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

[Tami]

Listen nobody expected anything differently. We all know you don't like him. It's not a secret. It just would be nice if you didn't have all these massive reaches to critciize him because of that bias. Especially when you don't hold the politicians you do like to anywhere near the same standard. Like it's flagarantly ridiculous to call him sexist and claim he only got involved in 2016 because he thought he could beat a woman in the primary when he was actively courting another woman to run.

It's something you just completely made up to justify your opinion.

That and I've seen you multiple times say "he doesn't have new ideas", which is just a way of spinning "he has been very consistant on the same ideas for decades that haven't been implemented that are finally getting traction".

It's fine not to like him. But you can't have it both ways. You can't just brush off criticism of other politicians you're in favor of and then hold the one you don't like to a standard so high that you just assume criticisms based off nothing. Nobody you are currently supporting would come out clean if you approached them the same way you approach him. That's something to think about.

If I wanted to, I could put together a well researched college level thesis on why Bernie Sanders would be a poor choice to be President. But I'm not interested in doing that. Like I said to Celgress, when it comes to our political choices, we each have a right to them.

Dalak is right too, once those choices are made public, they are fair game for debate and discussion. Assuming that one wants to engage in debate and discussion.

[Tami]

The Shame and Disgrace Will Linger

August 10, 1969: SAN CLEMENTE, Calif.—President Nixon accused his predecessor Lyndon Baines Johnson of complicity in the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. Speaking with reporters on the first day of a 10-day stay at his Pacific Ocean vacation home ….

Of course, that never happened. Obviously. How could it, how dare it? But had it happened, such an accusation—by a president, against a former president—would have convulsed the United States and the world. Today, President Trump accused his predecessor, Bill Clinton—or possibly his 2016 campaign opponent, former First Lady and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton—of complicity in the death of the accused sex-trafficker, Jeffrey Epstein.

Many seem to have responded with a startled shrug. What do you expect? It’s just Trump letting off steam on Twitter.

Reactions to actions by Trump are always filtered through the prism of the ever-more-widely accepted view—within his administration, within Congress, within the United States and around the world—that the 45th president is a reckless buffoon, a conspiratorial racist moron, whose weird comments should be disregarded by sensible people.

By now, Trump’s party in Congress, the members of his Cabinet, and even his White House entourage all tacitly agree that Trump’s occupancy of the office held by Washington, Lincoln, FDR, and Eisenhower must be a bizarre cosmic joke, not to be taken seriously. CNN’s Jake Tapper on August 2 quoted a “senior national security official” as saying: "Everyone at this point ignores what the president says and just does their job. The American people should take some measure of confidence in that.”

But it shouldn’t be forgotten, either, in the onrush of events. The certainty that Trump will descend ever deeper into sub-basements of “new lows” after this new low should not numb us to its newness and lowness.

Neither the practical impediments to impeachment and the Twenty-Fifth Amendment process, nor the foibles and failings of the candidates running to replace him, efface the fact that this presidency shames and disgraces the office every minute of every hour of every day. And even when it ends, however it ends, the shame will stain it still.

[worstblogever]

It's the fifth time since 2015 that I've had to profile Donald Trump for CSGOPOTD.

He is so corrupt, deranged, and incompetent that it tracks out to about 2 or 3 "moments" daily from him, or his regime to keep tabs on. When he sits down for extended interviews and starts lying at a pace of two a minute, that can exponentially make it more difficult to profile him. I busted my hump last year to try and keep up with his insanity and got through about the first year and a half of the Trump administration...

And now I'm going to tell you all that it's still not slowing down, quite the opposite. I gave myself a month... A MONTH to write and I think I'm still shy of Administration Day 700... about eight or nine months behind current events.

I'll try and play catch-up and summarize 100 day windows here and there, but all I have at this moment is Trump Timeline: Part 10- Administration Days 501-600.

[Tami]

Senate Judiciary Oversight Chair Ben Sasse in letter to AG Barr: “Every single person in the Justice Dept—from your Main Justice headquarters staff all the way to the night-shift jailer—knew this man was a suicide risk & that his dark secrets couldn’t be allowed to die with him.”

Twitter Link

[Tami]

BBC News' take on the Epstein case

Jeffrey Epstein: Financier found dead in New York prison cell

US financier Jeffrey Epstein has been found dead in his prison cell while awaiting trial on sex trafficking charges.

His body was discovered at 06:30 local time (10:30 GMT) on Saturday at a facility in New York.

Officials said his death was an apparent suicide. The FBI is investigating the incident.

Last month, shortly after he was denied bail, Epstein was found semi-conscious in his cell with injuries to his neck. He was treated at a nearby hospital, reports said, before being returned to the Metropolitan Correctional Center in New York.

The facility is considered to be one of the most secure in the country.

There are conflicting reports as to whether Epstein was placed on suicide watch following that incident, which prison officials have been investigating as a possible suicide attempt.

But US media report that, despite the apparent warning signs, the financier was not on suicide watch at the time of his death.

Politicians and other senior officials have reacted with shock, asking how Epstein's death was allowed to happen given his high-profile status and the apparent suicide attempt in July.

Michael Bromwich, a former inspector general at the justice department, called for an "immediate and comprehensive... investigation to determine who is responsible".

One union leader for federal prison workers, Joe Rojas, told NBC News that Epstein "should have been on suicide watch".

"You don't have to be a psychologist. It's common sense," he told the network on Saturday.

[Tami]

Trump threatens to retaliate against countries like Japan, Canada, Uruguay that issued travel warnings

WASHINGTON – President Donald Trump threatened undefined retaliation Friday against countries and organizations that issue travel warnings on the United States because of gun violence.

"If they did that, we'd just reciprocate," Trump said during a wide-ranging impromptu gaggle with reporters at the White House, en route to fundraisers in New York.

He added: "We are a very reciprocal nation with me as the head. When somebody does something negative to us in terms of a country, we do it to them."

Amnesty International and a growing list of countries have begun issuing warnings about travel to the United States because of gun violence, including mass shootings over the weekend in El Paso, Texas, and Dayton, Ohio.

[mathew101281]

Conspiracy theorists are that creepy, nosy neighbor that peaks through your windows and tries to come to conclusions about your family life. They don’t have a clue about what’s actually going on, but they always have an opinion.

[SuperiorIronman]

Trump threatens to retaliate against countries like Japan, Canada, Uruguay that issued travel warnings

I mean lets be real, we as a people are all kinds of fucked.
You don't have this much hatred and violence against Mexicans and spout rhetoric to make a Nazi blush while just expecting other countries to be fine with it. There was a whole World War over people who ideologically **** the bed like this.

Just be glad it's not a blanket ban.

[Tami]

Sales of bulletproof backpacks surged 200% to 300% in the wake of last week's mass shootings, companies say

Yes, we've gone there

Don't ban assault weapons, just wrap your kids up pin bulletproof backpacks and clothes (that's probably next).

CNN)With every mass shooting in the United States comes renewed fear of another.

It's a fear particularly potent among parents of young children and especially now, days away from the start of the school year. It's not unwarranted -- CNN examined 10 years of shootings on K-12 campuses and found two sobering truths: School shootings are increasing, and no type of community is spared.

Instead of letting their children choose a plastic backpack covered in Hello Kitty or Spider-Man, some parents are purchasing bags that double as shields in case kids get caught in gunfire.
Companies like Guard Dog Security, Bullet Blocker and TuffyPacks designed bulletproof backpacks to quell those concerns.

The retailers said backpack sales spike during the back-to-school season, and all three said they they saw a significant uptick in the aftermath of mass shootings.

[Tami]

“Best of Luck with the Wall” Puts the Borderlands Back in Context

In six mesmerizing minutes, Josh Begley’s short film “Best of Luck with the Wall,” produced by Field of Vision, shows a succession of satellite photographs of the border between the United States and Mexico—all nineteen hundred and fifty-four miles. As you watch, an urgent, minimalist score plays, and the complexity of the changing landscape—watery, forested, industrial, arid, desolate, suburban, populous—unfurls. Begley began the project in the summer of 2016, after being struck by the beauty of the novel “Signs Preceding the End of the World,” a crossing narrative by the Mexican writer Yuri Herrera. “It got me thinking about what it’s like for folks who make that journey,” Begley said. The Presidential campaign and Trump’s border-wall talk were at full boil, and Begley had also been thinking about how the rhetoric “reduced this vast geography to a metaphor and took it out of its own context.” It would be useful, he thought, to see what the border actually looked like.

[Tazpocalapse]

Denial is not just a river in Egypt, it is also a news network.https://www.newsweek.com/tucker-carl...y-hoax-1453134

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Trump threatens to retaliate against countries like Japan, Canada, Uruguay that issued travel warnings

Jesus Christ! What did this administration expect? Governments around the world look at mass shootings going down here with alarming regularity and are scared to death that their citizens might get caught up in the near unrelenting bloodshed, so, yeah, it’s only right that warnings be issued. They’d be doing said citizens a disservice if they didn’t. Trump needs to STFU and accept the fact this country is frighteningly dangerous and only getting worse while on his watch.

Sales of bulletproof backpacks surged 200% to 300% in the wake of last week's mass shootings, companies say

Yes, we've gone there

Don't ban assault weapons, just wrap your kids up pin bulletproof backpacks and clothes (that's probably next).

I look at this and see greedy ass vultures taking advantage of fear to make a quick buck. Meanwhile, what good would bulletproof backpacks make? You can’t wear the damn things in classrooms, and what’s to stop madmen from shooting kids in the head, in the chest, or in the legs so they’d bleed out from major arteries getting hit? Those backpacks would be absolutely useless.

[Gray Lensman]

More so that a Libertarian would throw a flag on her for democratic socialism and bank regulation...

Meanwhile, overlooking that Trump is running "smaller government concentration camps" on the border. Or that he wants "smaller government" to regulate what stories the press can say about him. Or...

I mean, even putting the morality aside (which we absolutely shouldn't), somehow Elizabeth Warren should be the better candidate for a Libertarian, hands down, even with her banking background.

For many people who fall on the Libertarian axis economic policy comes first, social a distant second. I'm the other way around, and I want my smaller government to still function. As a told one of the higher ups at the state convention a few years ago (I missed the last two since they happened when I was closing on my house and visiting my new grandniece) I'd rather pay 2 dollars in taxes for a department that functions than 1 dollar for one that doesn't. The first might lead me to think I pay too much, but the second means I got robbed.

[PwrdOn]

I mean lets be real, we as a people are all kinds of fucked.
You don't have this much hatred and violence against Mexicans and spout rhetoric to make a Nazi blush while just expecting other countries to be fine with it. There was a whole World War over people who ideologically **** the bed like this.

Just be glad it's not a blanket ban.

Frankly, I think the Trump administration just opened Americans' eyes to how the rest of the world has seen us all along. Granted, most of these countries are in no position to criticize our society given their own failings and would certainly do much worse were they handed the reins of global hegemony, but to think that America was ever some kind of universally respected big brother in a family of like minded nations is just delusional.

[Tuck]

I don't believe in pure communism because it provides no incentive for risk or reward for hard work and because it means state control on every level of society.

"Pure communism" would actually be a stateless society. It's a magic and unicorns idea, but technically that is what it is.