All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[SquirrelMan]

All you need to know:

Reporter asks Trump a question about reports of increased domestic violence.
Trump: Mexican violence?
Reporter: Domestic violence.
Trump: Oh.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

The cruise industry will never come back the way it used to be. They suffered the double whammy of being horrible for the environment and actually killing their customers.

I am willing to eat my words later if I turn out to be wrong, but I think investing in cruise lines would be a huge mistake.

They are legit trading at under 10 dollars, over the last 5 years they traded around to 45 to 55 dollars steadily. The last time it was this low was in the mid 1990’s. There’s no way those industries are completely tanking. Even if it’s two years from now and that stock is going to hit at least the 20’s or 30’s again even if it never hits its heights of the last decade or so.

It’s incredible value right now. Definitely a longer play. But unless you think those massive companies go completely under, it’s not a lot of risk right now and it only needs to get to half of where it was to double your money

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

If anything it'll be even worse.

Exactly. This is precisely the time people take advantage of the market. That’s why I’m letting people know now that if they have anything they can put away, now is the time.

[PaulBullion]

Exactly. This is precisely the time people take advantage of the market. That’s why I’m letting people know now that if they have anything they can put away, now is the time.

Can we sue you later if your financial advice turns out to be a pile of steaming crap?

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Can we sue you later if your financial advice turns out to be a pile of steaming crap?

Yes just file your suit with “Knight of the Lake” as the defendant please for legal purposes

[Kirby101]

A safer bet is now, or when you feel this has bottomed. Just put $ into a stock index fund. That usually does as well or better than picking stocks.

[Tami]

Trump has openly said that he wants the economy to collapse. This is not incompetence, it is malice. Thirty seconds into this @gaslitnation
clip is a clip of Trump saying it in 2014:

Twitter Link with audio clip

[Kirby101]

The attack that Biden is just a "return to normalcy" seems to be the new party line among Sanders supporters. They don't understand that a return to normalcy sounds pretty good to most voters right now.

[Tami]

Fauci gets security detail after receiving threats

The government's top infectious disease doctor, Anthony Fauci, is now receiving security protection after becoming the face of the nation's coronavirus response — and a target of some supporters of President Donald Trump.

Health department leaders moved to give Fauci an armed security detail by last weekend after the 79-year-old immunologist received unspecified threats and uninvited attention, although the process took several days, said two individuals with knowledge of the decision.

HHS Secretary Alex Azar had grown concerned about the growing online attacks against Fauci — whose profile has soared since he started regularly flanking Trump at White House coronavirus briefings, where he occasionally corrects the president — and asked the department to conduct a threat assessment. The decision was then conveyed to the Justice Department, which approved the request to deputize security for Fauci.

[Surf]

Trust is a strong word... Maybe more of a strong assurance of sorts is the best I got for Dr. Fauci.

I can say that it's far and away, the most confidence I have had of ANYBODY, EVER, having even stood next to Trump in a government setting though. Him needing 'extra' security is disheartening.

[PaulBullion]

In such circumstances, investors should maintain social distancing from the coronavirus bear market. If you go shopping for stocks, you're taking a risk. And unlike groceries, you don't actually need to buy stocks every few days.

https://www.investors.com/market-tre...amazon-dexcom/

[TheDarman]

Sanders argues for the postponement of the Wisconsin primary away from its original April 7th date. Democrats break with their Governor, but Republicans and the Governor insist on having the election. The two sides are split, though, on increasing access to voting through vote-by-mail procedures.

I see a lot of cynical people on Twitter claiming it is because Sanders is underwater in the state by thirty points. However, the demographic most likely to shy away from engaging at the polls as a result of this are those who would be more likely to vote for Biden. And, unlike any of the states that held primaries on March 24th, Wisconsin has a statewide “stay-at-home” order. This is a bad look. They really should postpone until at least May.

[Tendrin]

The attack that Biden is just a "return to normalcy" seems to be the new party line among Sanders supporters. They don't understand that a return to normalcy sounds pretty good to most voters right now.

A lot of them say things like 'scratch a liberal and a fascist bleeds', which is pretty much repurposed right-wing rhetoric. Another popular one is 'normalcy is just MAGA for liberals'."

Both of these statements show why a certain segment of these folks aren't good at winning elections.

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day posted profiles of the current U.S. House Representative for Missouri’s 4th District, Vicky Hartzler, who returned to politics in 2010 after taking about a decade off to become one of the most rabidly anti-gay activists in the United States, if not the globe. Hartzler campaigned for Missouri to pass a law to outlaw same sex marriage, once upon a time, has compared same sex marriage to incest, and railed against the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”, suggesting that the United States military should house gay soldiers in separate quarters from the straight ones. After the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling, Hartzler released a statement that she would “continue to champion marriage as the union between one man and one woman so every child has the opportunity to have both a mom and a dad”, indicating she doesn’t understand that parenting is something gay people can do, as well. Hartzler has also gone on social media to call climate change a hoax, has repeatedly perpetrated the myth that the Affordable Care Act would lead to “healthcare rationing”, went on record to say she has doubts about President Obama’s birth certificate, furthered the Center for Medical Progress’ crusade against Planned Parenthood by insisting the organization was “selling baby parts”, creating the false history that our Founding Fathers were pro-life, and has warned Americans that China is spying on us by hiding secret microchips in our toasters. Because that doesn’t make her sound like a paranoid whack-job, right?

Now, on a day-to-day basis, the United States is currently at the mercy of whatever brain-addled decision Donald Trump makes, and his own Cabinet and advisers often seem surprised when he’s pushed in a direction politically by whatever he sees on Fox and Friends, social media, or the last person in the room who talks. That’s a part of why military advisers were baffled when Donald Trump announced a ban on transgender troops back in July of 2017. But what motivated him to suddenly come up with such a policy? Most guessed it might have been Vice President Pence in his ear, but after some digging, it was determined that Trump was getting a lot of pressure from Congresswoman Hartzler to ban transgendered troops, as she lied (and continues to lie to the public) about “excessive medical costs” of sex-change surgery, because she just loathes anyone who isn’t straight.

“I think we raised the awareness for people all across this country of this failed Obama policy that had been inflicted on our military last year and the dangers to both our readiness as well as our ability to spend our precious defense dollars to meet the threat.”

This came on the heels of Rep. Hartzler having released a statement in June of 2016 where she compared transgendered soldiers to ISIS, North Korea, and Vladimir Putin, calling our own LGBTQ service members a “domestic threat”:

“At a time when we should be focusing on the threats from North Korea, and Putin, and ISIS, we’re having to deal with a threat here at home — a domestic threat — of allowing transgenders in our service, which is a real problem because it impacts their readiness, and it’s a huge cost for our military.”

In 2018, Hartzler won re-election with 64% of the vote to her House seat for Missouri’s 4th District thanks to its +13 Republican lean in the Cook Partisan Voting Index. She was so brave that she decided to skip out on having actual town halls with her constituents, and instead, has taken to having aides screen phone calls from chosen supporters who were allowed less than three minutes to ask a question, and absolutely no follow-up questions.

Other than her determination to be a homophobic and transphobic bigot, her voting record is still despicable:

• January 22nd, 2019: Hartzler cannot be arsed to bother to vote against HR 676, which would prevent Donald Trump from doing the unthinkable and walking away from our allies in NATO to appease the Russians.
• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Hartzler also passes on voting for HR 648, completely uninterested in ending the longest government shutdown in history.
• February 28th, 2019: Vicky Hartzler votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Hartzler votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
• April 4th, 2019: Vicky Hartzler is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act, likely because they feel the 2nd Amendment remaining absolute is more important than preventing people with a history of domestic abuse from owning a firearm (which statistics show, makes them more likely to use those firearms against women in their lives).
• May 17th, 2019: Hartzler votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Hartzler can’t be arsed to vote for the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 16th, 2019: Vicky Hartzler votes against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
  https://www.dailykos.com/stories/201...paign=trending
• December 18th, 2019: Rep. Hartzler ignores her Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump.

Vicky Hartzler is currently gearing herself up to follow in the footsteps of Phyllis Schlafly, arguing against current efforts to revive the Equal Rights Amendment by making bizarre claims to tie it towards abortion or gender identity. We don’t know at what point Missouri’s 4th decides that maybe they would be better off voting for someone who does little to nothing for them, and only seems to get excited when it’s time to do whatever harm she can to the LGBTQ community… but we hope it’s some time around 2020.

[PwrdOn]

The attack that Biden is just a "return to normalcy" seems to be the new party line among Sanders supporters. They don't understand that a return to normalcy sounds pretty good to most voters right now.

That's exactly the problem though, normalcy SOUNDS good, but a normal America is still a deeply racist, highly unequal society and there has never been a time when it has not been like that. Is there any reason to believe that a President Biden would have handled this virus any better than Trump has? He doesn't seem to be offering many helpful suggestions right now.