not sure it matters.

The more I hear centrists talk about how he’s a smart pick, the more convinced I am he’ll be a disaster. It was true for Biden, after all.