I hadn't noticed that.

Where are you seeing it?

@Zoltans_Queen I too want @Secretguy to explain his “intellectually lazy” remark.

If he bases his opinion solely on the amount of corruption, I agree that both parties are about equally corrupt. I’m not intellectually lazy; four years of hardball politics, including a candidacy in a primary for a legislative seat, persuaded me.

The Pennsylvania constitution makes almost futile any hope for amending it to add a direct initiative, referendum and recall, which only seventeen mostly western states have: Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, and Washington. Source: ballotpedia.org

@yvilletom I agree, it's just a bullshit off the cuff remark to make himself sound superior or smarter. It's easy to say that both parties are very different when you have a whole system of corporate media, from Fox on the right to MSNBC on the left, pushing that narrative all the time to brainwash Americans. My reply to this ass is for him to try reading Chomsky's Manufacturing Consent. He might learn something.

I hope you're right but I won't believe it until I see it.

@Zoltans_Queen Appropriate, give it time, expect the worse. That's my credo.

I didn't expect much out of him but was hoping he would try to be balanced and give us progressives something worth while to repay us for our efforts getting him elected.

I think you're probably right. He will lean hard on the identity politics stuff to seem progressive but won't actually allow any progressive policy.

@Zoltans_Queen Bingo! You appear to understand well Biden and the Dem Party and how they play their games with the public.

@TomMcGiverin

The last primary has been eye opening. I didn't pay much attention before, but now, the more I look into it, the more I see that the democrats care more about their donors than us.

@Zoltans_Queen Most Americans don't pay much attention to what the parties actually do, rather than what they say. Regardless of the reason or reasons they don't pay attention, it explains a lot of why we have what we have. I think if most Americans were well-informed, payed close attention to what the parties were doing, and were adequately skeptical and critical in how they use mass media, we would have third parties that could win elections, even being outfunded by the major parties, who would either have to become responsive to us peasants, or else get voted out.

@TomMcGiverin Tom, if most Americans were well-informed and paid attention to what the parties were doing, many more than seventeen mostly western states — Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Florida, Idaho, Illinois, Mississippi, Missouri, Montana, Nebraska, North Dakota, Oklahoma, Oregon, South Dakota, Utah, and Washington — would have rhe direct initiative, referendum and recall (DIRR). Source: ballotpedia.org

With the DIRR, we peasants would make laws.

@yvilletom I agree, Iowa sadly is not one of those states and for a couple decades now it's been a one-party red state. That is due to how Dems can't get any votes or find any candidates for statewide or federal offices that can connect with rural voters, same as Dems in most states. However, the way Iowa keeps losing population in the rural areas, it's only a matter of time before the Repubs will not longer win statewide elections or even control the legislature because the urban areas will have most of the population then. I hope I'm still alive to see that.

The interesting thing about Iowa is that on a couple issues the two parties have no difference. One is air and water quality. Since factory farming is king here, neither party will stand up to the Farm Bureau and regulate hog lots or chemical pollution of the water by farm chemicals. The state department in charge of those things may as well be abolished and turned over to the Farm Bureau. The other is corporate welfare. Nuff said on that since it seems to be a national problem in state governments. The final area of similarity is regulation and inspections of nursing homes. Iowa's population skews heavily towards elderly folks and both parties take huge money from the nursing home industry, so it's the same as environmental regulation, anybody who tries to actually regulate or watchdog the industry either gets canned or is unable to get appointed by the governor of either party.