All Purpose News and Politics Thread Part IV: The Center Cannot Hold

[PaulBullion]

No. I want to get in the mind of what causes someone to murder 20 people with AK 47s.

Somebody drew you a picture, Karen:

There are literally straight lines between what the terrorist believes and what is repeated daily by conservative media outlets and the U.S. president.

Oddly, no lines to Grand Theft Auto.

[Tami]

Anti-Islamic tweets further imperil mainstream New Jersey Republicans

TRENTON, N.J. — New Jersey Republicans find themselves emulating President Donald Trump’s inflammatory anti-Islamic tweets, but that’s posing a problem for the party’s standing in the Garden State.

One of the tweets from the official Twitter account of the Sussex County, N.J., Republican Party called the four congresswomen who Trump had said should “go back” to the “places from which they came,” the “whores of Babble-on.” Another retweeted a series of messages that also targeted the congresswomen. And a third referred to them as the “Jihad Squad.” The account also retweeted a message that called for Americans to “eradicate Islam from every town, city, county and state in our homeland!”

The tweets — for which Sussex County Republican Chairman Jerry Scanlan took responsibility — went largely unnoticed outside of local GOP circles for well over a week. That was until several activists raised the issue at a meeting of the Sussex County Community College board of trustees, on which Scanlan sits.

The controversy went national.

By all accounts, Scanlan’s position as chairman of the Republican Party in deep-red Sussex County appears to be safe; the GOP base in New Jersey is as devoted to the president as its pro-Trump brethren in the reddest of states.

Still, the Republican Party’s influence statewide, which had been steadily diminishing for decades, continues to plummet in the post-Chris Christie era as Trump’s rhetoric has alienated voters in one of the most diverse states in the nation. That’s presented a problem for GOP leaders in New Jersey, who are aware racist and socially divisive rhetoric doesn’t play well with much of the electorate, but remain wary of alienating party stalwarts and angering Trump supporters.

[ed2962]

I blame country music.

Aw...don't start blaming country music. This stuff wasn't going on when Kenny Rogers and Dolly Parton were topping the charts.

[Jack Dracula]

People are being killed in a horrible way by AK 47 by people with little emotion. Something in the social sphere has got to be contributing to this. If not video games then what?

We all know that companies like google and facebook have been invading peoples privacy through AI machines like Suri and Amazon's Echo. Why is it so inconceivable that these video game companies are doing the same thing? Who knows. They might be intentionally making video game zombies. We don't know because government oversite in this sector and in this ever changing technology is practically none existent. Why not be sure and have someone look into it. As I posted before according to futurist Ray Kurzweil their will be computers next year that simulate the human brain. There is no way technology can get this advanced without doing human experiments.

You're desperately looking for esoteric explanations when the answers are simple and obvious. A ready access to weapons made for mass killing and a toxic male sub-culture of aggressive racism and nationalism.

Anti-Islamic tweets further imperil mainstream New Jersey Republicans

It's interesting how Trump fuels anti-Islamic hysteria but cuddles up so hard with Saudi Arabia. I wonder if he really understands how large a part they play in destabilizing the middle east.

[SuperiorIronman]

No. I want to get in the mind of what causes someone to murder 20 people with AK 47s. We know that recently these shooters post online manifestos on sites like 4chan so they're a new breed of racists who are using technology as a tool for their white supremacy. So there is a pattern there. And if there's a pattern the FBI can weed these mentally ill racists out using an algorithm. Also you only need to do a simple internet search for AK47 in video games to see how popular it is. Imo if you are against the NRA and guns you should definently be against kids killing people virtually using AK 47s. Imo this is totally unacceptable and should be banned.

How old are you? Because nobody in this day and age should immediately point the finger at videogames and say that this creates murderers. How many people need to die before you people admit that right-wing radicalization is happening?
What goes into creating a murderer, a terrorist, or a serial killer is so much more complicated than a guy who plays videogames. People have hobbies. How would you even test this when videogames are as commonplace as cable TV or a Bible? Especially so when the software can vary wildly and affect people under different circumstances and contexts. I've played my fair share of Call of Duty and Ghost Recon, that didn't turn me into a murderer.

The AK-47 rifle is also highly reliable which is why it's so commonplace. It can take a beating and is relatively easy to take apart, it's range isn't all that impressive but people keep using it because it's the most reliable weapon people can get. It's so commonplace that it shows up in most shooter games for that very reason. It's not because an AK-47 is the work of the devil or that there's an agenda by the developers, it's a commonplace assault rifle and so it shows up.
But that all being said, you still have to get one, and you still have to prove the software can make somebody do that. Which you haven't done at all and made the broad statement that software that is considered a "shooter" will cause somebody to kill dozens or more people. People in this thread and even the vidogame sub-forum will disagree with that statement for the obvious reason.

The trend is that right-wing radicalization keeps happening to disturbed individuals who are looking for an excuse to vent that blood-lust. I don't know why it's so hard to understand but my guess is just denial.

[Tami]

You're desperately looking for esoteric explanations when the answers are simple and obvious. A ready access to weapons made for mass killing and a toxic male sub-culture of aggressive racism and nationalism.

I'm curious as to where in the country the El Paso shooter came from? I'm also curious as to where or how he squired his weapons. If I come up with any answers, I'll share it.

[Jack Dracula]

I'm curious as to where in the country the El Paso shooter came from? I'm also curious as to where or how he squired his weapons. If I come up with any answers, I'll share it.

I heard on NPR this morning that he actually lives in the Dallas area. He traveled all the way to El Paso specifically to mass murder. It's strange and makes me wonder if he was directed there for some reason.

[PwrdOn]

You're desperately looking for esoteric explanations when the answers are simple and obvious. A ready access to weapons made for mass killing and a toxic male sub-culture of aggressive racism and nationalism.



It's interesting how Trump fuels anti-Islamic hysteria but cuddles up so hard with Saudi Arabia. I wonder if he really understands how large a part they play in destabilizing the middle east.

B-but muh eCoNoMiC AnXiEtY...

Also, the US-Saudi relationship is taking a page straight out of the British Empire playbook. Empower a small group of corrupt local elites to rule on your behalf while keeping the masses poor and powerless, so that your puppets will inevitably be hated by their own people and are entirely dependent on your military and economic support to stay in power. Meanwhile, you have plausible deniability for all of their oppressive policies, and can act shocked and appalled in the international sphere while dodging the inevitable truth that actual freedom and democracy over there would seriously hamper your resource extraction operations. The Saudis serve our interests well precisely because the rest of the Arab world despises them and thus they could never be at the head of a strong and unified Middle East that would stand up for their own interests, as long as they are the top dogs over there the region will be fractured and unstable, which is perfect for us.

[aja_christopher]

Get over the "moderate" vs. "progressive" nonsense and focus on the real problem at hand.

[PaulBullion]

That kind of messaging is organized.

[Tami]

Sen. Bernie Sanders: "I think all over the world people are looking at the United States and wondering what is going on, what is the mental health situation in America where time after time after time we're seeing indescribable horrors."

Twitter Link

Does sound a bit Republican?

[Tami]

‘Soft targets’: Rick Santorum suggests unarmed Walmart shoppers were at fault in mass shooting

Conservative CNN contributor Rick Santorum suggested on Sunday that Walmart shoppers in El Paso could have avoided being shot if they had been carrying guns.

During a CNN segment on the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, Santorum argued that polls showing support for gun control were wrong.

“And what you see from the shootings that take place, several of them this year, which is law-abiding people — not police — but other law-abiding people come and stop these things,” Santorum added. “Because they have the right to own guns. So taking that right away from law-abiding people doesn’t do anything to reduce the amount of crime and can make things worse.”

According to Santorum, victims of the shooting at a Walmart in El Paso were “soft targets” if they were not armed.

And not s single person exchanged gunfire with the Shooter, even though Texas has very open, relaxed gun laws.

[mogwen]

It seems he posted a racist manifesto on 8chan, seems very Qanon to me! I wait for confirmation. We don't have much info on the Dayton shooter for the moment except that he wore body armor.
Would be very telling the same week FBI warns of the dangers of right-wing terrorism and conspiracy theorists!

[Kal-El Summers]

There's a collage of non-white mass shooters being posted by MAGAs and bots in response to any reporters or news feeds that dares bring up white nationalist terrorism and the tragedies of El Paso and Dayton. It feels like this is literally never going to end and that terrifies me.

[Electricmastro]

There's a collage of non-white mass shooters being posted by MAGAs and bots in response to any reporters or news feeds that dares bring up white nationalist terrorism and the tragedies of El Paso and Dayton. It feels like this is literally never going to end and that terrifies me.

Regardless of the skins colors of the shooters, I thought Obama summed it up very well when, no matter how much science, data, and evidence you use, any sort of proposal to sell guns more responsibly is shot down as a threat to the 2nd amendment.