Candescence

Even if Trump can't be impeached without GOP support for impeachment, a lot of people around him are very likely to go to jail, including Jr. and Kushner, maybe even Ivanka. He strikes me as the sort of man who won't be able to cope if most of his associates are removed from the board or they decide to spill the beans.

Still, it's a small minority, especially considering Pelosi is actively shoring up leftist support. Hell, guess who else is supporting her speakership: Say what you will about her, but none of Pelosi's supposed challengers have her proven competence as head of the house dems. Again, despite being in minority, she was able to milk the GOP dry when it came to forcing numerous concessions out of them when it came to the March spending bill, including the removal of the rule preventing the CDC from being able to conduct research on gun violence (albeit with no funding into such research as of yet, but baby steps).

It's literally just Tim Ryan's blue dog faction agitating against her because she's not conservative enough. Cortez isn't naming names, but anyone who's looking at the people agitating for Pelosi to be replaced can see it isn't the progressives doing it. Hell, Pelosi has been courting votes from progressive congresspeople, which has been annoying the blue dog faction.

I don't think Nancy Pelosi is going anywhere anytime soon, folks. Everyone who wants Pelosi's job right now is to the right of her. Cortez's endorsement of Pelosi speaks volumes. Now, getting rid of Chuck Schumer, on the other hand...

To be fair, the Slender Man movie is barely recognisable as a Slendy movie and is just straight up terrible. Five Nights at Freddy's can still work in a vacuum if Scott is actively taking his time to write the best script he can for it.

Tim Ryan is a right-wing democrat who really should be a republican. Fuck that guy, I'd certainly much rather have Pelosi as speaker than him. The problem is that even a lot of Dems have worryingly bought into the GOP's propoganda over Pelosi. She's not perfect, but I'll say this again, she's a fantastic whip who kept the Dems united over the last two years in minority and even forced the GOP to make numerous budget concessions.

Preferential voting isn't perfect, but the Australian experience is still a huge improvement over the duopoly in the senate, as seen by a good chunk of the senate seats taken by a Greens party that actually has an incentive to not be a bunch of lunatics (well, aside from parts of the Greens in New South Wales, but the entire NSW political scene is a goddamn madhouse in general for reasons nobody can fathom. Though NSW isn't Australia's version of Florida, that title goes to Queensland). And we recently saw the by-election triumph of an independent MP in the blue-ribbon seat of Wentworth (which used to be the former Prime Minister Malcom Turnbull's seat until the leadership spill removed him from his position and, as promised, he willingly resigned from parliament - the problem for the Liberals was, he was pretty friggn' popular in Wentworth, whose constituents were not particularly happy about their man getting turfed due to what was basically a failed right-wing power-play) thanks to Labor and Greens preference votes flowing onto the independent candidate, which has actually forced the government into minority government status mid-term. Granted, we also have populist (aka racist right-wing) dickheads like Pauline Hanson and Bob Katter, but in a US-style system they'd be part of the GOP equivalent anyway, but otherwise we've resisted the right-wing populist surge happening across the west. We haven't had anything close to a Brexit or a Trump yet, any attempts at emulating the latter have failed miserably (the closest thing we've had to a Trump-like figure in power was Tony Abbott, and he crashed and burned so hard his own party booted him in favor of Turnbull before he was even two years into his term), and the closest thing we've had to the former was the same-sex marriage plebiscite, which spectacularly backfired on its architects when it resulted in an undeniable 61% yes vote. Oh, bloody hell, I'm rambling. But in any case, preferential voting is a big step forward in terms of making elections more competitive.

Don't. Seriously, just... Don't get your hopes up. A third party isn't happening unless the US electoral system is changed to preference voting or proportional. The current system makes it basically impossible for third parties to gain any kind of clout outside of highly unusual circumstances. The last time a third party gained any kind of clout was when Teddy Roosevelt split from the Republicans and ran for president under a third party banner, and even then he didn't win, but he was popular enough to get second place and more votes than the Republican nominee, Willam Howard Taft. But again, those was significantly unusual circumstances, spearheaded by a former US president who was very popular, but even then it shows how third parties can be a problem for one side of the political spectrum, as the Republican vote was split and allowed the Democrats to win. Just vote for the party you prefer and advocate for electoral reform. You have a democratic duty to vote, don't waste it.

So, about the Wohl/Burkman dumbass conspiracy... It gets dumber and even more hilarious.

I don't know why you're whining about Sakurai when it's been stated that his team's hands are tied with basically doing more with Sonic due to Sega.

Good lord, the salt is real. The final fighter reveals could've been a lot better, frankly, but all things considered, it's obvious the focus has been on adjusting the existing cast, and polishing the game in general more than just adding more numbers to the roster. That being said, it's an enormous relief that the single-player content is now significantly more substantial than Smash 4. I doubt they'll drop Event Mode as its own thing, but Spirit battles is a cool alternate take on that, with potentially hundreds of unique scenarios, and it looks a lot less grindy to acquire customisation stuff than Smash 4's equips. Also, World of Light looks enormous, and I do hope there is at least unlockable scenes, since there doesn't seem to be a standard story-driven progression, but it looks a lot more fleshed out in terms of gameplay than any other adventure mode before it (people forget that while Melee's adventure mode was neat it had only had a couple properly fleshed out platforming stages, and Subspace's environments and enemies were kinda bleh). Trophies being gone sucks, but I'm not surprised. The increasingly escalating number of trophies is just way too much high-quality modelling work for one game. In Ultimate, every stage shares its music with every other stage based on the same series. But apparently there's not gonna be much of a boost in terms of Sonic tracks or new Sonic content in general because apparently either Sega is being even more of a stubborn jackass than Konami (Metal Gear is also getting new remixes) or there's still a bunch of idiotic legal problems involved with Sonic and his music stuff, according to what we've heard on the issue from Sakurai. So, blame Sega.

Still, Pelosi is a very competent whip, there's no dispute about that. Meanwhile, there's plot to maybe frame Robert Mueller for sex crimes that may actually be a fake plot designed to discredit the "mainstream media" and the #MeeToo movement? And it involves a woman who apparently doesn't exist being contacted by a shady 'intelligence agency' that also doesn't exist? If that sounds confusing or just stupid, well, it's both. It's an extraordinarily idiotic plan devised by Jacob Wohl and Jack Burkman: Basically, it's a plot that is so poorly set up that "amateur hour" is an insult to amateurs. It makes a very poor assumption that the media won't do their homework and actually try to make sure that the material they receive is actually legitimate. It also opens Wohl and Burkman up to multiple charges including obstruction of justice. I've been following the thread on ResetERA, and the whole saga is a fucking hilarious comedy of errors.

So... Trump plans to try and abolish birthright citizenship via executive order. Which, I should remind everyone, is impossible because citizenship by birth is part of the constitution. Unfortunately, Sir Orange Dumbass hasn't quite grasped that the title of 'President' does not equate to "god-king of America" yet, so he believes he can override the constitution. If nothing else, this'll be hilarious.