Aren't you late for an appointment at the weave shop, Joy? :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Kristy
Aren't you late for an appointment at the weave shop, Joy? :rolleyes:Quote:
Originally Posted by Kristy
Oh you so funny! Me love you long time.Quote:
Originally Posted by FORD
Aren't you a little old to be subscribing to this pseudo-intellectual hipster podcast shit? Are your old, decrypted white guys no longer doing it for your self-entitlement? Must be.
Anyway, fuck you for giving Ol' F A T T Y another four years.
It's only been in the last few years I've appreciated just how powerful the senate is. I had wrongly thought it was like our even less democratic 'upper house' and more like a review chamber, I didn't realize just how powerful it is. I guess this has been made more obvious by the playing of the system by Moscow Mitch. In Obamas defence during the brief window when he had the senate, the pseudo democrats didn't help him much and he was firefighting a seriously major financial crisis and did a decent job on that. If Biden gets in then it will be the same thing except way worse. Politicians always blame the last guy but in the US it really is becoming a pattern that the Republicans leaving terrible messes for the Democrats to clear up and then by the time they have they get kicked out again. :DQuote:
Originally Posted by FORD
That's probably too kind to them but still...
There is no "Republican Party" anymore. They have bowed to Don the Corrupt Con Trump. The Cowards are scared that Donny will mean tweet them so they've been sucking him off for the last 3+ years. The Republicans should be held in contempt for selling out their country for a Narcissistic, Pathological-Compulsive-Lying, Incompetent, Corrupt Buffoon.It's quite pathetic.:baby::baby:
As should slave FORD Remember, him and his terminally lazy Bernie Brat ilk also put Ol' F A T T Y in office. And they are going to do it again.Quote:
Originally Posted by Grit
You should try and also get some of your information from places other than Zoomstream media ™©
Such as what? The corporate media?Quote:
Originally Posted by Seshmeister
Besides, since the Cheetoplague, it's ALL "Zoomstream media". Even the network guys who look like they're still in the studio, usually if you look closely at the "newsroom" backdrop behind them, it's a still photo. They just have more expensive cameras than the average independent journalists.
Not quite as ridiculous as the fake crowd noise piped into the NBA games on TV, but close.
Progressives need to campaign once they get into power. At the moment they are literally campaigning for Trump. The more times you compare Biden to Trump or say that the other wing of your party are just as bad, that allows a false equivalency and makes it easy for swing voters to go with the guy that made their tax bill go down a little.
This is why Russia supports Bernie too. We tried it in Britain, take on the populist blustering bullshit incumbent with a progressive old guy on the back of a massive young movement and the Labour party got their biggest defeat since the 1920s. The tactic relies on a bunch of new people turning out to vote and they didn't. They never do,
Half the voting population stayed home in 2016, because neither of the two right wing candidates were suitable. This is separate from the relatively small number who voted for Jill Stein, Gary Johnson, or some even lesser known third party candidates, or those who wrote in somebody, either real or fictional.
If Biden wants to win this election, he has to give those people a reason to show up. Loading the DNC convention with Republicans, while limiting actual progressive speakers to Bernie & AOC (who only had a 60 second nominating speech) is NOT the approach that's going to get those votes.
"Because Cheeto Sucks" is not a campaign strategy. There should be somebody worth voting FOR, not just somebody to vote against..
And the Corbyn comparisons really don't fit, because they couldn't run the "anti-semite" lie against Bernie, or even against Biden, for that matter. It's bad enough that AIPAC tried to use it against Ilhan Omar in her primary, and it failed miserably, thank Allah!
Ford, half the population ALWAYS sit out elections, then bitch. Bernie fans make up a good proportion of those! And not just general election, counts primaries as well...Quote:
Originally Posted by FORD
Quote:
Originally Posted by FORD
There was a bigger % voter turnout at the last election than there was in Bill Clinton's 2 elections. Bernie didn't even come close in the primaries you are kidding yourself from inside a Zoombubble if you think he would have run away with it. It's a shame you only get to vote for Biden but that's just because you had a lack of talented electable candidates. You should be happy it isn't like France recently where the choice was crook v fascist. You have a choice between meh and fascist crook.
BTW the anti-semite thing wouldn't have had as big an effect as you would think, there are 1/6 as many Jews in the UK as the US by population. It was just another appalling part of his leadership but not that important electorally.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k7d4qVs0T3M
Death squad Markos is a total cunt... just like the murderers he descended from.
The title of this implies that either Trump isn't playing you people or it was one of those rare times he was wasn't lying.Quote:
Originally Posted by FORD
Who gives a fuck either way?
We do know for a fact he went to pretty extreme lengths to fuck up Biden but that doesn't mean much either because he is a fucking nutcase.
Cheeto was able to beat Hillary in Midwest states by pretending to be against predatory capitalist "free trade" bills like NAFTA/WTO/SHAFTA/etc. He couldn't have used that lie to get votes running against Bernie, because Bernie had a documented track record of ACTUALLY opposing such policies, while Hillary supported them. As did Biden.
I don't believe that any actual committed Bernie voters would have supported the Orange Imbecile, based on that issue. But I DO believe that "middle of the road" voters in those states, who more than likely have been impacted by these idiotic "trade" bills taking away their jobs, and/or some other economic ripple effect from that, sided with Trump over Hillary for that reason, where they clearly would have voted for Bernie, had he been the nominee.
And since Biden supported those bills just like Hillary did, the outcome in those states may be the same. Biden seems to be able to use that mythological "I'm just a working class kid from Scranton who took the train to work even when I was a Senator" image to fool some people, but his track record does not show him on the side of the working class all that often, and certainly not on the trade issues.
So yeah, I think Orangenfuhrer was having one of his twice a day "broken clock" moments there and actually speaking the truth. He would have a much harder time making a case for himself in those states if he were running against Bernie.
I don’t think the question is “Can the country survive another four years of Trump”. I think the question is “Can the country survive another four years?” Regardless of which side you’re on, one has to ask oneself if what’s happening in America right now is what you want your future to look like. Defund the police? Ok, why? Because Jacob Blake took 7 shots after he resisted arrest and was openly carrying a knife - video proves it, unless you believe the video was doctored. That guy made himself a bullet magnet. Tony’s Ice Cream here in my town - the NBPP showed up and were armed and threatened everyone there. They even live streamed it. So the question shouldn’t be can this country survive another four years of Trump. But can this country survive even for four more years??
I think we’re pretty much fucked. Once you let the genie out of the bottle you can’t put him back.
Donnie raises a very good point... the current direction the nation is heading is quite concerning.
It's naive to think that the guy in the White House for the last 3.5 years is the source of the troubles facing the nation. That's just not the reality, no matter what blinding filter you want to make up. We didn't just arrive here in such a short time within the slow advance of our system of government.
It's even more naive to think an establishment, career politician with 47 years of direct involvement in leading this nation to where it's at presently, will magically change the direction we're heading... That's just plain delusional foolishness.
I've never seen Bernie as a viable alternative in any of this... his socialist crap wouldn't capture independents and frankly scares most of the moderate ranks within the Democratic party. If you seriously look at his record and try to align that with the bullshit that comes out of his mouth... I don't see how anyone with an once of sense could believe the shit he's selling.
There's no reverse gear for time and the nation. As a whole though, we, the people, better get a grip on the steering wheel and get us back on a better course.
My understanding of the defund the police idea is that a large part of police work is taken up with social work because the US has less of a safety net than most other western countries. So instead of sending a pair of highly armed jumpy police officers you take some of that money and spend it on social workers and others professionals to reduce the root of the problem.
This defund the police phrase is being used to try and frighten people that Biden of all people is going to go around closing police departments and black swarms will come and take away your stuff. Its a fantasy of course but will work on some people.
Its the whole North Korea thing but done x10. Trump creates a problem and then says he is the only one that can solve it. Yeah I know there were police shootings and problems with Korea before Trump but they both got worse.
The US police kill 4 times as many people by population as the Canadian police.
The US police kill 10 times as many people by population as the French police.
The US police kill 30 times as many people by population as the UK police.
So unless there is something inherently evil about Americans that's the menu. Some gun control 1/4, lots of gun control 1/10, lots of gun control and police not routinely armed 1/30th.
As to the Zahzoo thing about it's been slow march and not Trumps fault, maybe but he's hit the accelerator. Police killing for the last 10 years were sitting around 1300 which is shocking enough but they have gone up a few hundred a year since Trump got into power which is a big jump.
We can funnel more money into those programs, but it's up to the people to take advantage of them. We're kind of there now.Quote:
Originally Posted by Seshmeister
We can put more money into the schools with the goal of bringing test scores or graduation rates up, but we can't do anything about kids who want to be disruptive and not want to learn.
Now, the militarization of the police...yeah, that could change. Not every department needs discarded military equipment. Even if it's offered for free.
one of the things that really bugs me about politicians is the way they use ideology rather than evidence to make decisions. British ones are bad for this and I think US even worse. If i was in government and I had a problem one of my first questions would be who is better at this and what do they do? The way you would deal with any other thing in your life. Hey that guitarist sounds better than me, what does he do?
Politicians hardly ever seem to do this, they treat each problem as though it's never ever happened anywhere else in the world before and then try to apply some simple ideology to it. Let the market fix Covid...
After years of listening to people bitch about the government not being able to fix roads, bridges, health care, and Social Security...and then they expect the government to fix the virus? Makes me laugh.
Yeah but you are the USA!
You used to be really good at this stuff, The USA fucking prevented a worldwide ebola pandemic, This is beyond politics right or left. Trump for whatever reason and there are a few i his mind decided to try and erase the Obama presidency,
In the same way that GW Bush did some undeniably don't care who the fuck you are or what you think empirical good stuff on aid for Africa, Obama did the same for pandemic planning, You guys should be Germany+ especially given the spread out nature of your demographics compared to Europe. Trump threw away the playbook like a child, Historians are going to destroy him, this isn't an opinion thing it's just fact.
Defund the police isn't a viable option and the current waves of violence is exactly the reasons why.
It may be a far better proposal to reform and restructure specific portions of police work, especially the non-violent elements. Turning off the funding won't fix anything without clear plans and transitions to fill the community needs.
Getting this virus under control will go a long way to helping calm shit down. Too much fear compounded by the pent up energy of the lock-downs just fired up a bunch of people with nothing better to do. Good news is science is kicking ass on therapeutics, vaccinations and treatments.
There's one main reason for all of that though.....Quote:
Originally Posted by twonabomber
And that's the fact that corporations and the inheritance rich leeches haven't paid taxes since 1980.
Biden's dumb campaign slogan of "Build Back Better" is fucking stupid, because Joe - like the other DLC "democrats" before him has no intention of rolling back the Reagan/Chimp/Cheeto tax "cuts" for the tax dodgers, and without that, you're not going to get things like needed infrastructure and a real health care system built. Harry Truman wanted a national health care system in 1947. The post-war occupying governments in Germany & Japan set up their health care systems based on the same thing Truman wanted to set up in the US. And the top marginal tax rate was still 91% then, so he had the money to do it.... but the "do nothing Republican congress" of that day blocked him.
And those guys were downright civil & friendly compared to the Republicans of today.
People look at taxes as "evil" because 40 years of right wing media programming has made them think so. Taxes are higher in other countries, but they get their money's worth. They can go to the doctor any time they need to, and won't have to risk fucking their car up on a bad road getting there. (Or take a high speed train if they don't drive, for whatever reason)
It's not just "funneling money into programs", it's redirecting money from other parts of the prison industrial complex and some studies have shown that when targeted, well run programs reduce things like poverty and drug abuse we reduce crime and save money, not spend more. On policing overall I think we need a nationwide systemic reform and reducing the number of departments via regional consolidation. The suburb I am originally from is fairly Republican and many bitch about taxes and "big government" yet if you have a plebiscite and say, "hey let's save money and consolidate our three police depts. (two village depts and one town) into one bigger town police dept. and eliminate the highly paid lieutenants and captains," and they freak out. Even if we didn't lay any cops off, they would have had to take pay cuts and ranks would have been reduced because it seems like the whole tribe were made chiefs without any indians. Relieving police of their militarized social worker duties is probably one of the biggest steps forward. Social workers, medics, and councillors are cheaper than police and we would have better outcomes with more social services and freeing up the police to solely focus on crime rather than focusing on filling prisons with nonviolent offenders.
As far as cops using deadly force inappropriately, I believe in part this is poor training mindset. My impression is that from Day 1 at the academy policemen are trained to dominate and be "dicks" and they have a 1980's marine corp basic training mentality. It fosters a poor attitude in some otherwise very good people and it brings out the utter cunt in people like Ofc. Chauvin. I do think police should have a military ethos in their training, but it should be more like a special operations intellectual ethos on counterinsurgency where they see themselves as ideally guarding and protecting the population from an outside foe rather than often times seeing themselves as overlords supervising and seeing everyone as a potential threat from a population as a whole. They should be taught to be more operationally flexible and learn to deal with situations with tact that many otherwise deal with with posturing and threat.
I think at one time this was called "community policing" but it gets lost with all the tactical quasi-military shit hoisted on American policing. There certainly is a need for police in kevlar helmets and vests carrying long arms but only in extreme situations. And at one time a lot of the "conservatives" decried the overuse of deadly force when applied against white people and when Clinton was the president in the 1990s. Ruby Ridge? Koresh and The Branch Davidians? Anyone? NWO? FEMA Camps? "Jackbooted federal police thugs" according to the late G. Gordon Liddy, a former conservative radio commentator and Watergate burglar? Anyone remember those days? It does seem like a bit of a double standard when avowed rightests get pissed when religious and white zealots die, but somehow black people deserve the extremes of force because the didn't comply...
They are same people the root cause of why we can't have nice things, competent gov't that is effective in suppressing the pandemic because we have morons that fundamentally mistrust any sort of gov't and think they should just do whatever the fuck they want. Germany and Korea suppressed their pandemics quickly and have a fraction of the deaths. They also don't have asshole militias running around protesting wearing of masks. FFS you can't sit here and complain that gov't doesn't work when you vote for the guy who dissolved the pandemic team simply because he hates the previous black president.....Quote:
Originally Posted by twonabomber
Few seem to know what defund the police actually means, and it's both those for and against it. The Camden, NJ sole example of defunding a dept. to liquidate it and start over, it actually turned out okay, but of course other county and state police took over for a while until the police were reformed, by all accounts it's better than the old one. The police unions are the biggest stumbling block because they just knee jerk-obstruct everything. Defunding the police was the workaround there but that obviously will not work everywhere...Quote:
Originally Posted by ZahZoo
You guys really think that if, in April, Trump said "wear a mask!" people would have?
I'm laughing again!
Well, he could have set a proper example by wearing one himself, which he refused to do, up until late June or so.
At the very least, he could have NOT repeatedly called it "a Chinese hoax". At least he finally dropped the "hoax" part, but it was after tens of thousands had already died.
Nobody expects Cheeto to know all the answers on this. He's not a doctor, he's not a scientist. Problem with the Orange Imbecile is that he ignores what the doctors & scientists DO say, if it in any way makes HIM look bad. And after the way he's botched the handling of this pandemic clusterfuck, it's pretty much ALL going to make him look bad, at this point (and deservedly so.)
Look at the last two nights of the RNC with his speech & Malaria's speech from the White House lawn. Hundreds of people sitting close together. Very few of them wearing masks, and nobody tested before being allowed to attend the speeches. There's no excuse for anybody - let alone the so called "leader of the free world" to be deliberately doing something so fucking stupid & reckless after 180,000 deaths in this country.
People who attended those speeches are going to die. Cheeto better hope they live in states where they can mail in their ballots in early, because odds are they will be dead (and ineligible to vote) by November 3.
Well Trump called for a boycott of Goodyear tires and one of his retard minions slashed the Goodyear tires on his truck, so...Quote:
Originally Posted by twonabomber
Funniest line of the week goes to Ivanka with 183 000 dead Americans and 30 million unemployed,
I know I shouldn't but that was genuinely LOL funny. :biggrin:Quote:
“I recognize that my dad’s communication style is not to everyone’s taste. And I know that his tweets can feel a bit unfiltered,” she added. “But the results — the results speak for themselves.”
Someone put it quite well, last year the message was 'Vote for Trump, he is an asshole but he's our asshole and gets things done'. This year it is 'Vote for Trump, he is an asshole'.
Any politician who's not an asshole generally won't hold office for long...
There are degrees of it.
Very true. There has to be something fundamentally wrong with you to want to run for office.Quote:
Originally Posted by ZahZoo
Agreed. There's a wide range of personalities and positions on the various things any politician deals with. There's no pleasing everyone and they have to make difficult decisions constantly. No matter how thoughtful, intelligent and reasonable... someone will disagree with their position and dub them an asshole...Quote:
Originally Posted by Seshmeister
To actually want to endure a Presidential campaign requires deep psychological problems and breathtaking amounts sociopathy.