Current Affairs Donald Trump POS: Judgement cometh and that right soon

[Pittsburgh Footy]

yea, this, this is very important.
One side is firing teachers for showing 5th graders disney movies because one character is gay.
The same side has as a mouth piece, the richest man in the world who's trying to exonerate white supremasists
The same side is coalescing behind a man who just got indicted for sexual abuse and also spearheaded a fatal coup attempt.
The same side are reacting to children being murdered in their classrooms by pushing to further remove gun restrictions
The same side desperate to ignore the separation of church and state and take complete control over womens bodies because their God says so.

And now, one side is playing Russian roulette with the debt ceiling and it's seen like just normal politics because the rest of his party is so batshit crazy.

So yea, two year terms is a problem and constant fundraising is a problem
but nowhere near the problem of the modern GOP stealing the supreme court and jamming through stuff like Citizens United.

There's just one party wrecking this country.

This

All of this

 

[Martin Alvito]

You can subscribe to "both sidesism". It's easy to do so

But to do that, it exonerates one of those sides, which has gone off the deep end with its "politics as usual", into something well beyond that.

Whereas the other side is simply playing regular 1950s and 1960s politics as usual.

That's the difference. To give the old "both sides are the same and do the same thing" trope, it fails to acknowledge the acceleration of disinformation and lack of good faith arguments that one side has perpetuated since the beginning of the right wing media echo chamber in the 80s and into the 90s

This just isn't true. It is absolutely true that one side has committed the bigger sins. However, many of them have been in reply to the sins of the opposition. McConnell told Reid he would regret eliminating the filibuster for appointing federal judges to district and appellate courts. He just didn't tell him how much.

I would argue that the disinformation is a direct reply to the politicization of what can, and cannot, secure funding. There are absolutely good findings (rather a lot of them) where the right chooses to turn a blind eye. There are also a lot of things that simply cannot be researched in this political climate, because the incentives are such that anyone good at their job prefers not to become a community pariah in return for mere filthy lucre. Prestige is a lot more important than cash to most academics. If it wasn't, they would be doing something else for a living that pays better.

Is the left better than the right at the moment? Sure. See: public health, global warming, guns. Is the left playing 1950s and 1960s politics as usual? Far from it. Today's politics don't even begin to resemble an era where both parties had liberal and conservative members, and things were accomplished by working across the aisle. It's two warring tribes fighting over indivisible social issues where the positions are mutually exclusive, egged on by clickbait media on both sides funded by people who watch, and hate watch.

Converse et al were more right than they knew when they said that the public follows politics the way they follow sports teams. The basic problem is that when news went for-profit after the repeal of the equal time doctrine, both sides figured out how to give the public what they wanted. It's as if we had red and blue networks each covering the Merseyside derby. You would hear two completely different versions of reality, with truth somewhere in between.

 

[Moomin]

A common misconception? There is every reason to question everything that the intelligence and enforcement agencies have previously claimed since there is a pattern of evidence that they have willfully acted improperly. Not only is Durham excoriating saying that Mueller should never have even happened, but we even had Mueller having to dismiss members of his special counsel team for bias when text messages were leaked from agents working on the probe showing that they were determined to "stop Trump at any cost".

The only thing Russia is alleged to have been involved in was in procuring information from the DNC about Hillary Clinton and supposedly giving it to Wikileaks to publish. They learned their lesson over this though and made sure they had control of Twitter for the next election so they could shut down the Hunter Biden leaks which have been shown to be totally authentic and again nothing to do with "russian disinformation" which the same intelligence agencies claimed to help Biden. The whole apparatus of government is rotten to the core.

Did Biden's laptop have information on Chemtrails?

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

This just isn't true. It is absolutely true that one side has committed the bigger sins. However, many of them have been in reply to the sins of the opposition. McConnell told Reid he would regret eliminating the filibuster for appointing federal judges to district and appellate courts. He just didn't tell him how much.

I would argue that the disinformation is a direct reply to the politicization of what can, and cannot, secure funding. There are absolutely good findings (rather a lot of them) where the right chooses to turn a blind eye. There are also a lot of things that simply cannot be researched in this political climate, because the incentives are such that anyone good at their job prefers not to become a community pariah in return for mere filthy lucre. Prestige is a lot more important than cash to most academics. If it wasn't, they would be doing something else for a living that pays better.

Is the left better than the right at the moment? Sure. See: public health, global warming, guns. Is the left playing 1950s and 1960s politics as usual? Far from it. Today's politics don't even begin to resemble an era where both parties had liberal and conservative members, and things were accomplished by working across the aisle. It's two warring tribes fighting over indivisible social issues where the positions are mutually exclusive, egged on by clickbait media on both sides funded by people who watch, and hate watch.

Converse et al were more right than they knew when they said that the public follows politics the way they follow sports teams. The basic problem is that when news went for-profit after the repeal of the equal time doctrine, both sides figured out how to give the public what they wanted. It's as if we had red and blue networks each covering the Merseyside derby. You would hear two completely different versions of reality, with truth somewhere in between.

Truth might be somewhere in between. But that doesn't mean truth lies directly in the middle.

We can agree to disagree

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

This just isn't true. It is absolutely true that one side has committed the bigger sins. However, many of them have been in reply to the sins of the opposition. McConnell told Reid he would regret eliminating the filibuster for appointing federal judges to district and appellate courts. He just didn't tell him how much.

I would argue that the disinformation is a direct reply to the politicization of what can, and cannot, secure funding. There are absolutely good findings (rather a lot of them) where the right chooses to turn a blind eye. There are also a lot of things that simply cannot be researched in this political climate, because the incentives are such that anyone good at their job prefers not to become a community pariah in return for mere filthy lucre. Prestige is a lot more important than cash to most academics. If it wasn't, they would be doing something else for a living that pays better.

Is the left better than the right at the moment? Sure. See: public health, global warming, guns. Is the left playing 1950s and 1960s politics as usual? Far from it. Today's politics don't even begin to resemble an era where both parties had liberal and conservative members, and things were accomplished by working across the aisle. It's two warring tribes fighting over indivisible social issues where the positions are mutually exclusive, egged on by clickbait media on both sides funded by people who watch, and hate watch.

Converse et al were more right than they knew when they said that the public follows politics the way they follow sports teams. The basic problem is that when news went for-profit after the repeal of the equal time doctrine, both sides figured out how to give the public what they wanted. It's as if we had red and blue networks each covering the Merseyside derby. You would hear two completely different versions of reality, with truth somewhere in between.

The bold is the only point I'm trying to make. And don't care about "why" that side has felt compelled, because of a fabrication only they can know, to commit the bigger sins.

 

[Martin Alvito]

The bold is the only point I'm trying to make. And don't care about "why" that side has felt compelled, because of a fabrication only they can know, to commit the bigger sins.

The point is that the left is not free from sin, and that one thing leads to another. The moral relativism justification of "we're better than they are" excuses anything just short of the worst thing the other side ever did. That's Hatfield vs. McCoy thinking, which is never a good way to think about a problem.

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

The point is that the left is not free from sin, and that one thing leads to another. The moral relativism justification of "we're better than they are" excuses anything just short of the worst thing the other side ever did. That's Hatfield vs. McCoy thinking, which is never a good way to think about a problem.

I appreciate your idealist point of view

 

[Martin Alvito]

I appreciate your idealist point of view

I'm as cynical as they come. I also understand that in politics, for every action there is a reaction, which is usually opposite but is not always equal.

If you want to cure the disinformation problem, fighting fire with propaganda fire doesn't work. People ignore top-down information they don't agree with, as any CEO knows all too well. They know they can't twist arms all the time, because that leads to resentment, so they save that for the important stuff and otherwise just build themselves and the rest of upper management legal cover with the messaging.

As any good Russian knows, propaganda has to be cured at the grassroots level. Jon Stewart is right on this one - the way to cure the lies is to address them, in person. Jordan Klepper has done an excellent job of proving that not everyone can be reasoned with, but I'm sure he talks to more people than are represented in the set of clips he shows. He also can't reach a lot of the people that can be reached in the same way that friends and family can.

Unfortunately, what has happened in a lot of relationships is that people just spout talking points at one another, which means they talk past one another. Most of us really do have more in common than we have differences, but like the Irish during the Troubles, Americans have a hard time seeing that these days.

 

[Toffee_Loaf]

You can subscribe to "both sidesism". It's easy to do so

But to do that, it exonerates one of those sides, which has gone off the deep end with its "politics as usual", into something well beyond that.

Whereas the other side is simply playing regular 1950s and 1960s politics as usual.

That's the difference. To give the old "both sides are the same and do the same thing" trope, it fails to acknowledge the acceleration of disinformation and lack of good faith arguments that one side has perpetuated since the beginning of the right wing media echo chamber in the 80s and into the 90s

I would like to think people were capable of looking beyond this party good and this party bad. There is a core in American politics (to some extent UK with the hangers on going into the House of Lords) that never leave and serve their class at the expense of everyone else: the elites. What some call the uni-party. That they are individually, supposedly R or D politicians is irrelevant. They are the same people pushing the interests of the elites while throwing 'progressive' or 'conservative' crumbs. That they have so effectively divided the electorate by race or single issue cases is sad, but it works.

It's the same force that prevents Sanders and has relentlessly fought Trump. They hate someone that doesn't play their game, that is a loose cannon and a threat to their power.

Both sides need to see the wood for the trees. The good news is the MAGA wing of the Rs has which is why they are universally despised by the elites. Biden and Clinton hate these 'deplorables', but so do the elite Rs: McConnell, Romney, Lindsay Graham and others. There is an obvious reason why a riot on Jan6 led to enormous harassment and imprisonment from the state when nobody was killed by these 'insurrectionists' armed with flags and bibles, but riots by other groups such as BLM are ignored.

 

[JimmyJeffers]

The good news is the MAGA wing of the Rs has

 

[Pittsburgh Footy]

I would like to think people were capable of looking beyond this party good and this party bad. There is a core in American politics (to some extent UK with the hangers on going into the House of Lords) that never leave and serve their class at the expense of everyone else: the elites. What some call the uni-party. That they are individually, supposedly R or D politicians is irrelevant. They are the same people pushing the interests of the elites while throwing 'progressive' or 'conservative' crumbs. That they have so effectively divided the electorate by race or single issue cases is sad, but it works.

It's the same force that prevents Sanders and has relentlessly fought Trump. They hate someone that doesn't play their game, that is a loose cannon and a threat to their power.

Both sides need to see the wood for the trees. The good news is the MAGA wing of the Rs has which is why they are universally despised by the elites. Biden and Clinton hate these 'deplorables', but so do the elite Rs: McConnell, Romney, Lindsay Graham and others. There is an obvious reason why a riot on Jan6 led to enormous harassment and imprisonment from the state when nobody was killed by these 'insurrectionists' armed with flags and bibles, but riots by other groups such as BLM are ignored.

So you're saying you would support a communist revolution not unlike what happened in Russia in the late 20s or in Cuba?

 

[Moomin]

So you're saying you would support a communist revolution not unlike what happened in Russia in the late 20s or in Cuba?

As long as they carry bibles it will be ok apparently.

 

[Moomin]

It's amazing really.

 

[Martin Alvito]

I would like to think people were capable of looking beyond this party good and this party bad. There is a core in American politics (to some extent UK with the hangers on going into the House of Lords) that never leave and serve their class at the expense of everyone else: the elites. What some call the uni-party. That they are individually, supposedly R or D politicians is irrelevant. They are the same people pushing the interests of the elites while throwing 'progressive' or 'conservative' crumbs. That they have so effectively divided the electorate by race or single issue cases is sad, but it works.

It's the same force that prevents Sanders and has relentlessly fought Trump. They hate someone that doesn't play their game, that is a loose cannon and a threat to their power.

Both sides need to see the wood for the trees. The good news is the MAGA wing of the Rs has which is why they are universally despised by the elites. Biden and Clinton hate these 'deplorables', but so do the elite Rs: McConnell, Romney, Lindsay Graham and others. There is an obvious reason why a riot on Jan6 led to enormous harassment and imprisonment from the state when nobody was killed by these 'insurrectionists' armed with flags and bibles, but riots by other groups such as BLM are ignored.

I agree that there's an element of class warfare to our politics these days, and that racial divisions have so far precluded a realignment that would resettle the status quo in a way that would be much more favorable to most Americans.

There's an enormous difference between January 6 and other incidents of social unrest, though. It's the Capitol building. If you bust in there when Congress is engaged in certifying a presidential election, you can expect the legal system to come down on you like the wrath of God. They're lucky the treason statute is worded as narrowly as it is, and they all very easily could have been hit with twenty years for seditious conspiracy. There's a law on the books about Electoral College procedure, and every single one of them was attempting to prevent, hinder or delay the execution of that law by force.

DoJ confined that one to people where they knew they could prove it via prior written communication (or stole something), because they dislike having convictions overturned on appeal. It's not like any of them woke up that morning and said, "You know what, I'll just go take a selfie in Pelosi's office today while the cops are distracted," but a good defense attorney would direct them to lie since it can't be falsified without hard proof.

Five people did die that day - an officer who died of a stroke (most likely exacerbated by stuff the rioters sprayed him with), a rioter who was shot, two rioters who had heart attacks and one who OD'd. The inability of medical personnel to attend to those problems due to the chaos was certainly a major factor in those deaths.

 

[Toffee_Loaf]

So you're saying you would support a communist revolution not unlike what happened in Russia in the late 20s or in Cuba?

I'd prefer the French model personally. It cannot be overstated how much the elite has benefited in the last few decades whereas the middle class has been hollowed out and the poor cast as a danger both divided against one another. The influence of the elite simply cannot be measured. They purchase factions to war incessantly all the while. They manufacture lies, wars, pandemics (are people still suggesting what happened was reasonable and proportionate or has everyone now come to their senses about Covid?).

We have to change the landscape a bit at a time and that starts with removing every careerist that sells their soul to the highest bidder, that tell the lies of the powerful and protect them and their secrecy. That destroy people like Jeremy Corbyn when he emerges as a threat to them (and yes, Trump). That up hold the police state and intelligence agencies that sure as hell don't work for you and me despite their sprinklings of 'stopping terrorist attacks'. We must have a transparent society, not one that can hide behind secrets.