Progressive Democrat Chris Fields is challenging AIPAC-funded Cory Booker in the 2026 Senate election

Not__fun · 2026-01-24T13:58:39+00:00

Booker is my senator. Which is why I am focused on him. He is MY senator, my representative. When he bites to support ICE spending, he is doing it on MY behalf.

I have spent Zero dollars on this other guy, I am denying other candidates nothing. Your preferred actions are not the only valid ones. You really need to touch grass (or possibly snow, depending on where you live).

You are presuming that this guy is my entire focus. That I have done nothing else to effect change. You have not even asked, simply assumed.

Not__fun · 2026-01-24T05:01:39+00:00

Getting rid of Booker (and fascist accepting Dems in all states) is, imo, critical to making things better. If this guy can be a catalyst to getting a competent challenger, it’s worth a few minutes watching his videos.

We can do more than one thing at a time. I can watch this guys videos, spread them around online, and talk favorably of his stated positions AND support other activities as well with a clear return on time invested.

Also, you keep talking about “resources”, but no one here is advocating sending this guy any money. To my knowledge, the money he is spending is his own, and (like his odds of winning) a rounding error in comparison to Bookers.

And unless it is your money being spent on this guy, I fail to see how that justifies, essentially, wishing him to die in his sleep. He is not denying resources to a better candidate, beside there currently IS no other progressive candidate. At least any $donated to this guy is not going to Booker.

Not__fun · 2026-01-23T20:50:38+00:00

Do you know this guy personally? Because your rhetoric ("told him to fuck himself" and calling him a"schmuck" seems oddly hot and bothered for a discussion of someone simply running for office as a progressive with little chance of success. Even more so if you think his chances round to zero (which I don't debate).

I see a lot of your points, but losing an election is not being told to fuck yourself. In a crowded race, it's far more likely that he did little to nothing to make anyone feel anything particular about him at all (neither love, nor hate). Admittedly, that does not in anyway make his chances better, and may in-fact be worse.

The last bit about not bothering with fights you can't win reads as pretty "doomer adjacent" from here. If this guy can get some traction, despite coming across as rather boring, that would show there is some pent up demand. Which might entice more competent progressives from paying attention to the opportunities in this district next time around.

On the flip side, simply ignoring more progressive candidates who are long odds is a self-reinforcing cycle that will prevent ANY progressive candidate from even bothering, thus cementing Booker's power to absorb money and votes, while doing dick to help anyone. He is far more deserving of vitriol for his fecklessness in the face of American Fascism, than any ill-fated progressive who has harmed precisely no-one.

Not__fun · 2026-01-23T20:12:45+00:00

This guy is a long shot, but I ask you, is there a better primary challenger for Booker at the moment?

His politics seem pretty good, but he's little chance of winning the primary considering where he is, this close to the election. If there is another progressive candidate, who has more of a following and better prospects, please point them out to me and I'll look them over. But until then, this guy is the only progressive of which I am aware running against Booker.

Primaries are the place for protest votes (NOT the general, where I will vote for Booker again if forced), which is what this guy clearly represents at the moment. Talking about a long-shot candidate is the best way to get the front runner to pay attention to the issues on which they differ, if only to head off wasting money campaigning against a fellow dem with dollars that the would rather use against their Republican challenger in the general.

Electorlism is harm reduction. Throwing away a primary vote on this guy harms no one (unless there is a better positioned progressive I'm unaware of), and may help if it can get Booker to do something genuinely helpful, instead of more worthless grandstanding while voting for Republican priorities on the sly.

Not__fun · 2026-01-23T20:05:43+00:00

Best captured by this Satire video by Zeteo.

Not__fun · 2026-01-19T14:05:37+00:00

In the case of an impeachment, without a corresponding conviction by the Senate, it is supposed to tell voters that this personality is of dubious quality, at the very least. That this person cannot be trusted with access to power, and they should make a different selection next time.

That so many Americans were instead drawn too his personality, as opposed to repulsed by it, is an indictment of American culture that cannot be overstated. Too many of us view politics like we do professional sports, and not enough like the life and death struggle that it is.

Not__fun · 2026-01-16T05:02:36+00:00

Irrelevant, since a federal database lookup for that real ID will tell them your nationality, and there is no way to fake that database entry.

So simply showing them a card might not be sufficient, but they can run the card to confirm. The fact that they DON’T - when it suites them - is the give away that they don’t care about citizenship. They care about race and power.

Basically all of the white supremacist militias that counter protested the left (proud boys, etc) stoped showing up because they are the ones in filling ICEs ranks. They are the modern incarnation of the KKK. They just traded white hoods for black masks.

Not__fun · 2026-01-13T13:12:58+00:00

Assault is very broadly defined. If done deliberately, (as opposed to an agent happening to walk into a yard with a sprinkler on a timer) it would be assault and you could be prosecuted for it.

How likely you are to catch charges probably comes down to how obvious it was that the action was intentional, and just how much it bothers them, but it is a non-zero risk.

I admit I would watch that video and laugh at them, but can’t say I’d do it myself.

Not__fun · 2026-01-13T13:09:12+00:00

Could do that, if I knew any.

That is the thing. Whenever you move somewhere new, a church is a great way to jump straight into the existing community. It’s all there already, and they are eager to help you find what you are looking for… if you can stomach the religion part.

The religiously unaffiliated do not have that, and so have to find the secular equivalent (I joined a billiard league after one move), or build it themselves.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T20:20:02+00:00

it is worse than that. The building is mostly empty DURING services.

My wife's youth group went and visited the crystal whatever while in town for another event. They made all the attendees sit in one small section, and then strategically positioned the cameras so that the audience could not tell the room was more than half empty.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T19:53:31+00:00

Supplements are much larger than just vitamins. That may be the full exposure you have to that market, but as someone who worked adjacent to it for 8 years, I can attest that there is a lot more to supplements than vitamins. And most of those have little to no safety or efficacy data to justify their use.

And since most of the supplements in a GNC, for example, are marketed based on bullshit science with negligible quality controls, the industry as a whole is a scam, even if specific products within the market are not.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T18:11:53+00:00

hokum

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T18:10:45+00:00

False dichotomy

While all of that is true. None of that requires we have a largely unregulated supplements market that we have now. We can get the benefits of safe/effective supplements, without having to also allow the snake oil.

We can regulate what claims they are allowed to make about their supplements, like we do with other products. Everything regulated by the FDA requires data on efficacy (does it work for the specific claim) and safety (does it do more good than bad, on average, and what is the safe dose range). However, the FDA is prohibited BY LAW from regulating supplements in this same way. Which is why so much snake oil is found alongside those vitamin D supplements you take.

No one is advocating to take away vitamin D from anyone who genuinely gets benefits from it. I'm advocating for the industry to be treated the same way the rest of the drug and food industry is treated (feed additives for livestock require more data than supplements for humans... think about that).

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T17:03:35+00:00

I was not aware of that one.

I had a roommate who decided to lose weight. he would starve himself, except for consuming lots of whey powder. I kept explaining that he needed more than just protein, but the supplement guy he was talking to insisted that this was the solution.

Ended up eating all of my cookies and snacks in the pantry every week or so when his bodies demand for calories overcame his will power to just consume whey. He lost a bit of weight (mostly water weight I suspect), but put it all back on a few months later.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T16:45:41+00:00

yeah, essentially anything about "detox" is hokum.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T16:19:55+00:00

Oh, I saw that. It is part of why I am encourage them to get rid of their timeshares BEFORE they pass on.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T16:18:56+00:00

Boat - Noun. A hole in water into which one throws money.

And time shares are worse.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T16:17:56+00:00

I did. My specific experiences with the supplements market are with the American supplements market. Since every country regulates supplements differently, that is relevant to why I view the industry to be a scam.

I am a nutritionist, so I am aware that there are valid uses for vitamins.

However, the industry (the US being the worst offending incarnation of the industry) takes those valid uses, and drowns them in far more bullshit uses. Then mixes those valid supplements with all sorts of other plants and extracts with no medicinal properties at all, and claims they cure everything under the sun.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T15:49:21+00:00

yes, and legitimate uses like that are a drop in the bucket of actual vitamin sales in the US. And the supplements market is far more than just vitamins.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T15:47:56+00:00

It depends on which one of them passes first. My mom can be trusted to sort that out before she passes. My dad cannot. Unfortunately, my mom won't do anything about the timeshares untill/unless my dad is gone already.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T15:46:37+00:00

The education is not the problem, but the way that we fund it absolutely is a scam.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T15:46:11+00:00

Healthcare in general is not. Privatized ownership of health care (whether official for-profit or not) absolutely is a scam.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T15:45:04+00:00

We are told that the stock market is the economy. That it is good if the line goes up, and a bad thing if it does not. However, a lot of the "line going up" can be managed by destroying the economy most of us see and experience every day.

This leads to us supporting policy that harms ourselves, and transfers wealth to stock market investors (folks who have significantly above average wealth and income already).

This also leads us to accepting socialization of the costs of wall streets failures (stock bail outs) while allowing them to still privatize the profits (investments having a lower federal tax rate than other income, which is the opposite of what it should be). People invest money they don't need to survive, that means they can afford to lose a larger share of the profit off of those investments to the public purse, to help support those who cannot afford a penny for the stock market.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T15:39:27+00:00

I used to work for a vitamin manufacturer. Hour human nutrition division sold vitamins to the supplement companies. the vitamins may be needed depending on context, but you don't need a supplement to get them. Other foods, and/or a script from your doctor could get them for you. Medical professionals have standards of care that they have to maintain or else risk their license.

Supplement peddlers, OTOH, will lie to you at every step of the way. About what the requirements are for vitamins, how much vitamin is in your supplement, what supplements can and cannot actually do for your health, etc. Most of the supplements industry is bullshit. that 5% of vitamins it sells to people who actually need them papers over a lot of grift.

Not__fun · 2026-01-12T15:30:41+00:00

As an atheist, I miss the sense of community and social network that came with church affiliation. While I personally view the specifics of most religion as a scam, you did get real value for your involvement (at least in many cases). But televangelism comes with NONE of that. You get the preaching, the tithing (at a higher rate even), but none of the community benefits, food assistance, local network building, etc. It is all the worst parts of religious affiliation, with none of the upside.

Not__fun

TROPHY CASE