Politics

[tigeraid]

Okay.

Not sure the Bloc is quite the FLQ though.....

[MR2 Fan]

I wonder, when Trump's presidency is finally over, if someone will make a compilation video of all of the insanity that went on, lest we've forgotten all of it...of course, it would probably be a week long 24-hour marathon of content to cover it all.

History books will have difficulty really capturing the essence of this crazy era

[Crazed_Insanity]

I remember Trudeau I. The FLQ. The kidnapping of Pierre Laporte and James Cross (though I couldn't remember their names or positions).The War Measures Act. (Though I remembered it as "Emergency Powers Act", for some reason).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/October_Crisis

Wow. Had no idea. Thought Canadians were all like the laid back hippies type...

What the heck the FLQ wanted? Did the wiki explain that? Communism? Hence the Bombing of rich people and stock market...

So was that the exact opposite of what’s happening in Hong Kong?

[Tom Servo]

Ambassador Taylor in his testimony today: Sondland said he told Zelenskyy "although this was not a quid pro quo, if President Zelenskyy did not 'clear things up' in public, we would be at a 'stalemate.' I understood a 'stalemate' to mean that Ukraine would not receive the...assistance."

So, in other words, "I'm not saying that you have to do this thing for me in order for me to do this thing for you, but I am saying that if you don't do this thing for me then I'm not doing this thing for you."

[FaultyMario]

This gave me the chills:


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lj8A2jJL018

"Professors call on the people
to organize, the biggest revolution
so that there's never again in Chile
lucre with education."

[Crazed_Insanity]

Just googled and found out that Chilean high cost of higher education is only 2nd after USA!

It's unbelievable why our students don't protest. Probably because US parents can afford to pay/bribe better than Chilean parents.

It seems like we are at a time were every nation has some sort of protest if not out right war. Probably due to the huge power/wealth gap between the haves and have nots.

[FaultyMario]

Chilean leader tries to calm unrest with wage rises and taxes on rich (https://www.theguardian.com/world/2019/oct/23/chile-unrest-president-sebastian-pinera-wage-rises-taxes-on-rich)


Piñera, a billionaire and former airline owner, said earlier this week that Chile was “at war with a powerful, relentless enemy”, but switched to a more conciliatory tone after he was widely rebuked.

Hours later, Piñera called for increasing the lowest monthly pensions from $151 (£118) to $181, raising the monthly minimum wage from $413 to $481, and rescinding a rise in electricity rates scheduled to take effect next month. The proposals also included a tax increase for anyone earning more than $11,000 a month.

So I guess the internet was right:

https://img.picturequotes.com/2/247/246719/rights-are-won-only-by-those-who-make-their-voices-heard-quote-1.jpg

[FaultyMario]

The internet: AOC mopped the floor with Zuckerberg so much that they're bringing out a new Mr. Clean scent, "Incompetent White Billionaire".

Rep. Katie Porter: Hold my beer.

[Tom Servo]

Intriguingly, Mr. Taylor says in his statement that many people in the Administration opposed the Giuliani effort, including some in senior positions at the White House. This matters because it may turn out that while Mr. Trump wanted a quid-pro-quo policy ultimatum toward Ukraine, he was too inept to execute it. Impeachment for incompetence would disqualify most of the government, and most Presidents at some point or another in office.


Saying not to impeach because he's too dumb to commit the crimes he wants to commit. That's a bold strategy, let's see how it works out for them.

[FaultyMario]

So Trump doesn't hate Mexicans, but rather New Mexicans? (https://twitter.com/MabyKaninchen/status/1187375683686862848?s=20)

[Tom Servo]

I might be a little more convinced about Tulsi Gabbard if she wasn't going on Hannity to complain about the impeachment inquiry and repeating Republican talking points.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Haven’t seen it and nobody uploaded on YouTube yet...

Only found out that she’s not seeking re-election for congress but is now only focusing on White House. That is weird.

[MR2 Fan]

if she was a legit Dem candidate, she wouldn't be going on Fox News at all

[Crazed_Insanity]

Andrew Yang goes wherever he’s invited. You absolutely need to venture into various different bubbles in order to reach different viewers. You can’t win the WH without stealing some votes away from trump.

So I wouldn’t throw everyone off the bus for appearing on FOX, it all depends on what’s being said.

[Tom Servo]

She was on Hannity saying that the impeachment query needs to have a "very narrow focus" and that it needs to be "more transparent", which are both Republican talking points right now.

I'm sorta okay if you go on Fox News, but Hannity and Carlson are both active shills peddling Trump propaganda and giving them the time of day I think shows a major fundamental flaw in judgment.

[FaultyMario]

Rudy butt dials nbc reporter (https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/rudy-giuliani-butt-dials-nbc-reporter-heard-discussing-need-cash-n1071901), yeah, the same guy who New Yorked crimes to death (https://twitter.com/KeatonPatti/status/1076153081019146240?s=20).

[neanderthal]

She was on Hannity saying that the impeachment query needs to have a "very narrow focus" and that it needs to be "more transparent", which are both Republican talking points right now.

I'm sorta okay if you go on Fox News, but Hannity and Carlson are both active shills peddling Trump propaganda and giving them the time of day I think shows a major fundamental flaw in judgment.

Benghazi and Hillary's emails were conducted behind closed doors.

Just saying.The same people crowing for more transparency ...

[Cam]

Trump was in town today. Several protests happened.

[Leon]

Did he build any imaginary walls while there?

Though, with his bone spurs, should he really be involved in any heavy labour like wall building ...

[Tom Servo]

Well, with your bad knee Ed, you shouldn't throw anybody...


I digress.

Speaking of people coming to town, apparently the next democratic debate will be at UCLA just up the street. I can't decide if this should go in the politics or the terrestrial wheelmen thread, since I'm pretty sure only us people biking will be able to get through westside traffic when that happens.

[Crazed_Insanity]

She was on Hannity saying that the impeachment query needs to have a "very narrow focus" and that it needs to be "more transparent", which are both Republican talking points right now.

I'm sorta okay if you go on Fox News, but Hannity and Carlson are both active shills peddling Trump propaganda and giving them the time of day I think shows a major fundamental flaw in judgment.

Finally saw that on YouTube.

Personally I don’t really care much about the impeachment complaints... it’s always politicized... dems would complain about Bill Clinton’s treatment and now GOP is whining for Trump. Similar to federal debt, each party bitch about the other party spending too much but whenever they take control, you never see anyone actively try to reduce deficits..., so Im used to the hypocrisy. We kinda wanted them to narrowly focusing in on Monica and give us all the transparent juicy details too, right? ;)

Anyway, What I found More interesting was that it was Hillary Clinton who accused tulsi of being a Russian spy. So I guess Fox/Tulsi were just thinking that the enemy of their enemy is their friend? It’s also interesting Tulsi kept saying Hillary’s failed foreign policies. What? What about Obama’s policies? Was she afraid to bad mouth Obama or was Obama’s policies really Hillary’s... to be honest, I’m not a fan of Obama’s foreign policies. It really looked almost the same as W’s.

Anyway, that was an interesting interview. As cute as Tulsi is, she probably has lower chance than Yang at this point.

[Cam]

Trump was in town today. Several protests happened.
Supposedly Air Force One landed at 2:00pm and left at 4:00pm. I can only guess that Trump showed up for an hour, probably less, then left. :erm:

[dodint]

Trump came to downtown Pittsburgh on Wednesday to speak at the convention center next to my building. They were expecting up to 8,000 people. They got a few hundred. :up:

[Tom Servo]

Anyway, What I found More interesting was that it was Hillary Clinton who accused tulsi of being a Russian spy.

https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/article/2019/oct/22/hillary-clinton-and-whether-she-called-tulsi-gabba/

[Crazed_Insanity]

Thanks for that! :up:

[neanderthal]

Thanks for that! :up:

Twenty fucking nineteen and you still don't know how to get information. :rolleyes:

I was going to ask you a question about Trump's foreign policy versus Obama's, since you compared Obama's to Bush' then I was going to question your thoughts on their domestic policy and actions, but I decided my sanity, patience and grace had been tested enough already this weekend by the fucking Springboks, and that my quotient for bullshit has been irreparably and iredeemably damaged by your posts here in the past.


I've come to the conclusion that not knowing what you think is a better state than knowing, as what you, um, ... add (is that the right word?) is tantamount to subraction rather than addition. Like the opposite of evolution. Like, ... going back in time in your life to correct the mistakes of your past, only to be confronted with even worse choices than you had when originally made the bad decisions. Going back in time without the insight you have from your decisions now, and even less insight than you had to make the bad decisions, and having only worse options to choose from. Yeah, that sounds about right.

Which vexes me greatly as I like to know things, I like to know all things. Even wrong things. It's part of my knowledge bullshit filtration process. That vexation is gladly taking a back seat. And my bullshit knowledge filtration process is content with that.

[Tom Servo]

Had an interesting conversation on Facebook with a friend's relative. Friend had posted something about wanting to know how his friends/relatives who had voted for Trump feel now about it, and relative posted something about how they didn't vote for Trump, but thought the way the media treated him was so disrespectful.

It started out that they didn't understand why other presidents were referred to as "Late President" but Obama was still called President Obama. For anybody unfamiliar,former presidents are generally referred to as "President" (though it's okay to mention "former" if trying to clarify if the person is still in office), and "late" is used when a president is deceased. I said that Obama isn't called "Late President" because he's alive, same as Clinton, George W., and Carter, but that Reagan and George H. W. are "late". Then it went into something about first names vs. last names, which I think was this relative not understanding that Obama is Barack Obama's last name. Finally, it was that they always call Obama "President Obama" but just call Trump "Trump". A quick glance at news articles shows that the "President" title is sometimes omitted in the headline for brevity, but generally used in the article itself for at least the first mention per the AP style guide.

Two things struck me. One, that this sounds like regurgitating some radio host/Carlson/Hannity talking point. It's definitely not something I've noticed - the news sources I follow are not Trump's favorites and regularly refer to him as "President Trump", and some quick googling shows that my suspicions are correct (though, much like this relative, without actually researching this and coming up with a quantitative measurement it's all subject to confirmation bias). Mainstream media tends to follow the AP style guide, there isn't much of a bias there. The other is how it took two patently false starts to get to the point where there was even potentially a problem, and this righteous indignation that's rooted entirely in ignorance. They don't call Obama a "late president" because he's still alive, there's literally no complaint there, but that was the start of the complaint. I don't mean ignorance in a pejorative sense, this person was clearly ignorant of how the word "late" is used when referring to people.

I have no idea how to deal with this kind of thing. Since it was a friend's relative I tried to stay non-combative and I have a feeling that English might not have been this person's first language so I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt, but the person just kept trying other tactics/complaints until eventually they settled on that last one and ended with an unprompted "I rest my case." Is this just the Tucker Carlson/Sean Hannity/Breitbart/Charlie Kirk/Ben Shapiro thing? Repeat some supposed slight over and over again until the listener is convinced that there's some horrible wrong there that needs to be righted, even if they don't actually understand what that wrong is or why it's wrong?

Meh, at any rate, the person "rested their case" and that was the end of that. This person was convinced that Trump is constantly being slighted/disrespected and there isn't anything I can do to change that. What that has to do with his performance as a President somehow became out of scope for that conversation, but I guess that's all part of the deflection.

[neanderthal]

Had an interesting conversation on Facebook with a friend's relative. Friend had posted something about wanting to know how his friends/relatives who had voted for Trump feel now about it, and relative posted something about how they didn't vote for Trump, but thought the way the media treated him was so disrespectful.

It started out that they didn't understand why other presidents were referred to as "Late President" but Obama was still called President Obama. For anybody unfamiliar,former presidents are generally referred to as "President" (though it's okay to mention "former" if trying to clarify if the person is still in office), and "late" is used when a president is deceased. I said that Obama isn't called "Late President" because he's alive, same as Clinton, George W., and Carter, but that Reagan and George H. W. are "late". Then it went into something about first names vs. last names, which I think was this relative not understanding that Obama is Barack Obama's last name. Finally, it was that they always call Obama "President Obama" but just call Trump "Trump". A quick glance at news articles shows that the "President" title is sometimes omitted in the headline for brevity, but generally used in the article itself for at least the first mention per the AP style guide.

Two things struck me. One, that this sounds like regurgitating some radio host/Carlson/Hannity talking point. It's definitely not something I've noticed - the news sources I follow are not Trump's favorites and regularly refer to him as "President Trump", and some quick googling shows that my suspicions are correct (though, much like this relative, without actually researching this and coming up with a quantitative measurement it's all subject to confirmation bias). Mainstream media tends to follow the AP style guide, there isn't much of a bias there. The other is how it took two patently false starts to get to the point where there was even potentially a problem, and this righteous indignation that's rooted entirely in ignorance. They don't call Obama a "late president" because he's still alive, there's literally no complaint there, but that was the start of the complaint. I don't mean ignorance in a pejorative sense, this person was clearly ignorant of how the word "late" is used when referring to people.

I have no idea how to deal with this kind of thing. Since it was a friend's relative I tried to stay non-combative and I have a feeling that English might not have been this person's first language so I wanted to give the benefit of the doubt, but the person just kept trying other tactics/complaints until eventually they settled on that last one and ended with an unprompted "I rest my case." Is this just the Tucker Carlson/Sean Hannity/Breitbart/Charlie Kirk/Ben Shapiro thing? Repeat some supposed slight over and over again until the listener is convinced that there's some horrible wrong there that needs to be righted, even if they don't actually understand what that wrong is or why it's wrong?

Meh, at any rate, the person "rested their case" and that was the end of that. This person was convinced that Trump is constantly being slighted/disrespected and there isn't anything I can do to change that. What that has to do with his performance as a President somehow became out of scope for that conversation, but I guess that's all part of the deflection.

There's a whole world where they take the micro aggressions they complain about among the libruhls and they complain about their own. Beau of the Fifth Column did a nice video about it.
He ran into someone who complained about how he couldn't wear his MAGA "i'm an idiot" hat in public without getting looks.


https://youtu.be/2kqqTHs397Y

[Crazed_Insanity]

One thing you have to consider, swervo, is that political affiliations are in our genes.... it may be very difficult to switch sides just as sexual orientations!

[Tom Servo]

I don't think that's at all true. At least growing up, conventional wisdom was that you tend to be more liberal when you're younger and become conservative as you grow older. I'd also say that you tend to be more liberal if you live in a larger city vs. more conservative if you live in a more rural area. But I don't think a single bit of it is genetic. Think of how many kids you see that do not agree with their parents politically.

[neanderthal]

One thing you have to consider, swervo, is that political affiliations are in our genes.... it may be very difficult to switch sides just as sexual orientations!

Bullshit. I'm very conservative, despite appearances. Ask me the right questions and you'll get your conservative answers. I'm just not a cunt.

[neanderthal]

I don't think that's at all true. At least growing up, conventional wisdom was that you tend to be more liberal when you're younger and become conservative as you grow older. I'd also say that you tend to be more liberal if you live in a larger city vs. more conservative if you live in a more rural area. But I don't think a single bit of it is genetic. Think of how many kids you see that do not agree with their parents politically.

And I was even more conservative when I was younger.

Exposure to other people, races, ethnicities, religions, sexual orientation, nationalities, creeds, cultures etc does tend to open ones eyes to the humanity of others, leading to more liberal attitudes.
Everybody I hear mouthing off about Muslims/ Islam i ask them if they know any actual Muslims. They never do.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Twenty fucking nineteen and you still don't know how to get information. :rolleyes:

I was going to ask you a question about Trump's foreign policy versus Obama's, since you compared Obama's to Bush' then I was going to question your thoughts on their domestic policy and actions, but I decided my sanity, patience and grace had been tested enough already this weekend by the fucking Springboks, and that my quotient for bullshit has been irreparably and iredeemably damaged by your posts here in the past.
.

Excuse me not listening to a podcast interview with somebody who I couldn’t care less... talking about a presidential candidate who I had no intentions of voting... although she does look super HOT for a politician!

Anyway, as much as I hate trump, I do like the fact that he hasn’t really started any bogus wars... yet.

Regarding Obama, never mind incidents like Benghazi because we didn’t attack anyone... I didn’t like him killing Bin Laden in the middle of the night and then dumped his body in the middle of nowhere ocean.

Syrian war was also a mess. Either go all in and commit to win it... or don’t get involved at all. Of course if you really don’t get involved then you might be accused of being a Russian asset/spy for handing Syria to Putin...

IMHO, enough of US fighting against Russia/communists on other foreign lands or in the Middle East. Such meddling didn’t really do the world any good. It’s also no good to train the enemy of your enemy to fight such wars. Hussein and BinLaden were all our own creations.

Anyway, hope I didn’t hurt your brain too much. Read at your own risk. :p

[Crazed_Insanity]

I don't think that's at all true. At least growing up, conventional wisdom was that you tend to be more liberal when you're younger and become conservative as you grow older. I'd also say that you tend to be more liberal if you live in a larger city vs. more conservative if you live in a more rural area. But I don't think a single bit of it is genetic. Think of how many kids you see that do not agree with their parents politically.

I read it from scientific American, not Christian nutcase American ! :p

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-genes-of-left-and-right/

Everything is both nature and nurture. Sometimes one component has more effect than the other. Heterosexuals parents can end up with homosexual kids for whatever reasons.

All I’m saying is that when you seem to hit a wall with a political opponent, sometimes you just have to let it go and agree to disagree. No need to get so pissed off just as Christians should not be so pissed off at homosexuals sexual orientation. Sometimes people have no choice. Our preferences are just different and we often justify them by making up our own reasons...

[FaultyMario]

Bullshit. I'm very conservative, despite appearances. Ask me the right questions and you'll get your conservative answers. I'm just not a cunt.

I think you're a centrist. I've said it in jest before, but you really come across as an "if it ain't broken" kind of guy, politics-wise, at least.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Centrist is probably analogous to bi-sexual! :D

[FaultyMario]

Uh, no.

[sandydandy]

“Lock him up” chants for Trump at a World Series game in Washington.

[Crazed_Insanity]

It'll be so funny if it really happens to him. Particularly to Hillary! :D

[neanderthal]

Uh, no.

It's 2019and that's the shit he posts. Where is the facepalm emoji when you need it.

[neanderthal]

I think you're a centrist. I've said it in jest before, but you really come across as an "if it ain't broken" kind of guy, politics-wise, at least.

You're mostly right. The problem now is that society is so skewed towards the enrichening of the already wealthy, class warfare and the further stripping of wealth, autonomy, humanity etc from the poor that a lot needs to be fixed.

Unfortunately the uninformed have as much right to vote and so we have Trump. And we had a GOP trifecta in government, which lowered taxes for te wealthy and corporations, just making all the problems of society worse. Worsening the deficit. And ballooning the national debt.

All the people Republicans who were yelling about the debt and the deficit during President Obama's terms; voted to go along with this bullshit. Fiscal conservatives my big fat hairy black arse.

[tigeraid]

You're mostly right. The problem now is that society is so skewed towards the enrichening of the already wealthy, class warfare and the further stripping of wealth, autonomy, humanity etc from the poor that a lot needs to be fixed.



Sooooo.... you're a socialist. Or have socialist views. So am I, I think. That's perfectly fine. I have a hard time labeling someone with such views as centrist, though. You can't fix class instability without major structural change.

[MR2 Fan]

saying someone is socialist, capitalist, democratic socialist, etc. is a quick, easy label that has a much more complex structure in practice.

We already have a lot of "socialist" programs that even conservatives wouldn't want to get rid of, it's just a question of how many/what should be government funded....what kind of oversight is available for those, and if anything benefits more from having REGULATED capitalistic markets.

I just thought of something....I feel like lots of conservatives hate the term "Regulation" or "Well-regulated"....just think of it.

[neanderthal]

Sooooo.... you're a socialist. Or have socialist views. So am I, I think. That's perfectly fine. I have a hard time labeling someone with such views as centrist, though. You can't fix class instability without major structural change.

Yes, ... and no. I "am" because, duh, you can't fix societies ills without major structural change like you said, but I wouldn't be, if society was more equitable. And the sad thing is that

so much of peoples lack of willingness to support more robust social programs stems from
* a fundamental misunderstanding of how people become and stay impoverished
* a failure to recognise that, but for the arbitrary nature of birth and circumstance, it could have very easily been them.

Lets start by not conflating capitalism, an economic system, with socialism, a political system. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I believe in capitalism. I don't believe those who succeed in a capitalist state do so only because of their efforts. Therefore I believe a measure of their success is due, and owed, to society.
I believe in socialism. But the socialism I believe in allows for those who are truly gifted/ brilliant/ lucky to profit of their gift/ brilliance/ luck. It doesn't quash their inventiveness, curiosity, spark. It is not a dreary draconian thing.

Full tweet.


So much of peoples lack of willingness to support more robust social programs stems from
a) a fundamental misunderstanding of how people become and stay imporerished
b) a failure to recognise that, but for the arbitrary nature of birth and circumstance, it could have very easily been them.

I think often of John Rawls' work on this question. How different might sociaty look if people at the top truly considered what their lives might have looked like if they were born into a different body, a different family, a different race, a different class, a different moment.

There's an inability of people to expand their capacity for empathy especially acoress lines of race.
It's both a failure to consider what it might be like to choose between food and medicine *and* a belief that it's some black/ brown/ poor persons's fault if they have to make that choice.

[neanderthal]

saying someone is socialist, capitalist, democratic socialist, etc. is a quick, easy label that has a much more complex structure in practice.

We already have a lot of "socialist" programs that even conservatives wouldn't want to get rid of, it's just a question of how many/what should be government funded....what kind of oversight is available for those, and if anything benefits more from having REGULATED capitalistic markets.

I just thought of something....I feel like lots of conservatives hate the term "Regulation" or "Well-regulated"....just think of it.

Bravo.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Empathy is definitely our problem. It’s always easier to blame problems to other (group of) people. Conservatives are definitely more prone to this, but liberals can be very good at it too.

Anyway, I find it interesting that I actually agree with what Neanderthal said. I should just argue with him less and don’t piss him off then everything would be cool! :D

[tigeraid]

Speaking entirely from a LACK of socio-political education, but: isn't the point of most socialist orders in the world to basically just give checks and balances to Capitalism? And some countries do better than others at different aspects of that economy?

As opposed to Communism, which seems to genuinely take EVERYTHING that is produced by hard work and (in theory, of course), give it to "the people."

[Crazed_Insanity]

Speaking entirely from a LACK of socio-political education, but: isn't the point of most socialist orders in the world to basically just give checks and balances to Capitalism? And some countries do better than others at different aspects of that economy?

As opposed to Communism, which seems to genuinely take EVERYTHING that is produced by hard work and (in theory, of course), give it to "the people."

I lack such education as well, but it’s clear social security exists in US and capitalism is happening a lot in communist China.

They are not suppose to check and balance, but probably more like complementary to each other? Purely one without the other is recipe for disaster.

I think liberals and conservatives should work together to complement each other too. Sadly our mentality is just to neutralize the other side... because the other side is pure evil!!!

[FaultyMario]

Lets start by not conflating capitalism, an economic system, with socialism, a political system. The two are not mutually exclusive.

I believe in capitalism. I don't believe those who succeed in a capitalist state do so only because of their efforts. Therefore I believe a measure of their success is due, and owed, to society.


Uh, funny. I'd argue that capitalism's promotion of ingenuity and creativity is vastly overrated.

As a person who comes from a background with a tradition of communal capital holdings (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ejido) and decision making (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usos_y_costumbres) I strongly believed that mixed-institutions can be the economic answer to the basic problem of inequality (https://www.minnpost.com/wp-content/uploads/sites/default/files/imagecache/article_detail/goods-spectrum.png). In that sense I think capitalism's purpose of accumulation (or extraction) of value from a finite pool of resources and with associated social costs is not the best way to live in peace.

[Tom Servo]

I've thrown out my favorite analogy before, but I think of capitalism as the springs and socialism/regulation as the dampers. Capitalism does a good job of keeping things running, but it's prone to wild swings where people on the edges can get really hurt. A good political system on top of it just tries to arrest those oscillations and keep the overall movement there, but less violent. I'd say that right now we're on a pretty violent swing that's caused by a lack of regulation/socialist policies. The richest of us are now insanely rich compared to others, housing prices are completely out of control while cities that are struggling with homelessness are also full of NIMBYs who want to prevent any homebuilding to "preserve the neighborhood character", and getting sick can leave all but the richest of us bankrupt. It's working out great for a few (myself included), but it's also unsustainable.

[neanderthal]

I lack such education as well, but it’s clear social security exists in US and capitalism is happening a lot in communist China.

They are not suppose to check and balance, but probably more like complementary to each other? Purely one without the other is recipe for disaster.

I think liberals and conservatives should work together to complement each other too. Sadly our mentality is just to neutralize the other side... because the other side is pure evil!!!

I don't know if you noticed, but one side literally IS putting babies in cages.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Swervo suspension analogy is a good one too.

Like I said, I’d apply such analogy to liberals(springs) and conservatives(dampers) too!

However at this day and age, people have a severely messed up views of their own ideology. Babies in cages aside...

Take the latest Katie Hill incident. Democratic Party is now very harsh on its own candidates... or maybe the politicians themselves are now harsher to themselves thanks to the likes of me too movement. Where as the Christian conservative politicians still hold their jobs while grabbing pussies or doing whatever fine sexual acts...

People have lost their minds I tell ya.

Going back to what I said originally, I really think people need to not be too offended by other people’s orientations whether sexually or politically. You can’t win such arguments when there’s a wall in front of you. Also we need to be careful of our own ideology... are we becoming too extreme with our views?

Diversity doesn’t mean people of different colors sharing the same ideology. People of different ideologies gotta be able to work together too.

Of course for conservatives..., especially the trump supporting conservatives... I can only pray for them.

[Tom Servo]

Like I said, I’d apply such analogy to liberals(springs) and conservatives(dampers) too!


Totally fair, especially when considered from a social standpoint vs. an economic one.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I'm assuming you're making a sarcastic comment? I can't tell without any smilies nor facial expressions nor tonality... :p

Anyway, socialism can definitely mess with the economy and capitalism can also end up buying/influencing politicians... so they are intertwined. Nothing in our world is 'pure'.

Now regarding the 2 opposing political sprectrums... Liberals are naturally more liberating and bouncy, hence the spring. Conservatives are more traditional, not as fun, more of a downer, hence the damper. If society/car can only have one or the other, it just won't be able to run very smoothly. Take our current government for example. Whoever is in charge... nothing is smooth. Dampers keep on blaming the spring for their lack of damping and springs keep on blaming the dampers that they're not springy enough. However, the two really need to learn to work together... just as we can't always just turn left or right and expect to go anywhere.

I guess our current problem is that we see and bring out the worst in each other in our current political climate. Ideally, we should combine the good of the various people/ideology rather than focusing on the negative. Similarly, no human can be purely good or purely bad. I'm not perfect, my wife's not perfect... if spouses focus mostly on the negative stuffs, naturally divorces will happen. Surely conservatism isn't just about caging babies and liberalism isn't just about having sex or raping or groping co-workers and then lose your job over it.

Rather than trying to convert them to your orientation, perhaps it's better to help them to become a better person, without disorienting them. I found the genetic component of our political orientation enlightening.

Anyway, just my own take on why it's so hard to discuss politics or change people's mind over politics after decades of debating here online... :D

[Tom Servo]

No, not sarcastic at all. I meant that liberals tend to be more permissive with social issues whereas conservatives tend to not be, and would therefore tend to arrest the more aggressive social changes that liberals would generally want.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Oh okay. Cool. Just not used to you calling me out as totally fair... :D

[neanderthal]

Swervo suspension analogy is a good one too.

Like I said, I’d apply such analogy to liberals(springs) and conservatives(dampers) too!

However at this day and age, people have a severely messed up views of their own ideology. Babies in cages aside...

Take the latest Katie Hill incident. Democratic Party is now very harsh on its own candidates... or maybe the politicians themselves are now harsher to themselves thanks to the likes of me too movement. Where as the Christian conservative politicians still hold their jobs while grabbing pussies or doing whatever fine sexual acts...

People have lost their minds I tell ya.

Going back to what I said originally, I really think people need to not be too offended by other people’s orientations whether sexually or politically. You can’t win such arguments when there’s a wall in front of you. Also we need to be careful of our own ideology... are we becoming too extreme with our views?

Diversity doesn’t mean people of different colors sharing the same ideology. People of different ideologies gotta be able to work together too.

Of course for conservatives..., especially the trump supporting conservatives... I can only pray for them.

I take the Katie Hill thing as "one side actually has morals" while the other likes to talk morals, but typically casts aside their morality/ looks away when it's one of their own. Which translates as one side are hypocrites and theother isn't; upon reflection, that's a completely fair judgement.

Scandals on the Democratic side tend to be dealt with in an adult manner, responsibility and accountability are called for. Scandals on the Republican side; ... not so much. I could list a litany of Republican governors, congressmen and senators who have questionable/ reprehensible behaviour in their past and there was no sanction imposed upon them.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Anyway, I just think in this day and age, the liberals are being overly conservative with their morals and the conservatives are being overly liberal with their morals. You’d think such transformations would help bring the 2 sides closer together, but the reverse is true. Liberals are no longer liberals and conservatives are no longer conservatives, yet they still hate each other so... and they likely don’t even know why they hate each other so much...

[MR2 Fan]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OsBOWSjOLsE

[Crazed_Insanity]

That is hilarious! :lol:
The jokes just write themselves for these comedians... bet you Trump will be sorely missed by them when he’s out! ;)

[FaultyMario]

Uh, no.

[MR2 Fan]

We only try to laugh to keep from crying these days.

[Tom Servo]

Rudy Giuliani tweeted this out last night, but has since deleted it.



The frenzied Dems propose to initiate impeachment based on @realDonaldTrump acting under Art 2, sec iii of our Constitution asking for an investigation of serious crime committed in 2016 that did great damage to US and Ukraine. Dems covering up because it's bigger than you think.


So not only did he basically admit that Trump did exactly what he's being accused of doing, but he justified it by *checks pocket constitution* referencing the part of the constitution that requires the president to give a State of the Union address (https://www.usconstitution.net/xconst_A2Sec3.html).

Don't see how you could possibly argue with that.

[FaultyMario]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EIN46VvXsAIJzY8.jpg

Dems Peterson of Minnesota and Van Drew of NJ voted against

[neanderthal]

Anyway, I just think in this day and age, the liberals are being overly conservative with their morals and the conservatives are being overly liberal with their morals. You’d think such transformations would help bring the 2 sides closer together, but the reverse is true. Liberals are no longer liberals and conservatives are no longer conservatives, yet they still hate each other so... and they likely don’t even know why they hate each other so much...

This post tells mre you don't know liberals. Or conservatives.

[Crazed_Insanity]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EIN46VvXsAIJzY8.jpg

Dems Peterson of Minnesota and Van Drew of NJ voted against

Not 1 republican crossed over yet 2 democrats voted no?!?!?

[Crazed_Insanity]

This post tells mre you don't know liberals. Or conservatives.

No need to dwell too much on me or my post. I don't know a lot of things. Feel free to let me know and fill me in or correct me or anything. Or feel free to be judgemental and feel good about yourself.

My guess is that the world is messed up now not because of Billi's lacking knowledge. I do believe nowadays, conservatives don't really know what conservatism is suppose to be... and likewise, liberals have lost sight of what it really means to be a liberal. If by eradicating Billi can solve our world's problem, I'd gladly kill myself and make this world a better place... at least for my daughter! ;)


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qaHLd8de6nM

[Tom Servo]

Some things never change, indeed.

https://twitter.com/RachelLarris/status/1189951527714250752

[neanderthal]

"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those, who in a period of moral crisis, maintain their neutrality." Dante

[SportWagon]

Somehow the efforts to impeach George W. Bush didn't implant themselves on my memory so well...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_impeach_George_W._Bush

Hmm...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Efforts_to_impeach_Barack_Obama
Allowing people to use washrooms based on their gender identity might be an impeachable offense????

[Tom Servo]

I get the impression that you can basically request an impeachment inquiry over anything, kinda like how you can sue for any reason. Actually getting that impeachment/winning the lawsuit is another thing entirely.

[mk]

An impeachable offense is whatever a majority of the House of Representatives considers it to be at a given moment in history.

(dang)
[2*chr]

[Tom Servo]

That's pretty accurate. Some of the loudest voices saying that no crime has been committed so you can't impeach have previously stated that no crime need to be committed to impeach.

[Crazed_Insanity]

IMHO, constitution needs to be modified a bit so that only members of the president's same party can initiate impeachment... just so that we don't waste a lot of time on impeachments as political maneuvers.

If not even ONE Republican representative is willing to openly impeach Trump, it is basically a giant waste of everyone's time... even if crime was committed.

The focus really should be offering Trump supporters a better alternative rather than denying them who they voted into office back in 2016.

I fear that if this impeachment thing drags further into election season, Trump is going to win reelection... because as we all focus on this orangutan and giving him all the attention, nobody's gonna pay attention what those democratic candidates have to offer. It's also going to energize Trump's base. Fundraising-wise, Trump is already way ahead of all democratic candidates. We really should just let the conservatives realize for themselves how much of a joke Trump really is...

I'm officially worried.

[neanderthal]

IMHO, constitution needs to be modified a bit so that only members of the president's same party can initiate impeachment... just so that we don't waste a lot of time on impeachments as political maneuvers.

If not even ONE Republican representative is willing to openly impeach Trump, it is basically a giant waste of everyone's time... even if crime was committed.

The focus really should be offering Trump supporters a better alternative rather than denying them who they voted into office back in 2016.

I fear that if this impeachment thing drags further into election season, Trump is going to win reelection... because as we all focus on this orangutan and giving him all the attention, nobody's gonna pay attention what those democratic candidates have to offer. It's also going to energize Trump's base. Fundraising-wise, Trump is already way ahead of all democratic candidates. We really should just let the conservatives realize for themselves how much of a joke Trump really is...

I'm officially worried.

You can't be officially worried if you're excusing all his actions by saying only those in his party can impeach him. You're siding with a criminal enterprise while saying "they're not guilty"

Your verbal typewriter diarrhea Tourette's is getting worse. You're making less sense than ever, as though that were possible.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Dude, we can impeach a president who did no crime... and a sitting president is also actually immuned to be charged with a crime. While he is at the WH, he just has special treatment.

If the primary objective is to get rid of him, all I'm saying that it's now kinda obvious that impeachment most likely won't be able to get the job done. Not only that, it might inadvertently help him get reelected. His supporters might be getting sick of him, but as soon as the dems start attacking him, they fall back in line again!

You can continue to mischaracterize my morals if you wish, you are a self proclaimed pragmatist... if you are a DA and you know somebody is guilty, yet you lack the evidence to convict him, what would you do? Charge him anyway and go thru with the trial and then judge tells you that he's 'not guilty' because you have no case and then you're going to bitch and whine at the judge and tell him that Dante has reserved the hottest place in hell for him?

Be real dude.

I suppose in this impeachment case... perhaps a better analogy would be that we have biased jurors who are obviously set in their minds to not convict him regardless of the evidences presented.

In a world of politics, there's no room for morals. Dems can continue to ride on a moral high horse and then see themselves resign away from congress and then hand the republicans true power! Is that what you want?

[Tom Servo]

IMHO, constitution needs to be modified a bit so that only members of the president's same party can initiate impeachment... just so that we don't waste a lot of time on impeachments as political maneuvers.

This feels like it'd make it that much more likely a party would work together to consolidate power and would allow corruption to run almost unimpeded. For example, we already have a huge problem with gerrymandering - lets say a sitting president from whatever party just makes an executive action to gerrymander districts all over America to almost guarantee that his or her party keeps a majority in both houses. Having only that party be able to stop that seems like a bad situation.

Per SportWagon's post, I also don't remember most of those impeachment attempts. Offhand, I think we've had actual impeachment votes for Nixon and Clinton in the past five decades, I don't feel like there's a big problem here.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Yeah, you're probably right. It's not such a huge deal that we need to amend the constitution.

Perhaps house majority leader like Nancy Pelosi can do a litmus test herself... to see if she can even convince just 1 or 2 of the opposing party's vote before proceeding with impeachment... if you can't even get 1 or 2 votes from the opposing party, maybe you're just wasting your time!

Anyway, I just hope Trump won't be re-energized too much because of this...

[MR2 Fan]

Beto has dropped out

[neanderthal]

Beto has dropped out

The other men need to drop out now.

Except Julian and Cory.

Edit. Beto has a bright political future ahead of him. Not in Texas though, because of his strong "anti assault weapon" stand (let's not parse assault weapon, you know what I mean.)

[FaultyMario]

At least we know he's a rational person.

[drew]

Hopefully last night's win in Kentucky is a sign to come for McConnell. He needs to GO.

My money on the impeachment thing, is that Russia is deep into all of it, in that they have Epstein dirt on a lot of people, namely, the one's publicly blowing Trump that there's "nothing to see here".

One can only hope this takes down a lot of people.

Add to that, the GOP is turning a blind eye (at least as best they can, given the corroborating testimonies) to all of it, because (I suspect) Pence isn't clear either, and removing Trump and Pence makes Pelosi president.

Nothing like country before party. Oh, wait....

The other thing is his court-ordered handing over of his tax returns. If they send it to the SCOTUS, and they (first vote to hear it, and) vote to overrule it, that's it. The impeachment inquiry is null and void, as we no longer have the same rules/structure we did prior to all this.

My other hope is that they don't get the 4 Justice vote to even hear it. That would be an enjoyable slap to the face.

[FaultyMario]

I'm putting a candle to your prayer, brother Drew.

[Crazed_Insanity]

My money is on that impeachment=Mueller report.

"Complete total vindication!!!" :hard: :rolleyes:

Media and DNC need to spot light more on their excellent choices of candidates on why they'll be able to do better! Election results showed that the actual people are naturally getting tired of Trump/republicans. I'm not sure if those congressional republicans are really truly representing the people anymore... it appears that there's a disconnect between republican congressmen and republican voters.

If Russia thru Epstein is really grabbing some powerful people by the balls..., I'm pretty sure there would be some democratic balls too. Such story would never ever come out easily unless the Russian mafia failed to murder a whistle blower... or some thing really dramatic has to happen...

Anyway, republicans have proven that thoughts and prayers in politics don't really work.

Media and our politicians really need to learn to high light and report strengths rather than continue to chase to focus on all the negative shit. Don't get me wrong, if you have evidences of some negative stuff like we could've nailed Epstein 3 years earlier, if our media didn't chose to cover it up, media really should've report that. But the continual around the clock reporting on an impeachment when it's clear that no republican senator will ever choose to impeach is a giant waste of time. Such negative energy can only risk energize the Trump base more and more.

[FaultyMario]

Ranked-choice voting passed in NYC, so that's great news.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Although my man Andrew Yang is for ranked choice voting, I'm not sure if I'm totally onboard. I do think it will help minimizing lesser of the 2 evil situations, but other than that, I don't think most voters have the time and energy to examine and properly rank everyone on the ballot!

Too many choices can easily paralyze voters. Speaking just for myself... I'm willing to dig in and research a bit on the huge field of DNC presidential candidates, but I'm not sure if I'll be willing to put in the same level of work for a lesser office. Might just end up causing lots of confusion to voters. Most voters are probably dumb and lazy like me. :p

I guess no system is perfect and this system will most likely prevent the emergence of polarizing candidates. Should the situation arise for a manual recount, that must be very nightmarish under such system... ;)

Personally I'd prefer an opened party ranking primary..., all parties and all candidates get in on the same primary election, and then the top 2 can appear on the final ballot for the real election. So we might end up with 2 republicans or 2 democrats or 2 independents to choose from. Incumbents need to win these primaries too. If Trump doesn't even reemerge as the top 2, then he can just prepare himself to move out of the WH after the primary election and save some campaigning money.

[MR2 Fan]

so KY and VA went mostly blue...both southern states....great sign for 2020.

[neanderthal]

so KY and VA went mostly blue...both southern states....great sign for 2020.

Indeed.

God, we're watching you work and are appreciative. We will continue to do what we can down here, but hear us oh mighty God, the work is not done. We need to comprehensively remove Republicans and their ilk from all governments all across the land. In the name of sweet baby Jesus.
Amen.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Amen!

That’s a good prayer brother! Though I have little faith, can’t help but agreeing with you! :p

[FaultyMario]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EIx5JniVAAIyJmm.png


Did they not explain to him that the trial will take place in the Senate, not the House?

[Tom Servo]

They have. They've also explained that to people like Rand Paul, Lindsey Graham, Hugh Hewitt, et al. I don't think Trump actually understands it, but I assume the rest of those guys do and are counting on his base also not understanding it. For the few people I know in his base, this tactic is working quite well.

Another fun part is the demands that he be able to "face his accuser" in regards to the whistleblower. The whistleblower is not the accuser. That's like saying you saw someone breaking into a neighbor's house so you called the cops. You aren't the plaintiff if that goes to court, you're a witness.

[The359]

I'm also fairly certain some of these men were members of Congress when Clinton was impeached.

[Tom Servo]

Not only were they around, but Lindsey Graham said in '99,


You don't even have to be convicted of a crime to lose your job in this constitutional republican if this body determines that your conduct as a public official is clearly out of bounds in your role. Impeachment is not about punishment. Impeachment is about cleansing the office. Impeachment is about restoring honor and integrity to the office.

[Crazed_Insanity]

So it’s not that they don’t understand the process, they’re just doing it to make us dumb American citizens think that it is an unfair witch-hunt.

This witch has been spotted since the pussy grabbing incident... she has been a very slippery witch. I do hope they will finally be able to hunt it down. Let’s see if the prayer will work...

[Tom Servo]

Thought this was an interesting article about the guy who came up with the term "Deep State", and how it's taken on a life of its own entirely divorced from the original meaning: https://www.npr.org/2019/11/06/776852841/the-man-who-popularized-the-deep-state-doesnt-like-the-way-its-used

Words and phrases do that all the time, but it's interesting to watch how different groups latched onto it and molded it into what they thought would be the most useful for their own ends.

[MR2 Fan]

Thought this was an interesting article about the guy who came up with the term "Deep State", and how it's taken on a life of its own entirely divorced from the original meaning: https://www.npr.org/2019/11/06/776852841/the-man-who-popularized-the-deep-state-doesnt-like-the-way-its-used

Words and phrases do that all the time, but it's interesting to watch how different groups latched onto it and molded it into what they thought would be the most useful for their own ends.

Don't forget the most evil term of all right now....SOCIALISM...MWAHAHAHAHAAA

[Crazed_Insanity]

Fully agree with the original meaning of deep state. His book title spoke the truth. "Party is over. Republicans are going crazy, Democrats are useless and the middle class are being shafted!"

That book was written back in 2012 and surely had been happening for a while in order for the author to even be inspired to write that book...

So, how do we fix this?

Even by removing all republicans in public office. Even if we remove all crazies... what can we do about the useless politicians left over?

Our political problem is DEEP for sure.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I think this guy, Matt Stoller, gave a pretty good explanation of how democrats became ‘useless’ after the end of crazy Nixon...


https://youtu.be/upboRyufiPM

Much more detailed explanations here in this article:
https://amp.theatlantic.com/amp/article/504710/

[neanderthal]

Where are his criticisms of the Republicans?

[Crazed_Insanity]

Republicans are crazier and worse off for sure. Article does contain criticisms for both. Anyway, critical of Obama is not proof of trump being better, but does sort of explains trump... on a personal level, I can be critical of Obama but that doesn’t mean if I have a time machine, I’d recast my vote for McCain or Romney, okay? I’m merely being retrospective... Obama didn’t do his job perfectly, can we agree on that?

Point is that both parties got us where we are today, neither will get us out of our troubles because one is crazy and the other one is useless and we’ll continue to be screwed if we don’t relearn the lessons learned from the 20s and 30s.

[FaultyMario]

Don't forget the most evil term of all right now....SOCIALISM...MWAHAHAHAHAAA


Supreme Court verdict was not directed at Lula, but at the undemocratic nature of the judicial system in Brazil (https://www.brasildefato.com.br/2019/11/09/article-or-lula-is-free/)


The solidarity campaign drew in jurists and intellectuals, politicians, and celebrities, a range of people who felt that the imprisonment of Lula was unjust. What had become very clear was that the legal mechanisms had become a political instrument of the elite to attack the left politicians and left movements. The collaboration between the government prosecutor and judge Sergio Moro indicates that there was this weaponization of the Law – what is known as Lawfare – to prevent the Workers’ Party from winning elections, and to make sure that the Brazilian elites hold power. What ‘Free Lula’ meant was not only the freedom of Lula, but also an end to Lawfare as an instrument against the people.

It must be chilling for the far-right president Jair Bolsonaro to watch the television and see Lula walk confidently out of his prison and into the political domain. Elections have brought the left back to power in Argentina, with the left retaining power in Bolivia. Even in Colombia, the left has made significant gains. Mass protests in Chile and Ecuador suggest the tide has turned in those two countries. Bolsonaro must know that the turn to the left in Brazil is imminent. The left now has its champion out on the streets.

[FaultyMario]

Luis Eduardo Camacho, a far-right tax evader, has successfully led a Coup against the democratically elected president of Bolivia, Evo Morales.

After a hotly contested election was called for Morales in the first round of voting (Morales allegedly won by more than 10 points over his closest rival), there were riots in some cities. Notably in the Santa Cruz province where the right is more popular, not so much in other cities and in the rural areas where Evo has most support. Last night, President Morales announced he was asking Congress to start proceedings for a new general election. Today (the equivalent to) the Secretary of Defense of Bolivia, Gen. William Kalimán, "suggested" he should resign. And so he did, citing the higher calling of non-violence.

Morales has denounced that his sister's house had been burned and his own house broken into and ransacked.

Independent journalist have reported that the families of the members of his cabinet where held hostage by paramilitaries to force the cabinet to resign. They have also reported on attacks on civilians in Santa Cruz by paramilitary organizations. People of color in Santa Cruz have been destroying their phones, so that in case they are detained by these guards they can't be accused of being supporters of Evo Morales.

Evo Morales whereabouts are unknown, he was thought to have taken a plane to request asylum (presumably) in Argentina, but the Air Forces of Brazil, Chile, Peru and Argentina denied it entry into their airspace. He is thought to be negotiating asylum in the Mexican embassy in La Paz. The Mexican Foreign Minister has called for the inviolability of the Mexican Embassy to be respected by the Coup forces (he didn't call them that).

General Kalimán is a close associate of the United States Southern Command, having held a relatively minor rank in the Chaparé Region military, in the 2010s he quickly rose to the post of Military attaché of the Bolivian embassy in D.C. and was later made leader of the Joint Task Force of coca eradication.

And that kids, is another chapter of U.S. intervention in American democracies. U.S.-Led regime change for the control of natural resources.

[Crazed_Insanity]

American people don’t really know and don’t really care what the establishment is doing abroad. We’re busy getting shafted ourselves by this bipartisan establishment. Most of us think by defeating our political opposition, we’d be able to save this nation...

[neanderthal]

Republicans are crazier and worse off for sure. Article does contain criticisms for both. Anyway, critical of Obama is not proof of trump being better, but does sort of explains trump... on a personal level, I can be critical of Obama but that doesn’t mean if I have a time machine, I’d recast my vote for McCain or Romney, okay? I’m merely being retrospective... Obama didn’t do his job perfectly, can we agree on that?

Point is that both parties got us where we are today, neither will get us out of our troubles because one is crazy and the other one is useless and we’ll continue to be screwed if we don’t relearn the lessons learned from the 20s and 30s.

Both sides are not responsible for ripping babies out of their mothers arms and jailing them. One side is though.
Both sides are not responsible for a Muslim ban. One side is though.
Both sides are not responsible for the increase in racial tensions. One side is though.
Both sides are not ...

Why am I bothering? You continue to examine the deficiencies of the right and the left then weight them exactly the same, no matter how egregious. Something something parable something log in your eye something speck in someone elses eye something. Except you have a log in each eye.

[neanderthal]

Luis Eduardo Camacho, a far-right tax evader, has successfully led a Coup against the democratically elected president of Bolivia, Evo Morales.

After a hotly contested election was called for Morales in the first round of voting (Morales allegedly won by more than 10 points over his closest rival), there were riots in some cities. Notably in the Santa Cruz province where the right is more popular, not so much in other cities and in the rural areas where Evo has most support. Last night, President Morales announced he was asking Congress to start proceedings for a new general election. Today (the equivalent to) the Secretary of Defense of Bolivia, Gen. William Kalimán, "suggested" he should resign. And so he did, citing the higher calling of non-violence.

Morales has denounced that his sister's house had been burned and his own house broken into and ransacked.

Independent journalist have reported that the families of the members of his cabinet where held hostage by paramilitaries to force the cabinet to resign. They have also reported on attacks on civilians in Santa Cruz by paramilitary organizations. People of color in Santa Cruz have been destroying their phones, so that in case they are detained by these guards they can't be accused of being supporters of Evo Morales.

Evo Morales whereabouts are unknown, he was thought to have taken a plane to request asylum (presumably) in Argentina, but the Air Forces of Brazil, Chile, Peru and Argentina denied it entry into their airspace. He is thought to be negotiating asylum in the Mexican embassy in La Paz. The Mexican Foreign Minister has called for the inviolability of the Mexican Embassy to be respected by the Coup forces (he didn't call them that).

General Kalimán is a close associate of the United States Southern Command, having held a relatively minor rank in the Chaparé Region military, in the 2010s he quickly rose to the post of Military attaché of the Bolivian embassy in D.C. and was later made leader of the Joint Task Force of coca eradication.

And that kids, is another chapter of U.S. intervention in American democracies. U.S.-Led regime change for the control of natural resources.

Quoted for verity.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Both sides are not responsible for ripping babies out of their mothers arms and jailing them. One side is though.
Both sides are not responsible for a Muslim ban. One side is though.
Both sides are not responsible for the increase in racial tensions. One side is though.
Both sides are not ...

Why am I bothering? You continue to examine the deficiencies of the right and the left then weight them exactly the same, no matter how egregious. Something something parable something log in your eye something speck in someone elses eye something. Except you have a log in each eye.
Right and left are apples and oranges. They are just not the same. By saying apples are rotten doesn’t mean oranges must be sweet or vice versa. They’re both rotten! So what if one rots more? We still shouldn’t consume the less rotten fruit!

When you quoted Mario’s truth, do you think Obama would intervene less? Yeah, no babies caged, but we’ll just install a more humane and politically correct dictator who’d serve our interests?

The ‘establishment’s concentration of wealth and power is deep in our political system.

Anyway, what’s your guys’ take on these American meddling/interventions around the world? All GOP’s fault? If we remove that evil party everything would be fine?

[JoshInKC]

RE: Bolivia - I've been watching the situation pretty closely, for two reasons: I have a colleague in La Paz right now who has been under off and on communication blackout. I imagine he'll be fine, but right-wing coups tend to put people on edge.
Secondly - It was already planned that this week I'm starting my Varieties of Human Experience students learning about capitalism, hegemony, neoliberalization, globalization, etc. So I've got some real current, breaking-news-type material now. Fun times.

[Crazed_Insanity]

You're writing an article or paper about it? Anyway, looking forward to reading it!

[JoshInKC]

Oh no, I leave that stuff to my colleagues who are actual cultural anthropologists or in the other related fields (History, Geography, Latin American Studies). I have enough background in it from my degrees to teach the basics to undergrads and know who/what to refer to if someone needs more depth, but I certainly don't have the grounding to publish on US interventionism in the global south.
Give it 200 years and transplant it to North America (preferably in the plains or plains-adjacent), and then I'd be fully qualified to write about it.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Okay, sorry I misunderstood...

However, can you give us some of your personal opinions? Unless you can refer us another more qualified GTXer here? ;)

Such as should US intervene the way we currently do it? How could we do it better? Or if we need to stop it, how should we stop it?

My opinion is that such interventions are not really partisan, at least after living thru W and Obama admins, to me, it’s almost as if there were no regime/admin change when it comes to US foreign interventions. Am I way off here?

[JoshInKC]

Well, regardless of the administration, US policy is and has been aimed at interventionist neoliberalism in order to expand resource availability, access new markets, and stop the existential threat of communism. This has been our imperial method for more than century and arguably since long before that - Westward Expansion/Manifest Destiny. To get it to change, it'll take a lot more than a switch from R to D or any normal third party in the white house - It'll either be full-on revolution, a very long-term incremental shift, or some sort of seriously world-changing event.
Should we do it? Mostly no, and certainly not the way we normally do. Most US foreign policy in this area is functionally directed by business interests, and to secure their resources/markets as mentioned above, they prefer "stability" - and what's more stable than a nice right wing dictatorship? You only have to payoff a few people that way. This is - at the least ugly, and pretty much inevitably leads to oppression in one way or another. Further, the imposition of capitalism on people who haven't asked for it is to say the least - not good. Its not the only way the world does/has/can work, and is especially not beneficial to those in the regions which world-systems theory would call 'the periphery.'

[Tom Servo]

Washington Post writer puts it better than I could:



"Name a time when conservatives have disrupted even the furthest leftist on a college campus," Trump Jr. said to the crowd. "It doesn't happen that way. We're willing to listen."

Then a group of far-right conservatives heckled him offstage.


chef's kiss

[Crazed_Insanity]

Well, regardless of the administration, US policy is and has been aimed at interventionist neoliberalism in order to expand resource availability, access new markets, and stop the existential threat of communism. This has been our imperial method for more than century and arguably since long before that - Westward Expansion/Manifest Destiny. To get it to change, it'll take a lot more than a switch from R to D or any normal third party in the White House - It'll either be full-on revolution, a very long-term incremental shift, or some sort of seriously world-changing event.
Should we do it? Mostly no, and certainly not the way we normally do. Most US foreign policy in this area is functionally directed by business interests, and to secure their resources/markets as mentioned above, they prefer "stability" - and what's more stable than a nice right wing dictatorship? You only have to payoff a few people that way. This is - at the least ugly, and pretty much inevitably leads to oppression in one way or another. Further, the imposition of capitalism on people who haven't asked for it is to say the least - not good. Its not the only way the world does/has/can work, and is especially not beneficial to those in the regions which world-systems theory would call 'the periphery.'
Thanks for your post. I don’t think I can find anything disagreeable in it.

Just want to highlight for Neanderthal that this isn’t something easily changed by changing party...

Trump being the worst president ever is a given. I also don’t believe McCain or Romney could’ve done a better job than Obama, but to me, Obama clearly made mistakes during the financial crisis and with his foreign policies. It’s almost as if somebody in the background were twisting his arms to do it.

I’d credit that to the establishment or deep state or concentration of wealth and power or the dark side of the force or whatever one wish to call it. IT has full grip of both of our parties and probably our entire government.

[FaultyMario]

White House enacts policy foisted by White Nationalists. (https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2019/11/12/stephen-millers-affinity-white-nationalism-revealed-leaked-emails)

[MR2 Fan]

insert pikachu shocked face

[FaultyMario]

Seriously, not a coup in Bolivia.

http://www.resumenlatinoamericano.org/wp-content/uploads/2019/11/3443232-680x357-620x357.jpg

It'd be a coup if the office of President had been given to a person who wasn't in the constitutional line of succession, in a congressional session with no quorum.

[FaultyMario]

Wait, is Donnie hoping for his daughter to sub in for him? As in: (not that) Trump 2020.

[neanderthal]

I got the feeling, from the jump, he never wanted to be Prez.

In other news, Yang tweeting "I like Cenk and would enjoy passing laws with him in DC" reveals that he is nothing but a chaos agent.

[neanderthal]

Did any body catch Megan Rapinoes speech at the award ceremony. in the purple-ly dress?

What an amazing woman. What an amazing human. We don't deserve her!

[Crazed_Insanity]

I got the feeling, from the jump, he never wanted to be Prez.

In other news, Yang tweeting "I like Cenk and would enjoy passing laws with him in DC" reveals that he is nothing but a chaos agent.

If the establishment is order, then of course they're chaos! I'd gladly vote for more chaos too in order to balance out too much order! :p

But just out of curiosity, what is your definition of chaos? Why do you hate Cenk?

[MR2 Fan]

Roger Stone guilty on 7 counts of lying to congress.

Gee, it seems like all of Trump's closest associates are criminals or something

[Tom Servo]

About Yovanovitch,



"Everywhere she went turned bad," says the man behind Trump Steaks, Trump Airlines, Trump Vodka, Trump University, the Trump Taj Mahal Casino, the New Jersey Generals of the USFL, and Donald Trump Jr.

[Leon]

Yovanovitch gets standing ovation on departing impeachment room.

[FaultyMario]

Did you catch Chilean singer-songwriter Mon Laferte's protest at the Latin Grammys? NSFW

[neanderthal]

If the establishment is order, then of course they're chaos! I'd gladly vote for more chaos too in order to balance out too much order! :p

But just out of curiosity, what is your definition of chaos?

It's 2019. Google.


Why do you hate Cenk?

It's 2019. Google.

[FaultyMario]

The mother of César Cipe finds him laying on the floor of a house after the repression in Sacaba, Cochabamba. (https://twitter.com/DenisRogatyuk/status/1195523072561946628?s=20)

[Crazed_Insanity]

It's 2019. Google.

[spoiler]

It's 2019. Google.

Wow, google knows you personally and can share with me your opinion?

Anyway, if enough ‘chaos‘ voters like him, he’ll get elected, if not, then not. Gotta respect the democratic process... even if the meddled up process gave us Trump.

Status quo is obviously not working. Trump also obviously hasn’t drained the swamp. If chaos means disrupting business as usual for the establishment, I’m all for it.

Recent poll showed 3 dem candidates capable of stealing away votes from trump voters are Tulsi, Bernie and Yang. Probably all chaos Russian agents to you, right? ;)

[FaultyMario]

Cuban doctors (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cuban_medical_internationalism) have been expelled from Bolivia by the interim government. A vehicle registered to the American Embassy has been accused of participating in the harassment (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-bolivia-cuba/cuba-cries-foul-as-doctors-head-home-from-bolivia-idUSKBN1XQ0JJ) of medical brigades.

[neanderthal]

Wow, google knows you personally and can share with me your opinion?

Anyway, if enough ‘chaos‘ voters like him, he’ll get elected, if not, then not. Gotta respect the democratic process... even if the meddled up process gave us Trump.

Status quo is obviously not working. Trump also obviously hasn’t drained the swamp. If chaos means disrupting business as usual for the establishment, I’m all for it.

Recent poll showed 3 dem candidates capable of stealing away votes from trump voters are Tulsi, Bernie and Yang. Probably all chaos Russian agents to you, right? ;)

No, I use google to inform my opinions.

Yes, they are. Have you heard Bernie say anything about Trumps suspicious connections to Russia?

[FaultyMario]

No but I've heard him say that Obama's migration policy was a mistake and that what is happening in Bolivia is a coup.

He's right on both counts.

[Crazed_Insanity]

No, I use google to inform my opinions.

Yes, they are. Have you heard Bernie say anything about Trumps suspicious connections to Russia?

Google could also send you news to help confirm your bias.

Also, have you heard Bernie say anything about Trump’s connections to China? To Turkey? To Saudi Arabia? To any other alien civilizations?

What Bernie doesn’t say proves something to be true? Com’on.

[FaultyMario]

Guys, the US state department is sponsoring ethnic attacks in Bolivia. It is also doing-by-not-doing in the massive human rights violations and brutal police attacks in Chile.

Your government, it should be accountable, make it accountable, guys.

There's an inquiry by the Inter-American Hunan Rights Court on the preemptive pardon offered by Bolivia's self-appointed interim president to the army officers who engage in the suppression of protests. Know about what's happening, inform others. You talk about the erosion of democracy? This is the accelerated version, and it's happening thanks to your government.

[Yw-slayer]

The US Govt interfering in another country's affairs? Perish the thought!!

[Crazed_Insanity]

Like I said, American people either don’t know or don’t care. We have more relevant issues such as putting bread on our own tables that we couldn’t solve by voting. US government is no longer accountable to the American people. They’re more accountable to the corporations who make lots of profits.

Another reason we don’t know and don’t care about foreign policies is because we’re too busy fighting amongst ourselves like the folks in Hong Kong.

[JoshInKC]

Guys, the US state department is sponsoring ethnic attacks in Bolivia. It is also doing-by-not-doing in the massive human rights violations and brutal police attacks in Chile.

Your government, it should be accountable, make it accountable, guys.

There's an inquiry by the Inter-American Hunan Rights Court on the preemptive pardon offered by Bolivia's self-appointed interim president to the army officers who engage in the suppression of protests. Know about what's happening, inform others. You talk about the erosion of democracy? This is the accelerated version, and it's happening thanks to your government.

Yep - This is part of why I teach, rather than pure research.

[FaultyMario]

The US Govt interfering in another country's affairs? Perish the thought!!

This goes beyond the usual meddling. These are grave violations of constitutional order.

[Yw-slayer]

The US Govt engaging in such grave violations? Perish the thought!!

[MR2 Fan]

https://img-9gag-fun.9cache.com/photo/ae5gE5O_460swp.webp

:snap:

[Tom Servo]

Traffic violence kills thousands and injures even more Americans every year. On World Day of Remembrance for Traffic Crash Victims, I'm sending my love to the families and friends of those who have lost loved ones. It's time to #EndTrafficViolence.


Well, that pretty much clinches my vote, especially after Trump removed *all* funding for pedestrian and cycling projects from this year's transportation budget.

[Crazed_Insanity]

You like bikes, huh?

If you ever change your mind, please bear in mind Andrew Yang is a candidate who’d actually bike to interviews! ;)

https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2019/10/21/live-from-ny-its-andrew-yang-on-a-bike/

[Tom Servo]

I'm okay with Yang. Or, I was until his campaign started sending me unsolicited text messages. Suffice it to say, I'd pick Yang over de Blasio any day.

[Crazed_Insanity]

:lol:

That’s better than nothing I guess... :p

[neanderthal]

The US Govt interfering in another country's affairs? Perish the thought!!


The US Govt engaging in such grave violations? Perish the thought!!

This is why i'm bah humbug/ not so enthusiastic about "support the military" stuff. Do we even know what they are doing? Do THEY know what they are doing. And it may not be military, it may be "contractors" but we know who contracts the contractors; the military, so they can maintain plausible deniability of a sort. Or the government through any one of the letter agencies.


This goes beyond the usual meddling. These are grave violations of constitutional order.

Color me not surprised.


Yep - This is part of why I teach, rather than pure research.

Thank you. Teachers at all levels are heros, more so than our soldiers warring against people who live in the third world who happen equipped with rudimentary armaments from the middle of the last century.

[Crazed_Insanity]

The question now is how can Americans hold their government accountable.

When USA does bad things outside of US soil, whether it’s torture people or installing/removing dictators...

What can be done?

I don’t know.

However I do know partisan politics ain’t helping too.

We can talk about W should be a war criminal, but Obama can do likewise, in terms of foreign policies, and still be the best president ever!

Our morality can often be blinded by our political affiliations.

Ideally we probably need an amendment to add something like Star trek’s prime directive. Unless we declare war, we ought to just keep our guns and ideologies to ourselves.

[Tom Servo]

Isolationism helped allow the holocaust to happen. It feels like a good idea, but it's not necessarily a great one.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Ideally, American people should be able to tell congress to declare war to stop evil.

Right now Americans have no such powers. US interests are not what regular Americans interested in, but what the mega corporations want.

US corporations don’t really care which party is in charge.

[Tom Servo]

Ideally we ought to keep our guns and ideologies to ourselves unless a majority decide to do the opposite. Got it.

[Crazed_Insanity]

You are sounding very condescending again.

Fine. Billi's idea sucks. Let's just maintain status quo then.

We shouldn't cage babies nor build any wall, but we'll just keep on causing situations to make their homes miserable so that they're forced to leave... Just let the vicious cycle continue. Got it. I can play this game too. :p

[Tom Servo]

You're right, I shouldn't have been condescending, but I maintain that the two things you said were ideal are incompatible.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Back to Star Trek analogy, federation obeying prime directive doesn’t really make them isolationists, right?

We need to learn to not interfere, not meddle purely out of our own selfish interests... however, there could be time when we absolutely need to interfere and engage if something clearly evil is happening.

I also hate the fact that American people don’t even have a say in how we ought to treat with foreign nationals. Whether it’s torture or caging babies... we are powerless to stop the atrocities done by our government.

Our government has great powers, and it isn’t being very responsible with its awesome power.

[FaultyMario]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EJ1QvjgWkAIl4j9.jpg

Say Hi! to Denetti if you're on the Twitter.

[drew]

I...just....wow.
I hope it's not fake.

Was this showed in the hearing this morning?

[FaultyMario]

No, this was at a press event this morning, It wasn't early enough to be shown in Congress, I suppose. It's not a fake it's from Getty's twitter feed.

[JSGeneral]

He uses his penis as a pointer for his notes? Impressive and sad!

[FaultyMario]

https://twitter.com/OxfordDiplomat/status/1197208109552427008?s=20

[Crazed_Insanity]

"I WANT NOTHING!"

"I AM NOT A CROOK!"

I'm really hoping the guy resigns or gets tossed out, but hope it won't be another false hope...

[MR2 Fan]

Isolationism helped allow the holocaust to happen. It feels like a good idea, but it's not necessarily a great one.

Isolationism is a really bad idea at this point, if for no other reason than you "can't put that genie back in the bottle" after decades of free trade all over the world.

Imagine if we had NO Chinese products starting tomorrow....they all just disappeared....everything in the US would shut down, because so much of our economy whether we see it or not contains Chinese products, and that's ignoring many of the other countries that do similar things for us.

[Crazed_Insanity]

1st off, nobody is really promoting isolationism. Just that we shouldn't interfere too much politically. Particularly installing dictators of our own around the world to advance our own interests. Or covertly training enemies of our enemies and creating gazillions of terrorists around the world. US government has done lots of unethical crap around the world and those government officials are not all Republicans. The so called 'establishment' is bipartisan. Even the beloved Obama does the same things, but most liberals dare NOT being too critical of him. I was just saying this is something we need to fix and I did not propose we become isolationists.

2nd, it won't be hard for Chinese to see sudden disappearance of NBA and their related merchandises to punish NBA team managers for just speaking out support for HK. Their world moves on. They have their own stupid little basket ball league. Heck, they have their own knock off google, youtube, facebook, amazon, apple, etc. They only need us to copy us. They adopt capitalism if it suits them. Isolationism if it suits them. They can be whatever they want.

Anyway, I think I've made it abundantly clear that I don't like the Chinese communists. China at this point is definitely not a role model for anybody...

However, USA really should set a better example for the rest of the world. Of course average americans are just probably too busy fighting with themselves then worrying about what kind of screwed up things their government is doing covertly around the world.

I guess we're just continuing our tradition. What Americans were doing to the Africans and the American Indians then, we are doing the same things again around the world. Exploiting those who are weaker than us. Of course the average Americans wouldn't really know about such atrocities... until generations later... Oh we really sucked back then. Oh well. Let's try not to exploit people the same way again... just find new and more innovative ways of exploiting people... or just do it secretly... or just blame the other party...

Anti-establishment sentiment was there, but sadly we picked the wrong anti-establishment candidate.

[drew]

That gif of Nunes (cunt) is absolutely priceless.

[JSGeneral]

https://twitter.com/SaoSasha/status/1197320791706263552

[Tom Servo]

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EJ51dyzUEAESx4Q?format=png&name=small

[Cam]

:erm: Nonsensical.

[FaultyMario]

Wasn't he in hospital over the weekend for an anxiety crisis?

[Leon]

I can't decide now if it's drugs, or dementia.

Surely now, this has stepped past simple narcissism combined with being dumb as a bag of hammers?

[Tom Servo]

Some of the Republican members of the house at the impeachment hearings put up this sign.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EJ6pR32WkAE-acl?format=jpg&name=4096x4096

Which, if I'm reading it correctly, means that no days have passed since he *followed* the rules. These dipshits can't even manage to do a stunt like this without fucking it up.

[Freude am Fahren]

:lol:

[Crazed_Insanity]

In a way, we Americans are so lucky. We have the right to bear arms..., but even before resorting to that, we could try to impeach our authoritarian wanna be.

Folks in HK have no such luxury. They have no legal recourse against a dictator... and they have no guns.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LYJvg1SkpJs

I can't imagine how brave these radicalized terrorists kids are... maybe they're just too young to realize how foolish they are..., but it's been months. Wonder when will these kids wise up and to just surrender their rights and make peace with this dictator...

[MR2 Fan]

IMO if they had guns, there would be a LOT more deaths and bloodshed and China may have already sent the military in to "quash" the protests.

I could be wrong, but that's just my thoughts. Sure, things are escalating, but they're escalating relatively slowly compared to most protests of this kind and there is still a peaceful way out in theory.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Pretty sure you’re not wrong there.

I heard a quote from one of the kids saying, ‘we’re not doing this because we feel hopeful that we’ll succeed. It’s just that if we don’t do this, there’d be no hope...’

Yes, back in the days, it was possible for China to find a peaceful way out with Japanese and European aggressors... that’s to allow them to colonize parts of China. Nowadays, thanks to Chinese communists, China is strong now. No foreign nations dare mess with China again!

But, Mongolians don’t want to be part of China. Tibetans don’t want to be part of China. Hong Kongers don’t want to be part of China. Taiwanese don’t want to be part of China. Hopefully Emperor Xi will realize someday where he went wrong and make changes so that people would proudly want to be part of China and not want to run away... or rather die than to be under his reign.

[FaultyMario]

China: The United States is broadly engaged in unilateralism and protectionism, and is damaging multilateralism and the multilateral trading system. It has already become the world’s biggest destabilising factor. (https://af.reuters.com/article/commoditiesNews/idAFL4N28309X)

They're not wrong.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I’d agree that they are not wrong about the US... and just like copying the US tech sector, Chinese are copying American’s ways of destabilizing the world pretty good too.

https://www.theage.com.au/national/defecting-chinese-spy-offers-information-trove-to-australian-government-20191122-p53d1l.html?fbclid=IwAR1v5Bjb96Hgb35fJ7aEONnU8OTpn ODxhL1zQUO_eqId0wwq8LE9DrgQFls

Just like political parties, they’re all very good at making the other parties look bad, but I’m not sure if there are parties out there that are actually that good. I believe the Chinese communists are up to no good. Likewise, US govt is up to no good either.

All I can say is that at least we don’t have a dictator in the US, and if we do have a senator palpatine type evil character who decides to emerge out publicly, at least Americans have their own guns to fight against him.

Chinese people can just suck it. Either proclaim long live emperor Xi, or just die.

[MR2 Fan]

This conspiracy theory about an Andrew Yang media blackout is seeming to be getting more and more legitimate.

Here's a listing of all of the issues so far:

https://vocal.media/theSwamp/a-visual-history-of-the-yang-media-blackout

[Crazed_Insanity]

Whether intentional or unintentional, it matters not now. I think Yang has already succeeded in becoming the next Bernie. Back in 2016, he was the one getting blacked out, but come 2020, we now have bunch of Bernie clones running for president.

In the next election cycle, there will be bunch of Andrew clones running I’m sure. Biden is already sounding like him.

Anyway, I think I’m okay with all the current top candidates for now even if Andrews not the eventual nominee. Not going to vote 3rd party this time so Neanderthal can sleep better I hope. ;)

[FaultyMario]

I have a feeling Drew is going to like this review of DJT's Rocky photoshop. (https://twitter.com/MichaelRapaport/status/1199764679381282816?s=20) [Parental ADVISORY Explicit Language]

[drew]

That genuinely made my day.

Someone so caught up on how others see him, and demanding constant adoration for everything, is a sad, sad thing for an adult. Much more so when that "adult" commands the biggest military and economy on the planet, and has access to launch codes.

This fucker is seriously unhinged

I bet when they do an autopsy on him, you'll hear a clown horn when they pop the seal on his skull, followed by an explosion of confetti.

[Freude am Fahren]

:lol: picturing that is supremely satisfying.

Especially if it were to happen tomorrow.

[Tom Servo]

And on that day, we learned it was Rip Taylor in his head all along.

[Tom Servo]

This guy 100% has dementia.

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EK0wMbRWwAESHIN?format=png&name=small

[Leon]

He has something, and it's certainly not brain cells functioning as they ought.

[drew]

Holy shit.

...and he's got launch codes 10 feet away at all times...

[Tom Servo]

Kamala Harris has suspended her campaign.

[MR2 Fan]

great, now there's only 15 left!

I'm waiting for another billionaire to jump in to keep the insanity going

[neanderthal]

Kamala Harris has suspended her campaign.

I'm depressed. Fuck!

[Crazed_Insanity]

You didn’t send her enough money! :p

I sent Andrew some money, wonder if that’ll be enough...

[neanderthal]

Bernies fucking purity politics about political fundraising is what has lead to this; where billionaires can buy their way into an election, while promising candidates are scratching around for money to run a campaign.

Republicans raised $135 million in the meantime. And nary a one objecting to corporate money.

Fuck Bernie! And his acolytes.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I saw an op ed describing 2 camps of dem candidates. The adjusters are the ones who were very happy with Obama and believe once we remove trump, only minor adjustments are needed to bring back the good times... then there are the revolutionaries who believe that dems need radical changes in order to make things really right.

Which is right? Hard to say, but sufficed to say she couldn’t gather sufficient support from either sides. Corporate centrist donors already are lining up behind Biden, Mayor Pete, maybe even Warren too. The radicals are Bernie, yang and Tulsi gaining grassroot support.

I think warren has done the best job courting both sides so far. There’s really not much room left for Kamala and Castro. Sorry dude.

Finally, somehow I have a feeling billionaires will do poorly regardless how much they spend. Trump has pretty much killed the path for all future billionaires I believe...

[21Kid]

Fuck you!

I still like Bernie

[Jason]

It's a bummer Harris is out, I liked her more than Buttigieg or Biden.

My preference at the moment is:

- Warren
- Sanders
- Booker
- Castro

Everyone else.

[FaultyMario]

Fuck you!

I still like Bernie

:)

[FaultyMario]

Republicans raised $135 million in the meantime. And nary a one objecting to corporate money.



Pete is doing alright with the corporate pac money. What is not alright is he keeping it secret about what he was doing while working for McKinsey, the company that advised ICE to cut down stipends on food, supervision and medical care for detainees and circumvent due process to speed up deportations (https://www.propublica.org/article/how-mckinsey-helped-the-trump-administration-implement-its-immigration-policies).

Public interests my ass! Half the fuckers running for president are just revolving door lobbyists.

[Crazed_Insanity]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xlCQYg-aUnk

MSNBC finally lifted their ban on Andrew Yang!!! Yeah! :D

Interesting video of looking back thru history..., apparently that Carter, Bill Clinton, Obama were all trailing in the polls and then won the eventual nomination seemingly out of nowhere. So it doesn't really pay to be in the lead right now! :p
Hang in there Andrew!
(The title of this video is a bit misleading..., MSNBC is explaining how any of the candidates trailing at the polls might win based on historical data. Video title is simply YangGang's wishful thinking)

[Crazed_Insanity]

Pete is doing alright with the corporate pac money. What is not alright is he keeping it secret about what he was doing while working for McKinsey, the company that advised ICE to cut down stipends on food, supervision and medical care for detainees and circumvent due process to speed up deportations (https://www.propublica.org/article/how-mckinsey-helped-the-trump-administration-implement-its-immigration-policies).

Public interests my ass! Half the fuckers running for president are just revolving door lobbyists.

Yeah, I think it's obvious that I'm in the revolutionary camp. Mayor Pete used to be my top favorite because I thought he's gonna be a younger version of Bernie, but he has since lost my interests. I'm not going to pick anyone who accepts corporate money during the primary.

However, this time around in general election, I'm okay with voting for one of these corporate centrists. Why? Or why I hated Hillary so much? Well, it was because I just thought Hillary to be too arrogant. If you're too far to the right, you're too deplorable... and if you're too far to the left then you don't know what's really best for you. We all know she has great ambitions of becoming a president, but I just didn't feel that she's humble enough to be able to try to understand people who are different from her. At least the current crop of dem candidates now all acknowledge the needs of the progressive left. No candidate dare blow them off as Hillary did and simply expected people to line up because Trump is very very scary...

Democratic Party itself might still be repeating the same mistake of Hillary... by going after Trump's character with impeachment. I think we've already seen the preview of the outcome with the house votes. The dude is not gonna be thrown out. Dems forcing the issue will only energize Trump's base.

Dems need to offer the american people more hopeful policies/leadership rather than continue to point out emperor Trump has no cloths.

If you present a better option, people will easily be able to vote for that new emperor. Asking them to admit that they're stupid just won't be easy...

[neanderthal]

You really need to go and listen to the "basket of deplorables" speech or read the transcript.

[Crazed_Insanity]

I know I know, I think you or Swervo had straighten me out on that speech already.

However, the point is that trump voters felt like Trump hears their pain and Hillary’s only laughing at them. Likewise, Bernie or bust folks didn’t feel like they were listened to either. Was is too much to ask to have a more progressive vp on the ticket? Apparently yes. I really didn’t understand how does Kaine help her in any way. Would any trump supporters or Bernie supporters change their minds because of Kaine? I guess she knows what she’s doing...

Anyway, I’m just glad current field of dem candidates don’t dare completely brush off the progressives this time around.

[Crazed_Insanity]

To interject a bit of international news: Emmanuel Macron used to be a socialist... and then eventually labeled himself a centrist liberal...

So I think what's happening to France could perhaps give us a glimpse of what America might be like if we ended up with a president Hillary.

https://www.npr.org/2019/12/06/785476045/france-suffers-travel-woes-as-general-strike-enters-second-day

Yeah, we would've ended up with a classier president Hillary, but neither president would really end up taking care of the little guys. The 'establishment' pretty much has bipartisan support. I suppose neanderthal is right, Hillary enriching the rich is most likely better to have Trump enriching the rich. Still, I really believe the liberal centrists need to do more soul searching and listen to the people's frustrations.

Something just isn't right. Nationalism and assholes like Trump was able to take advantage of this and gain power around the world. Removing Trump and resume the path laid out by Obama is most likely not the best path forward. I think it's only a matter of time before France get their own version of Trump... sigh...

Political elites, I beg you, please pay more attention to the little guys... stop giving your attentions to all the mega corporations!!!

One of Andrew Yang's idea is to give voters certain amount of 'political' dollars so we can give to which ever candidates we want. I do believe this is probably the only way for us voters to get full attention of our politicians. How else can we voters compete with companies that are too big to fail? When elections are over, our politicians just can't be bothered by us...

I have to say out of all those candidates, Bernie Sanders is the only dude I trust who won't eventually become a centrist who loves mega-corporation. Even Andrew Yang can't really be fully trusted. Who knows how he'd change once he ended up wearing that Lord of the Ring...

Considering how Bernie stuck to the same message after decades of public office, we can definitely trust in his integrity. He's the only candidate proven to be as close to Frodo as possible...

The only other thing I worry about besides his age is his leadership skills... just look at him, after decades of preaching... none of his colleagues listened to him! Gap between rich and poor continued to grow wider and wider. :p It's very possible that even if he's elected, he'll just be a insignificant 1 termer like Carter. Nice guy for sure, but won't be able to accomplish much... actually Bernie looks more like a grumpy old man than a nice guy...

Anyway, whoever you pick, please pick somebody who doesn't take money from big corporations! Please! Thank you.

[FaultyMario]

Me waiting on the haters to apologize after we were proven right on Amazon and saved the public billions

https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ELI-wKDWoAEqMSd.jpg

I mean, it's not like the IMF found evidence that lower corporate income tax rates and longer tax holidays are effective in attracting FDI, but not in boosting gross private fixed capital formation or growth (https://www.imf.org/en/Publications/WP/Issues/2016/12/31/Empirical-Evidenceon-the-Effects-of-Tax-Incentives-23053). Or is it?

[FaultyMario]

Ahmaigahd! Ivanka Trump was friendly to (then British Spy) Christopher Steele in the noughties and kept correspondence with him. Once he was out of the intelligence service and had moved into private practice, they discussed working together.

The Trumps fucking lied to their GOP handlers who went to the mat for them trying to portray Steele as biased and negatively predisposed. They fucking got their Republican defenders burned! Again! Hahaha!



https://ep01.epimg.net/ccaa/imagenes/2015/05/04/madrid/1430763687_996026_1430763851_noticia_normal.jpg

Her: “My name is Ivanka Trump, but my dad calls me Grab ‘Em By the Pussy Galore.”
Steele: “I must be dreaming.”

[drew]

Sure, why not.

What the fucking fuck.

Nobody, and I mean nobody could have ever wrote this shit for a script.

Jesus christ.

[neanderthal]

But remember guys, you have to put this in context; Hillary was going to be worse! :rolleyes:

[drew]

Exactly. Can you imagine?


Oh yeah, you HAVE to, because it's not a thing. Fuck every person involved with this clusterfucked administration. From the Kool-Aid drinking fluffer Senators, to the intern twat getting starbucks for them.

Fuck.
Them.
All.

[Crazed_Insanity]

You really need to go and listen to the "basket of deplorables" speech or read the transcript.

No point comparing which is worse, they’ll simply be different kind of bad.

I don’t want Trump and I don’t want to be like France too.

Just take CA/LA for example..., we’re probably as liberal and socialists as America can get... yet our social safety net somehow created a huge homeless problem. Yet, just to be unlike trump, LA would welcome and open up to more refugees...

Having more Obama/Hillary will certainly make us look better and not be laughing stock of the world, but the establishment who has a stranglehold of our politicians have ran our world to the ground. Things are no longer functional. From financial crisis to strikes, regardless of party affiliation, we need to take our govt back.

Status quo is what yielded Trump. Both status quo and Trump are bad. I really think it’s pointless trying to figure out which is worse. Time for a revolution.

At least we could do a revolution now by using votes. Best not to wait until the kind of revolution that needs guns.

[Tom Servo]

Speaking of, Hillary did an interview on Howard Stern's Show of all places.


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kHUA-Zma1U&feature=youtu.be

That's the first part, there are five in total.

[FaultyMario]

Hillary on Howard Stern's.

tl;dr

https://pics.me.me/ostop-being-being-desperate-desperate-poor-people-51510896.png

[FaultyMario]

This is great news. You don't know how much damage this one man caused to our system of justice.


ProPublica has learned that Mexico's former security minister, Genaro Garcia Luna, has been indicted on corruption charges in NY and arrested in Grapevine, Tx. Source says Garcia Luna had "all kinds of pictures with US officials in his unassuming one bedroom."

[Crazed_Insanity]

Interesting, which US officials?

Did a quick google of this news and none of the article mentioned anything about corrupt US officials...

[FaultyMario]

He is being prosecuted in one of the districts of NY. He was slapped with the usual organized crime felony charges.

[Tom Servo]

Am I seeing right that he was in charge of going after the cartels, but he's been busted trafficking cocaine?

[Crazed_Insanity]

That's what I saw...

And I'd like to know which US officials he has purchased, but I couldn't find anything in any of the US media's report.

[FaultyMario]

Am I seeing right that he was in charge of going after the cartels, but he's been busted trafficking cocaine?

He was the Secretary in charge of Public Security. Kind of like an all-emcompassing Homeland, Intelligence and Federal Police agency. Previous to that he had been the director of the FBI-equivalent. The Mexican War on Drugs was begun as a legitimacy dress for Felipe Calderon who "won" the presidency in 06 with a sophisticated fraud that included old-fashioned vote tampering and election authority buying with electronic measures and a media blackout.

It's funny because the Mexican right wing has consistently being aligned with Democrats, but good ole Dubya had been pressing for a new version of Plan Colombia (the Merida Initiative) to be accepted by President Fox. After civic unrest and political mobilization (included the APPO 2006 protests) had crept on for months, in January of 07 Calderon announced the beginning of his War, as a rallying cry for the unity of Mexicans. Most people thought it was a business, because of the shady individuals connected to the Merida Initiative (on both sides of the river), we thought that García Luna was going to be a contractor by via of strawmen. At the time He was rumored to be running an industrial spying ring from the federal investigations agency.

He later became known as Calderon's Executive Vicepresident.

Executions, get it?

[FaultyMario]

Joke doing the rounds:

García Luna's arrest will be shown tomorrow on national TV. It's going to be live (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Florence_Cassez#The_arrest)!

[Tom Servo]

Don't know why everyone's panicking about a white supremacist fascist signing an executive order calling Jews foreigners.

https://twitter.com/sadmonsters/status/1204599243543056384


Let’s be honest, it took longer than we all thought it would to get to “government order defining what a Jew is”

https://twitter.com/TheDweck/status/1204592910420701184

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/us/politics/trump-antisemitism-executive-order.html

[Crazed_Insanity]

I really don't give a Trump about Trump anymore. Impeach him, laugh at him... Tweeting BS... signing BS orders... whatever. :rolleyes:

I'm just happy Andrew Yang Qualified for the next debate!!! :D

One thing I hate about Andrew Yang is that I constantly receive his emails asking for more money... I'm not made of money you know Andrew! I gave you my last $25! Now go kick Trump's ass! Prior to that, destroy the democratic establishment and bring the party back to the people!

[edit] It's kinda ironic that Andrew Yang barely made it onto the debate stage on the same day that a robo-semi truck successfully drove autonomously from coast to coast... https://www.cnet.com/roadshow/news/self-driving-semi-plus-ai-cross-country/

[FaultyMario]

How much damage this one man caused to our system of justice.

2006-12

+95 % rise on the national homicide rate,
laid off 57% of field personel from the General Attorney's office*,
budget allocated to his office grew 4X from USD 456M to 2,111M (and it still had USD130M worth of debt when it was terminated this year).

* they were working for criminal organizations, obviously!

[Crazed_Insanity]

Now we know how much damage...

But do we now know who are the ones doing damage on the US side yet?

[FaultyMario]

What do you mean? in what context?

If you are referring to drug trade, most analyst think that contraband tends to be unofficially regulated by state agents, even in small or developing nations. Think of the British Empire and the Opium Wars, the Taliban and poppy production or the alleged CIA-Crack epidemic nexus. With that in mind, I think the U.S. as a national State has control over that industry, as you never hear of Druglord figures like Chapo Guzman or corruption in high levels of government; it's not that there are no druglords or corruption, it means that the cogs of the system are able to process them without damage to the other State functions, unlike in Mexico, for example. Take the case of HSBC-USA, the bak was fined over laundering drug money and business went uninterrumpted, the drug-trade causes no system-level damage.

Threats to the U.S, National system are elsewhere. If I were to point somewhere, I'd say that fighting of wars for profit is the big one. The externalities are huge, there are social costs associated with mobilizing so many able-bodied young people to (basically) subsidize the fossil fuel industry, and the level of funding that have to be diverted from other national services in order to pay for such a big military force are crippling domestic investments.

[Crazed_Insanity]

ProPublica has learned that Mexico's former security minister, Genaro Garcia Luna, has been indicted on corruption charges in NY and arrested in Grapevine, Tx. Source says Garcia Luna had "all kinds of pictures with US officials in his unassuming one bedroom."

In your original post, you quoted this... so I was just wondering which US officials were caught. I couldn't find any info after a quick google. Maybe Neanderthal can help me search better... :p

Anyway, for sure it can't just be the folks on Mexico side making all the money. Especially now that this dude is living in the US. There must be Americans working with or for him...

[FaultyMario]

No US officials have been arrested in connection with GL, AFAIK.

Meybe he just had an altar of his lay saints. I mean, what is known about it is that he was decorated by the DEA as late as 2012, then he became a big player in real estate in Miami; investigations only latched onto him as soon as he applied for naturalization.

[Cam]

Andrew Scheer is resigning as the leader of the Canadian conservative party. Apparently, he used party money to pay for his kids’ schools. :rolleyes:

[sandydandy]

He pigged out. Why politicians do that with taxpayer dollars, when they already earn a significant salary, is beyond me. It’s human nature I guess.

[Cam]

It is not human nature to be a swindler.

[Crazed_Insanity]

Party money isn't taxpayer money, right? :p

Anyway, there was news that the Union leaders were living it large with union money all the while GM workers were on strike living on couple of hundred bucks/week.

Concentration of power and wealth really need to be avoided due to human nature I guess... even if you started off with good intentions. Too much power and money often end up turning us into swindlers.

I really think thus far, only Bernie Sanders is most like Frodo... to be able to resist the power of the ring... and hopefully defeat Sauron!

[sandydandy]

It is not human nature to be a swindler. I meant it’s human nature to be greedy when you have access to free money.

[Cam]

I meant not all humans are greedy.

[sandydandy]

Trudeau Trudeau, Cam.

Anyone else catch the marathon debate session yesterday? 14 hours of both sides repeating the same arguments over and over and over. It was fascinating for the most part, but became mind-numbing by the end. Not sure why Nadler pushed the final vote till today, it could’ve been taken care of last night. The loudmouth Republican next to him was pissed. Someone else shouted out “kangaroo court” and “Stalin-esque”. Kinda funny.

But I have to wonder what the point of it all really is, if everyone and their mother already knows the senate will 100% acquit Trump no matter what. Why waste so much time and money? You’ve already lived with Trump and his antics for three years, what’s another year? Let the voters decide next November instead of an impeachment that will clearly fall short of the desired removal from office.

[FaultyMario]

Does the worst result for Labour since before WW2 coupled with the overwhelming mandate for SNP mean that our children will not see a united British isles?

[Yw-slayer]

I don't know, when the choice is between a liar and a communist...

[Cam]

Trudeau Trudeau, Cam.
:erm: WTF does that mean?

[tigeraid]

RIP British Healthcare.

[neanderthal]

Trudeau Trudeau, Cam.

Anyone else catch the marathon debate session yesterday? 14 hours of both sides repeating the same arguments over and over and over. It was fascinating for the most part, but became mind-numbing by the end. Not sure why Nadler pushed the final vote till today, it could’ve been taken care of last night. The loudmouth Republican next to him was pissed. Someone else shouted out “kangaroo court” and “Stalin-esque”. Kinda funny.

But I have to wonder what the point of it all really is, if everyone and their mother already knows the senate will 100% acquit Trump no matter what. Why waste so much time and money? You’ve already lived with Trump and his antics for three years, what’s another year? Let the voters decide next November instead of an impeachment that will clearly fall short of the desired removal from office.


His crimes have to brought to light. The vote already told us who is basically co- conspiring, by failing to uphold their duty.
And if the senators don't vote to impeach him, they can ousted in the same election you mention.

I hope November 2020 is a bloodbath for Republicans.

[Crazed_Insanity]

As Andrew Yang pointed out, every time we focus on Trump, whether it's grabbing pussies or impeaching him, we're giving him the attention he needs to win.

Any reasonable human being should know Trump needs to go, but any reasonable human being should also know that Congress doesn't have what it needs to remove Trump.

We really should be turning the attention of american voters on another more promising candidate to replace Trump and save the taxpayers some money. But I guess congressmen salaries are cheap... considering that they don't do much any way... plus considering the money we wasted in Afghanistan, impeachment cost is probably nothing. Still, the marathon hearings probably contributed to the heart issue of Ted Lieu. We really shouldn't be working our congressmen to death like this.

Makes one wonder why our fat and fast food loving orangutan never suffer a major heart attack and just kick he bucket? Could've saved us a lot of money and time...

[Tom Servo]

:erm: WTF does that mean?

My guess was a punny "True dat, True dat, Cam".

[Tom Servo]

But I have to wonder what the point of it all really is, if everyone and their mother already knows the senate will 100% acquit Trump no matter what. Why waste so much time and money? You’ve already lived with Trump and his antics for three years, what’s another year? Let the voters decide next November instead of an impeachment that will clearly fall short of the desired removal from office.

I think part of it was just to get a lot of testimony into the public record that otherwise may never see the light of day, presumably in the hopes that it'll convince some people who might be on the fence that Trump is more guilty of crimes than they had originally thought. On the other hand, it reminds me of a tweet I saw yesterday that went something like "For the past 10 years, Democrats have been clinging to the rulebook repeatedly muttering 'But, a dog can't play basketball!' while the dog keeps dunking on them over and over again."

[Crazed_Insanity]

My guess was a punny "True dat, True dat, Cam".

:lol:

No, probably a stuttering that's true though, true though... :p

[sandydandy]

His crimes have to brought to light. The vote already told us who is basically co- conspiring, by failing to uphold their duty.
And if the senators don't vote to impeach him, they can ousted in the same election you mention.

I hope November 2020 is a bloodbath for Republicans. Hopefully something good and tangible comes out of it.


I think part of it was just to get a lot of testimony into the public record that otherwise may never see the light of day, presumably in the hopes that it'll convince some people who might be on the fence that Trump is more guilty of crimes than they had originally thought. On the other hand, it reminds me of a tweet I saw yesterday that went something like "For the past 10 years, Democrats have been clinging to the rulebook repeatedly muttering 'But, a dog can't play basketball!' while the dog keeps dunking on them over and over again." That makes sense. Playing the long game. If it backfires then Trump will win in a landslide.


:erm: WTF does that mean?
My guess was a punny "True dat, True dat, Cam".
:lol:

No, probably a stuttering that's true though, true though... :p :lol:

Trudeau Trudeau = true true.

Just something fun I do with my cousins when we talk in person, and text. But when we say it we're using Indian accents. So it would be "Troo-doo". Hard T, rolled R and hard D. Indian accent because it's the funniest one on the planet. (I can say that...if you say it, it's racist!)

[Cam]

OK, that gag went over my head, I guess. :lol:

[Crazed_Insanity]

Anyway, I only wish an impeachment hearing could start for W, Obama and Trump for their 18 years at Afghanistan.

Seriously, which average american gives a fuck about Ukraine and Hunter Biden?

Why are we spending gazillion dollars over 18 years while achieving absolutely nothing other than enriching the 'establishment'?


That washington post report (https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2019/investigations/afghanistan-papers/afghanistan-war-confidential-documents/) made me want to vote for Tulsi, but of course Bernie or Andrew will do too.

Candidates who needs corporate money can just kiss my ass! I don't care which party you're in.

[drew]

Matt Bevin: Foreshadowing what's to come if DJT is re-elected.

Fuck Bevin, fuck Trump, fuck the GOP.

[Tom Servo]

Matt Bevin: Foreshadowing what's to come if DJT is re-elected.

Fuck Bevin, fuck Trump, fuck the GOP.

That whole thing is fucking bonkers. You'd think that the GOP would be mad in that Bevin is likely lining his own pockets while hammering a few nails in the GOP's coffin there, but I think the GOP are better at estimating the average voter's attention span than the rest of us.

[Tom Servo]

Indian accent because it's the funniest one on the planet. (I can say that...if you say it, it's racist!)

I dunno, man - all my Norwegian relatives have this sing-songy way of saying everything that makes me sound like Eeyore when I try to talk to them. The Swedish Chef is only a minor exaggeration.

[Crazed_Insanity]

That whole thing is fucking bonkers. You'd think that the GOP would be mad in that Bevin is likely lining his own pockets while hammering a few nails in the GOP's coffin there, but I think the GOP are better at estimating the average voter's attention span than the rest of us.

At least according to Fox News, both GOP and the dems called for probe of his pardons. So I’m assuming average republicans are not okay with what he did...

[neanderthal]

This sums up my political feelings very well.

"I have little patience for people who treat the outcomes of elections merely as an intellectual exercise and not as something that presents profound material harm// to an enormous amount of people.

It remains evident that many of the people given large platforms have little social or emotional proximity to those that have the most to lose.
It's ... analysis that remains abstract rather than urgent. It's commentary devoid of a connection to the most vulnerable."

[Crazed_Insanity]

Yep, considering the harm Trump has done in Afghanistan vs harm done in Ukraine, which deserves more attention?

Naturally we need to pay more attention to Ukraine and turn a blind eye on the money and lives wasted over the past 18 years all the while making problems worse over there.

Removing Trump won’t solve the root problem that caused Trump to rise in the 1st place.

[FaultyMario]

For nearly three years, Stephen Miller has used his White House seat to orchestrate the most extreme anti-immigrant agenda in almost a century. But he hasn’t done it alone.

A loose network of lawyers and advisers embedded throughout the Trump administration has worked closely with Miller to carry out the daily effort of pushing through draconian and often inhumane policies like separating migrant families at the border, detaining young migrants in cagelike facilities, and drastically reducing the number of immigrants allowed entry into the country. In other words, Miller, with his white-nationalist mindset and fervor to enact xenophobic policies, is far from an isolated actor. He’s the leader of a broad operation spread across the federal government.

Newly released emails provided to Rolling Stone offer a glimpse of the working relationship between Miller and one of his internal allies and fellow ideologues: a senior adviser at Immigration and Customs Enforcement named Jon Feere. Feere has been a fixture in Miller’s immigration working group where new ideas for cracking down on immigration get conceived. Reading the emails, Feere comes across like Miller’s point man inside ICE, enjoying unfettered access to arguably the most influential aide in the Trump White House, working long hours to advance the administration’s extreme and often inhumane immigration policy.


In the emails, Feere strategizes with Miller about how to use the federal government to amplify their anti-immigration message; tees up potential attacks on prominent Democratic politicians; directly briefs Miller in great detail about upcoming enforcement actions and policy changes in the works; and recommends to Miller people the administration should hire to expedite its immigration agenda. The emails also show that on at least one occasion Feere bypassed his superiors at ICE to deliver updates and advice directly to Miller.

“Stephen Miller didn’t cut ties with the extremists when he joined the government — he brought them with him,” says Austin Evers, executive director of American Oversight, a government watchdog group run by former members of the Obama administration. American Oversight first obtained Feere’s emails through a Freedom of Information Act request and provided them to Rolling Stone.


Continue reading. (https://www.rollingstone.com/politics/politics-features/stephen-miller-immigration-trump-white-nationalist-emails-jon-feere-924364/)

[FaultyMario]

Orland Jones fired from American Gods. He says that “the new Season 3 showrunner is Connecticut born and Yale-educated, so he’s very smart, and he thinks that Mr. Nancy’s angry, get shit done is the wrong message for black America. That’s right, this white man sits in that decision-making chair and I’m sure he has many black BFFs that are his advisers and made it clear to him that if they did not get rid of that angry god Mr. Nancy, he’d start a Denmark Vesey uprising in the country.”


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lmyp7WxsGbk

[drew]

That whole thing is fucking bonkers. You'd think that the GOP would be mad in that Bevin is likely lining his own pockets while hammering a few nails in the GOP's coffin there, but I think the GOP are better at estimating the average voter's attention span than the rest of us.


I don't think they give a shit about him, actually. They need to focus/clear their guy. McConnell openly saying "we will coordinate with the president's legal" and "this president will NOT be removed" ahead of the trial he's supposed to be impartial.....

Fuck. Them. All.

There should be a lot more people fucked off about this than seems to be.

I can only surmise that Epstein had shit on almost all of them, as well as many, many other "big" people. That's why he was suicided.

There's simply no other logical explanation as to their blind puffing and defense of everything he does. He's not even a Republican for fuck's sake. If it is solely for party/power/control, I'd be honestly surprised. They're all willing to throw their careers down the shitter and go down with the ship that he's aimed towards ice bergs and broke off the throttle and steering wheel....

If it's not to save their own ass because he has shit on them, they're all lemmings. Fucking Lemmings.

[Tom Servo]

I'm really, really wary of any conspiracy theory, including ones about Epstein. Our jails are rife with suicides, and he was a narcissist who would do just about anything to avoid having to actually answer for his crimes, so him committing suicide doesn't seem shocking in the slightest. The last thing we need is for all of us to go QAnon.

[neanderthal]

I'm really, really wary of any conspiracy theory, including ones about Epstein. Our jails are rife with suicides, and he was a narcissist who would do just about anything to avoid having to actually answer for his crimes, so him committing suicide doesn't seem shocking in the slightest. The last thing we need is for all of us to go QAnon.

Russia then? The pee tape, and others on Trump, and who knows what on the rest of the Republicans? The funneling of money through the NRA. Lindsey Graham has become Trumps lapdog. Don't get me started on McConnell, a lifelong politician who is, seemingly willing, to watch his lifetimes work crash and burn just to support this ... puppet. Ted Cruz who famously said in the GOP primary ...


Ah fuck it. Fuck em all. And fuck the people that put them in power including third party voters! :mad:

[drew]

I'm really, really wary of any conspiracy theory, including ones about Epstein. Our jails are rife with suicides, and he was a narcissist who would do just about anything to avoid having to actually answer for his crimes, so him committing suicide doesn't seem shocking in the slightest. The last thing we need is for all of us to go QAnon.


Don't get me wrong, it may very well have been legit (he was an amazing piece of shit, and maybe the guilt caught up to him). It just seemed "convenient" that it was within 72 hours of being put in jail, and his suicide watch "was not there at that time".

Just reminds me of one of Putin's opponents a few years ago that got killed, (by whom? wink), by being shot just as a garbage truck passed between him and the CCTV camera across the street.

Convenient.

One conspiracy I'm starting right now, is that Ivanka was the meat in the fuck club sandwich.

and Eric watched.

[FaultyMario]

Ivanka was the meat in the fuck club sandwich.


Plausible.

[Tom Servo]

Russia then? The pee tape, and others on Trump, and who knows what on the rest of the Republicans? The funneling of money through the NRA. Lindsey Graham has become Trumps lapdog. Don't get me started on McConnell, a lifelong politician who is, seemingly willing, to watch his lifetimes work crash and burn just to support this ... puppet. Ted Cruz who famously said in the GOP primary ...


Ah fuck it. Fuck em all. And fuck the people that put them in power including third party voters! :mad:

Well, there's a difference between things that are corroborated by evidence. It was a conspiracy by the Russians to try to interfere with our election and keep Hillary out of the White House. It's a conspiracy *theory* that Ukraine did it.

When it comes to Epstein's suicide, there's a defense lawyer that I follow reasonably closely and he points out that people commit suicide in jail all the time, including when they're under suicide watch. We have a for-profit prison system that doesn't give the slightest fuck about the people incarcerated there.

The other reason I'm hesitant to think there's a conspiracy with Epstein is have you seen the people who might be behind it try other conspiracies? I think the only reason this country isn't currently on fire is because the people trying to grift it are way dumber than they think they are.