DesertFox-
The very model of a modern major general
+794|6655|United States of America

SuperJail Warden wrote:

Sorry but the correct answer to "What is your favorite NFL team?" is "I don't have one because I am not gay." Why would I want to see jacked up men rub against each other? Gross.

What is your favorite MLB team?
That's why I prefer Turkish oil wrestling. The layer of oil means they're not touching eachother *taps head*
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

interesting commentary from nyt:

Taking Page From Authoritarians, Trump Turns Power of State Against Political Rivals
https://news.yahoo.com/taking-page-auth … 48832.html

President Donald Trump’s order to his secretary of state to declassify thousands of Hillary Clinton’s emails, along with his insistence that his attorney general issue indictments against Barack Obama and Joe Biden, takes his presidency into new territory — until now, occupied by leaders with names like Putin, Xi and Erdogan.

Trump has long demanded — quite publicly, often on Twitter — that his most senior cabinet members use the power of their office to pursue political enemies. But his appeals this week, as he trailed badly in the polls and was desperate to turn the national conversation away from the coronavirus, were so blatant that one had to look to authoritarian nations to make comparisons.

He took a step even Richard Nixon avoided in his most desperate days: openly ordering direct immediate government action against specific opponents, timed to serve his reelection campaign.

“There is essentially no precedent,” said Jack Goldsmith, who led the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel under President George W. Bush and has written extensively on presidential powers. “We have a norm that developed after Watergate that presidents don’t talk about ongoing investigations, much less interfere with them.”

“It is crazy and it is unprecedented,” said Goldsmith, now a professor at Harvard Law School, “but it’s no different from what he has been saying since the beginning of his presidency. The only thing new is that he has moved from talking about it to seeming to order it.”

cont'd
But yes, what could it hurt voting that kind of personality into the highest office "for the memes."
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

A couple weeks ago: https://twitter.com/VeraMBergen/status/ … lection%2F

Needs to lay off whatever the hell he's on.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
isn't trump basically using his executive power/fiat now to force government officials to release 'dirty' stories on obama, hillary, et al? when was the last time in american history that a currently incumbent president was so unhinged? it's 2.5 weeks before the election and he's still talking about obama and hillary conspiracies, still trying to portray himself in vaguely QAnon-shaded terms as some 'noble hero' battling a 'wave of shadowy conspirators'.

trump is not going to go quietly.
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
I truly hope he doesn't go quietly actually. This rotten stem of US politics needs to be exposed and dealt with, sooner rather than later.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

uziq wrote:

isn't trump basically using his executive power/fiat now to force government officials to release 'dirty' stories on obama, hillary, et al? when was the last time in american history that a currently incumbent president was so unhinged? it's 2.5 weeks before the election and he's still talking about obama and hillary conspiracies, still trying to portray himself in vaguely QAnon-shaded terms as some 'noble hero' battling a 'wave of shadowy conspirators'.

trump is not going to go quietly.
Trump is pulling nonsense that would make Nixon blush. Seen some Nixon apologists blush too.

Larssen wrote:

I truly hope he doesn't go quietly actually. This rotten stem of US politics needs to be exposed and dealt with, sooner rather than later.
That's probably easy for you to say when you don't live here, and it's not your country being directly destabilized as a result. I fully expect him to put up a stink about the election results if they don't go his way, but if he takes things even further I fully expect a surge in right-wing terrorism like what we had with the plot to abduct a governor.

Honestly your line of thinking reminds me a bit of the social media trend of "we need another plague!" "Clear the chaff!"
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
I don't immediately envision a surge of right wing terrorism in this case. In fact, if Trump puts up a fight after he already lost the election, his position will be so weak to be untenable, and so controversial that it is sure this will induce some deep reflection and opportunities for structural change.

If he complains a little and fades into the background, what helped him get elected will be allowed to fester. I've expressed the sentiment here before, in the current climate it is all too possible for someone just as morally depraved as Trump to take the wheel, yet more competent in his political maneouvering. Not a good prospect.

Last edited by Larssen (2020-10-12 04:59:01)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

I don't think losing a second term will stop him from making seditious tweets in the hopes of stirring morons up in his name. I can't begin to fathom the extent he might go to to sabotage the transfer of power, or failing that the country itself in years to come. But the more he does in this regard with his cult following, the worse things could become.

Wishing for things to be worse "so they can become better" is like a Batman villain plot or something.
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
Trump: The Dark Knight
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

I don't picture a lot of introspective navel-gazing from Trumpers in a Biden-victory scenario. "I guess we were wrong, after all. Maybe it's time for a change!" after four years of being spoonfed idiot superprotein. Not saying they're all going to become a new Taliban, but I can easily see more threats as a result of Trumpian, etc. goading.

The best result I can hope for is that Biden wins, and that Trump for once doesn't threaten to sic his bikers on the libs.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6077|eXtreme to the maX
Don't the Republicans usually sulk and fester the whole time when they're not in power?

The average person seems more unhinged now, between the gun nuts on one side and BLM on the other.

Maybe global warming will turn America into the new middle east.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

The sulk/fester feeling was sometimes tempered a bit for some Republicans when a Democratic president does something like back a Republican thing, or not go along with Democrats on everything. Of course he'll still be the Comic Book Supervillain in their eyes when it comes down to it. I couldn't imagine a hypothetical Bush Sr. writing 50 scathing remarks and insults on a daily basis for 8 years to make life inconvenient for Bill Clinton, though. Who knows really what the next years will bring.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
lol protesting for civil rights is 'unhinged'. ok. i'm sure the suffragettes were considered 'unhinged' in their day, too. especially the ones flinging themselves in front of horses to get their point across.

as per usual dilbert's intelligent response is to appeal to the status quo. hardly anything affects him, he has his savings and his suburban life, therefore problems don't exist and these people are highly irrational, possibly on drugs, definitely criminal, etc etc..

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-13 01:46:15)

uziq
Member
+492|3423
very big jim jones energy at trump’s latest rallies. guy is whacked out. huge drug energy. could he be the united states’ first roller in chief?

i mean, this is officially a death cult at this point, right?

https://i.guim.co.uk/img/media/64024d48514c42e8c39c260706dc69e7046308bf/0_0_4973_3259/master/4973.jpg?width=860&quality=85&auto=format&fit=max&s=64829609fc26c1f0cd7fab33d93a4cff

not a single mask in the audience -- a point of not wearing one and not heeding the virus, in fact. to do otherwise is treachery and a lack of faith in the cause. and yet they're going to see a guy who beshat himself and went to hospital to be pumped full of every experimental cure currently available on the planet, whereas the average florida redneck couldn't even afford a private hospital wet-wipe, let alone a course of remsdesivir.



Last edited by uziq (2020-10-13 01:43:56)

unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

From time to time, I find myself thinking back to an invitation to immigrate to Nova Scotia.

I'd be all for Trump assuming a permanent medible personality if that means he'd calm the *&# down.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

Fake "official" drop boxes set up by California GOP may be in "violation of state law": official (via salon)
https://news.yahoo.com/fake-official-dr … 54017.html

After Complaining About Voter Fraud, the California GOP Commits Election Fraud
https://slate.com/news-and-politics/202 … fraud.html

Did California Republicans Set Up Fake Ballot Drop Boxes? (true)
https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/ca-go … rop-boxes/

https://gifimage.net/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/and-so-it-begins-gif-8.gif

(not the perfect gif, but fun to use)

A week earlier:

Texas Legal Filing To Block Early Voting Offers Little Evidence of ‘Illegal Ballot Harvesting’ Scheme
https://www.snopes.com/news/2020/10/05/ … -petition/
uziq
Member
+492|3423
america is in for one hell of a winter.

amazing that you've paraded around the world and self-styled yourselves as the best society in the history of humankind, etc. and now you're doing worse at a pandemic response than countries like iran and your leader is calling your own elections into question, making you look like a tin-pot country like belarus.
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
For all the shittiness that is the US's pandemic response, I don't for a second buy the infection and fatality numbers from all those countries where most of the people can't work from home.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
there's far more to it than that. for a start, most of those countries don't even have huge corporate sectors to begin with.

so many other factors, like average household size, population density, amount of contact vertically between generations or elders/children, etc.

schools are another thing. i'd be very interested to see how those 'suspicious' countries are representing school/university campus outbreaks.
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
Generally the poorer the country, the larger the average households, the more crammed people live & the more ghettoisation around cities. There will also be less public services & most people work some sort of manual labour. In addition many non-western & warmer countries have very active street cultures year round. Food, markets, parties - all of it happens outside. For those reasons it's for example no surprise at all that Brazil was hit hard.

Frankly I don't think they even have the capacity to keep up with testing either, at all. Their only good luck is the fact that the average age is much lower which makes it far easier to simply ignore the virus.
uziq
Member
+492|3423
yes, i said to my colleagues way back at the start of 2020 that the biggest disruption to our particular model of publishing would be india's handling (or non-handling more appropriately) of the pandemic. it's safe to assume that it is pretty much spreading freely there and will continue to rise and rise until some vaccine-level intervention is introduced.

outdoor markets are nowhere near as dangerous as working in corporate offices. no surprises that places like paris, where most people work crammed in comparatively tiny offices, has been hit very hard. it's not the outdoor cafe culture that's doing them in: it's being inside small air-conditioned buildings all the time.

the risk from being outside doing manual labour or construction work is still many times lower than being in air-conditioned buildings, getting in and out of lifts, being on and off the metro, etc.
unnamednewbie13
Moderator
+2,053|6742|PNW

uziq wrote:

america is in for one hell of a winter.

amazing that you've paraded around the world and self-styled yourselves as the best society in the history of humankind, etc. and now you're doing worse at a pandemic response than countries like iran and your leader is calling your own elections into question, making you look like a tin-pot country like belarus.
Given how outstandingly whitewashed general histories are here, it should never come as much of a surprise when an American's overawed comment about the country is a little on the silly side. I have to say that Trump's Patriotic Education notion is rather alarming.

"The truth is a web of lies, and teaching it is child abuse!"
Larssen
Member
+99|1858
I occasionally venture into fox news to see what the idiot segment of the world is thinking and without fail I leave wanting to throw rocks at the people who write that shit. It's unbelievable to me they've managed to position themselves as some sort of legitimate source of information. This isn't journalism, not even close. The spin, vitriol, outright lies are so many orders of magnitude worse than anything else I can only compare it to actual propaganda outlets in early 20th century Europe. Moving from any media into fox is like entering a parallel universe. Nothing makes sense, the mouthpieces are dumb as shit and the disgusting 'fair and balanced' slogan might be the most insulting of all.

It's really the territory of manipulation and misinformation.
Dilbert_X
The X stands for
+1,810|6077|eXtreme to the maX
Electric cars will cause divorces is my favourite.
Русский военный корабль, иди на хуй!
uziq
Member
+492|3423

Larssen wrote:

I occasionally venture into fox news to see what the idiot segment of the world is thinking and without fail I leave wanting to throw rocks at the people who write that shit. It's unbelievable to me they've managed to position themselves as some sort of legitimate source of information. This isn't journalism, not even close. The spin, vitriol, outright lies are so many orders of magnitude worse than anything else I can only compare it to actual propaganda outlets in early 20th century Europe. Moving from any media into fox is like entering a parallel universe. Nothing makes sense, the mouthpieces are dumb as shit and the disgusting 'fair and balanced' slogan might be the most insulting of all.

It's really the territory of manipulation and misinformation.
i mean, it gets close in the tabloids and private news stations.

there was some controversy about a biden hitpiece in the NY Post, written up by some nazi femme fatale aligned with the hardcore bannon lot. that’s textbook murdoch. i mean the signed author on the byline has a public instagram account where she’s posting with far-right figures. it’s just purely scurrilous behaviour. tantamount to spreading misinformation on the eve of an election.

the murdoch media empire undoubtedly has poisoned the world. and being a villain amongst media barons is really quite a feat. you’d be hard pressed to find a bigger pack of slime balls and fascists than the 20th century lords and barons of the british tabloids. i mean, one of them produced ghislaine maxwell ffs.

and let’s not even get started on the murdoch-blair relationship (quite literally if the rumours of infidelity are to be believed). i’m sure dilbert has plenty to get in a twist over there with all the laundering of public opinion that went on then, drumming up support for tony’s wars ...

also iirc fox’s slogan of ‘fair and balanced’ was a purposeful retort/reaction to some other news station’s messaging. might have been CNN. it’s intended as more of a ‘fuck you’.

Last edited by uziq (2020-10-16 02:18:47)

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