All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!(Part II)

[InformationGeek]

...is it just me, or does the judge not sound... impressed by this case? He seems to have a problem with Mueller's team.



Also, Alex Jones lost his Pinterest account. ...no, I don't know why he had one, but it's gone now.

[Malvolio]

"We need to keep the inhumane racists of the past in high regard to appease the racists of today" might be the worst take in an age of terrible takes. Congratulations.

Why do they still revere the Confederacy so much in the South? I mean, they lost! You don't see statues of Nazis in Germany or statues of fascists in Spain or Italy. Hell, what's one of the first things they did in Iraq after Bush declared victory? That's right, they took down the statue of Saddam Hussein! Only in the American South do they still prop up the leaders of the "Great Lost Cause."

But we know what it's really all about, don't we? They did take down the Confederate flags and statues right after the War. It was only during the Civil Rights era that they started bringing back those flags and statues. Make no mistake; it was about segregation then and it's about the alt-right now but it's the same "White Pride" bullshit it always was.

[skyvolt2000]

Oh, and as for the "peaceful protesters" who stand by fascists... well, if you go to a rally because you're tired of regulations that make things tougher for your non-existent small business, but when you get to the rally, you find that the people in front are waving swastikas, and you don't immediately say, "Hey, let's get out of here before anyone starts to think we're just like those guys waving swastikas," you shouldn't be surprised or call foul when the rest of us assume that you're a Nazi sympathizer. You don't want to be associated with fascists? DON'T ASSOCIATE WITH FASCISTS!

Gee you could say the same about a certain comic book faction.

My school district decided to rename schools that have confederate names. Folks did not like it. Guess what you didn't see-swastikas and all that nonsense.

They were able to state their points- cost of changing signs on the school-off line & online, redoing maps and "you are not changing history by removing that stuff." Yet they were all CIVIL. No one attacked the kids at those schools who were asked to choose a new name for the schools (about 4 of them). Heck many of them loved the new names. Yet they were still CIVIL and no one had to fight.

If one can not explain their stance without buzz words of racism or insults-don't get mad when you get lumped in with the rest.

ANd those Fascist might want to check WHO is the real villain in all this.

[Brian Cronin]

For the most part, what's his name's posts, while certainly ill-informed, weren't necessarily over the line, but ugh, over and over again, it just got too much, so I got rid of him. He can go rile up folks somewhere else.

[Mecegirl]

...is it just me, or does the judge not sound... impressed by this case? He seems to have a problem with Mueller's team.

Weird right? I think he thinks that he has to push hard against them in order to combat public opinion weighing in on this case.

[Tendrin]

For the most part, what's his name's posts, while certainly ill-informed, weren't necessarily over the line, but ugh, over and over again, it just got too much, so I got rid of him. He can go rile up folks somewhere else.

Thank you.

[Tazirai]

Who would have guessed that ROM Spaceknight was a Social Democrat from a Democratically Socialist society lol. I love how the Right thinks all these "Social" issues are somehow "New".

People have wanted these things for YEARS!

[Handsome men don't lose fights]

Mr. Mets: Thank you for being a sane conservative. I look forward to the day when everyone in your party goes back to acting like you. My mental image of you is that of an elderly British gentleman in a tweed jacket with patches on the elbow, sleeping in an armchair by a fireplace.

That's all.

[zinderel]

Okay, nice to know that you support assaulting people who even consider listening to opinions other than yours.

Only when those opinions are things like "America needs to be ethnically cleansed of non-whites" or "Gays deserve to be murdered" or "Black people aren't really human" or....you get my drift. Those people deserve to get punched back into their hole, and so does anyone who tries to cast those statements as "just differing opinions"...

Edit: Oh, well. Responding to a banned guy. Eh...still good to clarify, in case it comes up again.

[Kal-El Summers]

Why do they still revere the Confederacy so much in the South? I mean, they lost! You don't see statues of Nazis in Germany or statues of fascists in Spain or Italy. Hell, what's one of the first things they did in Iraq after Bush declared victory? That's right, they took down the statue of Saddam Hussein! Only in the American South do they still prop up the leaders of the "Great Lost Cause."

But we know what it's really all about, don't we? They did take down the Confederate flags and statues right after the War. It was only during the Civil Rights era that they started bringing back those flags and statues. Make no mistake; it was about segregation then and it's about the alt-right now but it's the same "White Pride" bullshit it always was.

It pretty much goes back to how half-assed the Reconstruction was. If the South was treated like Germany or Japan post-WWII, things would be a LOT different down here probably.

[zinderel]

I'm ok with all the rest of it - but not the property damage. Whether the store owners insured or not, It seems like a bad idea when the very thing people are trying to do is generate public support.

Antifa are - generally - also anarchists and/or socialists. Thus, they believe that 'personal property' is nonsense. Thus, breaking a window is a crime with literally no victims, and is a far, far better tactic than breaking a face. A window can be replaced, and frankly, since corporations have enough money that they can buy and sell politicians, they can afford to replace a broken window, or a burned out trash can. Especially when that window was broken, or that fire was set, as a distraction that takes advantage of police procedure and saves other protesters from police brutality and possible death.

Now, to be clear, 'no private property' doesn't mean that I can walk into your house, take the book you are reading and the food you are preparing, and walk out without you getting a say. Autonomy is a HUGE deal to anarchists, and if you are using a thing, and someone tries to take that thing, then you are well within your rights to defend yourself. It just means that, hey, we all own the land, we all benefit when homes have people in them and those people interact and become a community rather than building fences and locking doors and worrying about if they have enough stuff, or if their neighbors stuff is better than their own or...

Look, if you are not reading a book, and your neighbor wants to read it, why not just give him the book instead of letting it languish on your bookshelf? If you are preparing food for your family and you have enough to share, what harm is there in sharing the extra rather than hording it in your fridge to bee thrown out in two weeks? Private property is a construct that makes those WITH property more valuable and thus 'better' than those without. It's both a reality - if I buy something, it becomes mine, and no one elses, because the social contract we live under says so - and a problem - If I buy that land, and those houses, and these jets, and these cars, and this politician, they are mine, because the social contract we live under says so.

So, philosophically, I can say that shattering a window instead of a face is a far better tactic when you understand the motivations behind it, and it gets people talking about things like property, and value, and inevitably, hording of resources.

[Tendrin]

Abolish ICE. Abolish private prisons.

A protest campaign targeting for-profit detention company GEO Group with numerous nationwide actions at facilities connected to President Donald Trump’s ramped-up deportations has been threatened with legal action by the company’s high-powered litigators.
Dream Defenders, a Florida-based immigration advocacy organization, received a stern cease-and-desist letter from the company’s lawyers on Friday, four days ahead of a series of planned protests headed by the group at company facilities.
The legal threat is odd on a number of levels, not least of which is that one of the group’s highest-profile successes to date would seem to involve putting money back into GEO Group’s pocket rather than harming its bottom line. The state Democratic Party in Florida recently agreed to stop taking donations from companies like GEO after pressure from the group, taking one potential line item off GEO’s anticipated expenses. The state parties in New York and California have made similar commitments, group leader Rachel Gilmer said in an interview.
But the strangeness of the argument in the letter is far more fundamental, and almost nitpickingly existentialist in nature. The letter’s core logic is that GEO Group can’t be accused of “caging” people and “separating families” because while their staff and material are used to perform those tasks, the driving willpower behind them is governmental. If that seems like a familiar and unpersuasive argument from security service professionals connected to state conduct widely derided on moral grounds, that’s because it’s a rationale with a long history. As the Dream Defenders noted in their response letter, it’s akin to the so-called Nuremberg Defense proferred by Nazi functionaries after World War 2.
“GEO’s cries that befehl ist befehl (an order is an order) will not do,” the group wrote in its response.

https://thinkprogress.org/geo-group-...source=twitter

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump’s Wall Could Run Up Billions In Unforeseen Costs, Watchdog Report Warns

The Government Accountability Office said the Trump administration is not using realistic construction estimates. Gee whiz! What a shock! Never saw THAT coming! (said with tongue firmly in cheek)

**********

Don Lemon: Donald Trump ‘Traffics In Racism And Is Fueled By Bullying’

The president “divides by race and tries to conquer decency by smearing and besmirching the truth and the people who fight to uphold it.” Well said, Mr. Lemon!

**********

After Years Of Alex Jones’ Right-Wing Conspiracy Theories, Why Now?

Many wonder what took tech companies such as Apple, Facebook and YouTube so long to act against Jones and Infowars. Perhaps because those companies enjoyed the traffic Jones produced. Meanwhile....

**********

Alex Jones Begs Donald Trump For Help After He’s Dumped By YouTube, Spotify And Facebook

The notorious conspiracy theorist suggests Trump make his media problems a major issue in the 2018 campaign. I suspect Trump will leave Jones to twist in the wind and ignore him.

**********

Pastor Blames California Wildfires On State’s Embrace Of LGBTQ Rights

California is “leading the pack to legitimize the sin of homosexuality,” said Colorado’s Kevin Swanson. Reason #123,456 why I have no use for religion because of **** like this.

[JCAll]

...is it just me, or does the judge not sound... impressed by this case? He seems to have a problem with Mueller's team.

I imagine if I was the guy put in charge of this nightmare, I'd be pretty sour too.

[numberthirty]

I imagine if I was the guy put in charge of this nightmare, I'd be pretty sour too.

I'd imagine that any judge tasked with this would try to keep the "Gopher Rodeo" aspect of it to a minimum, and keep the whole thing moving along.