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

[aja_christopher]

It's all fine and good to say these things afterward, but there certainly wasn't much of a movement on the left to call him out back then. Dissent existed, but compared to the outrage over Bush and Trump it might as well have not existed at all. The silence was deafening.

Completely false -- many on the "left" complained about both Obama's treatment of immigrants and his handling of drone attacks while he was in office so there was no "silence" on the issue.

There may not have been as much dissent as we see with Trump, but people definitely weren't silent on the "left" about these issues, and they were certainly more outspoken at the time than those on the "right" with regards to Trump's current openly malicious treatment of immigrants. Moreover, "deporter in chief" Obama likewise promoted DACA and a pathway to citizenship in his immigration efforts, while Trump calls immigrants "rapists and criminals" and does his best to treat them as such.

One could even argue that the real hypocrisy is on the "right" in that respect -- illegal immigration dropped sharply under the Obama administration, yet you see people here still trying to claim that Democrats are for "open borders" in a weak effort justify Trump's behavior.

That said, the reason there was less "outrage" over Obama than over Trump is because Trump is intentionally separating children from their families as a deterrent and refusing to provide immigrants with things like soap, toothpaste and basic medical care.

The amount of "outrage" is directly related to the intentional cruelty towards immigrants espoused by both Republicans and the Trump administration -- the more outrageous the action (like intentional cruelty towards children or starting the Iraq War on false pretenses), the more people will respond to it.

[Kirby101]

Fox News Host Tyrus Sent Lewd Text Messages To Colleague: ‘Pull Your Boobs Out’

Fox News split up Tyrus and his former Fox Nation co-host, Britt McHenry, after he sent her the messages. But he still works at the network. Business as usual in the sewer that's Faux News.

I think "pull your boobs out" is what they call the morning show on FoxNews.

[Kirby101]

What the heck. Normally I wouldn't add this since it's just an un-provable assertion about my past actions, but you asked, so I'll pick up the slack and answer: I absolutely DID speak out about this under the Obama administration. The same way I spoke out against his continuations of Bush-era policies, wars, escalation of drone strikes, his unforgivable domestic surveillance programs, and persecution of whistle-blowers. During the Bush years I was consistently against the war in Iraq (really anti-war in general) and I continued to be when Obama was elected and the anti-war left went into hibernation for 8 years. I spoke out against all of those things, including the detention of children at the border, as did many others, but nobody listened. None of my formerly anti-war left friends seemed to care because Obama was being treated like a saint when in reality he was just another establishment politician.

I spoke about these things and was met with a palpable wall of willful ignorance and silence.

Now I get to read a diatribe about how people like me never spoke up, written by the type of person who never LISTENED when others WERE speaking up and it's infuriating.

I mean, you know, since you asked.

Except a quick fact check of child separation under Obama shows it was rare and in no way like what Trump is doing. "Both Sides" did not do it.

https://www.google.com/search?client...on+under+obama

[Tendrin]

Some posts in response to Spike-X have a whiff of 'not all men' style defensiveness to them.

[PwrdOn]

In Australia, at least, it seems to me that the Labor Party are losing votes because they're trying too hard to appeal to Liberal Party* voters, because they don't seem to realize that those voters already have a party to vote for.

What's the point of putting yourself up as an alternative if you're not actually going to be one?


* Actually the opposite of what it sounds like. Basically Republican-lite.

This trend of supposedly left leaning parties constantly running to the right seems like less of an electoral strategy and more simple self-preservation. Being that most of these parties are still being run largely by old, wealthy, well-connected white guys, they just fear that the progressives will go after them once the right has been deal with. Of course, the fallacy here is the assumption that left wingers are out to "get" people when really all we want is a more fair and equitable society, which sure, may result in some people seeing their quality of life going down as they lose their unearned privileges, but which pales in comparison to what right wingers and even moderates are perfectly fine doing to people on a daily basis, as long as "their" people are protected.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I think "pull your boobs out" is what they call the morning show on FoxNews.

Really? And here I was thinking it was 'Fox & Fiends'. My bad. Meanwhile, this Tyrus oaf used to be a wrestler in the WWE stable, so it's a given he'd be a knuckledragging misogynist, making him feel right at home on Faux News. That said, I hope McHenry wasn't surprised that gorilla acted the way he did.

[ed2962]

This trend of supposedly left leaning parties constantly running to the right seems like less of an electoral strategy and more simple self-preservation. Being that most of these parties are still being run largely by old, wealthy, well-connected white guys, they just fear that the progressives will go after them once the right has been deal with. Of course, the fallacy here is the assumption that left wingers are out to "get" people when really all we want is a more fair and equitable society, which sure, may result in some people seeing their quality of life going down as they lose their unearned privileges, but which pales in comparison to what right wingers and even moderates are perfectly fine doing to people on a daily basis, as long as "their" people are protected.

This unfortunately is what we're seeing with Pelosi taking pot shots at AOC, etc...

[WestPhillyPunisher]

This unfortunately is what we're seeing with Pelosi taking pot shots at AOC, etc...

Exactly. For all the praise heaped on Pelosi for having stared down Trump and publicly making him look like a colossal fool regarding the shutdown, I think she screwed the pooch here. Pelosi's needlessly arrogant and dismissive attitude towards AOC and other progressives was to me, wholly unpleasant and showed the sort of defensiveness towards the old school patriarchy that put her in power, and she clearly doesn't like upstarts challenging her place at the top of the food chain. I already mentioned this earlier in the week, Pelosi's hamfisted attempt at putting AOC and company in their place could well backfire on her and the party if supporters of those progressives choose to turn their back on the Dems because of how their elected representatives were treated.

[worstblogever]

Fox News Host Tyrus Sent Lewd Text Messages To Colleague: ‘Pull Your Boobs Out’

Fox News split up Tyrus and his former Fox Nation co-host, Britt McHenry, after he sent her the messages. But he still works at the network. Business as usual in the sewer that's Faux News.

They learned absolutely NOTHING from the Ailes/Bill O'Reilly scandals. Then again, that network hasn't exactly shown a capacity for having a learning curve since its inception. They currently have 3 shows dedicated to white nationalists editorializing.

Completely false -- many on the "left" complained about both Obama's treatment of immigrants and his handling of drone attacks while he was in office so there was no "silence" on the issue.

Seriously. Yesterday I literally had just posted the link to the article about House Democrats publicly criticizing their own president for temporary detention centers being created for migrants seeking asylum hearings. I mean, apparently it's "deafening silence" if it makes the New York Times.

And also, the Obama administration wasn't then cramming those facilities so full there wasn't room to sleep, forcing women to drink out of toilets, locking children in cars for 39 hours, having children die in custody, ripping families apart and then shrugging when asked by courts to return the children...

You get the idea. The Obama administration tried a solution that was less than ideal. The Trump administration went, "We'd like to do that, but while being completely devoid of empathy for human beings, a lot more, and really terrible, but also downright cruel and sometimes lethal."

[Gray Lensman]

Exactly. For all the praise heaped on Pelosi for having stared down Trump and publicly making him look like a colossal fool regarding the shutdown, I think she screwed the pooch here. Pelosi's needlessly arrogant and dismissive attitude towards AOC and other progressives was to me, wholly unpleasant and showed the sort of defensiveness towards the old school patriarchy that put her in power, and she clearly doesn't like upstarts challenging her place at the top of the food chain. I already mentioned this earlier in the week, Pelosi's hamfisted attempt at putting AOC and company in their place could well backfire on her and the party if supporters of those progressives choose to turn their back on the Dems because of how their elected representatives were treated.

I've noticed that too - you can't call for unity when you throw shade at every single opportunity. AOC and the rest of the squad may not have a lot of votes in the chamber, but lean too hard in public dismissal and you might de-energize the progressive voters just in time for the most important election in American history. I'd say that's a dubious place in the history books Pelosi is in danger of having, but let's face it, if Trump wins, Pelosi won't be in any history books.

And I consider this the most important election we may ever have in this country - Democracy itself is on the ballot this time around.

[worstblogever]

Really? And here I was thinking it was 'Fox & Fiends'. My bad. Meanwhile, this Tyrus oaf used to be a wrestler in the WWE stable, so it's a given he'd be a knuckledragging misogynist, making him feel right at home on Faux News. That said, I hope McHenry wasn't surprised that gorilla acted the way he did.

And we all know what a great track record WWE has with female employees and sexual harassment. Hell, Randy Orton alone... there's at least two reported incidents, one with Rochelle Loewen and one with Kelly Kelly. There's also recently been the reports in the wake of Ashley Massaro's suicide that WWE higher-ups (Vince & Linda McMahon) pressured her to hush up that she was sexually assaulted on an overseas tour and covered the whole thing up.

It's the perfect workplace to prepare someone for Fox News.

[worstblogever]

This unfortunately is what we're seeing with Pelosi taking pot shots at AOC, etc...

I'm thinking AOC and the young guns might be pressuring the leadership to finally move the Overton window LEFT.

Considering we're at the right arguing for concentration camps for immigrant children, I have zero issue with that.

[InformationGeek]

My mom fucking called it. "He's gone before the end of the week."

Labor Secretary Alexander Acosta is resigning from President Donald Trump’s Cabinet amid scrutiny of his handling of a secret 2008 plea deal with financier Jeffrey Epstein, who’s been accused of sexually abusing underage girls.

[JackDaw]

They learned absolutely NOTHING from the Ailes/Bill O'Reilly scandals. Then again, that network hasn't exactly shown a capacity for having a learning curve since its inception. They currently have 3 shows dedicated to white nationalists editorializing.



Seriously. Yesterday I literally had just posted the link to the article about House Democrats publicly criticizing their own president for temporary detention centers being created for migrants seeking asylum hearings. I mean, apparently it's "deafening silence" if it makes the New York Times.

And also, the Obama administration wasn't then cramming those facilities so full there wasn't room to sleep, forcing women to drink out of toilets, locking children in cars for 39 hours, having children die in custody, ripping families apart and then shrugging when asked by courts to return the children...

You get the idea. The Obama administration tried a solution that was less than ideal. The Trump administration went, "We'd like to do that, but while being completely devoid of empathy for human beings, a lot more, and really terrible, but also downright cruel and sometimes lethal."

Ultimately whether O’Bama’ admin did similar is a complete red herring.

People need to make a judgment call now if the Trump administrations actions are acceptable in the overall circumstances applying today.

The way the people trying to get into USA are being treated MIGHT be acceptable if USA was fighting a war, or desperately shortly of resources. Neither of those apply...what’s being done is cruel and unjustified, and IF O’Bama’s administration did do similar, it was wrong then as well.

( I do, of course, accept USA has right to decide who qualifies for permanent residency. But feel process of doing that could be done in a more humane way.)

[Kirby101]

What's with the O'Bama'?