All purpose news and politics thread part v: The quickening

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Maybe this would be a good time to remind everyone that Blasey Ford was not Kavanaugh's only accuser. She was the only one called to testify by the farce that McConnell and Grassley presided over after burying the rest of the accuser's reports.

Comparing him to Biden is ludicrous.

Do you want to go into each one?

There were 4 including Ford who came to light in the whole process. One was Swetnick. She didn’t accuse him of anything. She accused him of being at a party where other people allegedly raped her. So that one had nothing to do with him doing anything and two was largely viewed as not credible and even Ford allies were pissed that Swetnick got lumped into this.

Another was someone who later admitted they lied.

So that’s two of the three where he either wasn’t accused of anything or was stated to be a complete fabrication.

So really there was only one where he was accused of anything was Ramirez. The accusation was that he whipped his dick out at a party and put in her face in front of a bunch of people. The problem with that is.... she said she wasn’t sure he did it and relied on second hand people to say it was him, yet nobody can find anyone who was there at this party to say it was him... even though she only thinks it was him from second hand information.

So you only have one other incident of somebody who doesn’t even know it was him and once again has nobody there to corroborate it EVEN though this allegation pretty much hinges on it being in front of people.... and was therefore not considered credible


The only thing ludicrous is that this was all discussed to death and I’m pretty sure you knew all that and were intentionally vague because it was better for your argument than actually outline that one person admitted to lying, one who said he was guilty of being somewhere where other people did something in a room he wasn’t in and almost every reporter considered her not credible, and one who couldn’t even positively say he did it and nobody exists who said they saw him do it at a public party..... so......

Now I could ask you why you failed to mention any of these well established facts and instead just posted a link behind a paywall like it was an argument winner with zero context, but c’mon.

So if some other crazy person has a wildly inconsistent story about Biden are you going to completely do a 180?

[Steel Inquisitor]

See your logic doesn’t hold up.

Why would I defend Sanders more than Warren? Because she doesn’t get attacked as much with bad faith arguments. There’s like 5 posters on here that do nothing but pop in from time with some low tier reach attack on Sanders that is objectively a terrible take and worth defending and usually has data that’s easily accessible to back it up.

Because you're a Sanders supporter who's been posing as a Warren supporter. Except not all your arguments are based on data or neutral observation. It's a primary, why would we let Sanders off when him or his campaign does something we disagree with?

That’s not a hard concept, and it’s kind of a disengenous talking point. “OMG there’s more people defending the person who is getting attacked then the one who isn’t” Duh

I'm not the one who's been disingenuous.

I said up until the polls changed that Biden was the likely nominee. I supported Warren up until the point where she had no path. To this day I still spent more effort on her campaign than Sanders. I’m also not alone amongst Warren supporters who saw the forest for the trees and pivoted signs we weren’t throwing a vote away. She generally had the more pragmatic voters and it probably hurt her when she fell.

Except your opinions haven't been entirely based on polling or analytics.

I can tell from other posts that you aren’t a total troll or unintelligent. So it’s a red flag when I see you do things like twist yourself into pretzels over how he’s going to be irrelevant in Senate that will absolutely need his support and then say things that are totally at odds with how you discussed things in the past.

I didn't say Sanders was irrelevant, just not on the same level as someone like Manchin. There's more nuance to my opinions on Sanders than you're admitting.

Like how in the primary you went off on tirades about Sanders not reaching out and building coalitions but now that someone else has the nom you are talking like warlord about “the terms of surrender” and deflecting about Biden’s need to build a general election coalition.

Which was true, building coalitions isn't a strength Sanders has. It's why he failed to become the nominee. Except I have acknowledged Biden does needs to reach out to Sanders supporters, and shown how he's done that. Sanders has been surprisingly receptive, he wasn't creating a joint task force with Hillary in '16. Except what I said was true when it comes to losers abiding by winners in elections, "surrendering" was an adequate metaphor for that.

Hint: there’s a reason Biden and his closest people aren’t talking half as crazy as that and guys like Perez are saying they will make the outreach to them.

Which is great, but not something Sanders was good at while he ran for office.

https://twitter.com/berniesanders/st...21453270769664

I've got news from the Republican establishment. I've got news for the Democratic establishment. They can't stop us.

I think you got emotionally invested in this, you’re the one who can’t move on, you want to keep having this fight and you want to think other people were as emotionally invested in this so you can feel idk some sense like you won something more meaningful. If you noticed about a week after ST I began to stop talking about him for quite awhile because it’s not really important in so far as next moves to my goals.

We're both emotionally invested in this, but I was less emotionally tethered to Warren than you were to Sanders. I was really sad and disappointed Warren dropped out, but I didn't go on a tantrum about it. There was nothing I could do, so I moved on. The reason it's bought up again and again is because of your refusal to admit you were wrong on those subjects, which are things progressives should care about. Not hold them over our heads like the Sword of Damocles as if our trying to fight abuse was thee case to let Trump having a second term to spite us. Which would have been fine, except rather then growing from the experience you're putting it all on Biden and pretending like the last couple of weeks didn't happen.

It would have been awesome for Sanders to go further, but advanced my interests further than they have been. The floodgates are open on those policies. People like AOC are just the next part of that path.

I honestly don’t know why we are discussing this beyond some people are obsessed with this subject, and it’s clear it wasn’t the people who were accused of it. All the people that claimed they were sick of talking about it keep bringing it up

The only people who "moved on" stopped posting or find change their minds when they argued against us when we were fighting against sexism and abuse from Sanders camp. Things have slowed down to a crawl lately since several people dropped off the face of the Earth once Sanders losing became inevitable. But they'll be back in due time, I'm sure.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

Because you're a Sanders supporter who's been posing as a Warren supporter. Except not all your arguments are based on data or neutral observation. It's a primary, why would we let Sanders off when him or his campaign does something we disagree with?



I'm not the one who's been disingenuous.



Except your opinions haven't been entirely based on polling or analytics.



I didn't say Sanders was irrelevant, just not on the same level as someone like Manchin. There's more nuance to my opinions on Sanders than you're admitting.



Which was true, building coalitions isn't a strength Sanders has. It's why he failed to become the nominee. Except I have acknowledged Biden does needs to reach out to Sanders supporters, and shown how he's done that. Sanders has been surprisingly receptive, he wasn't creating a joint task force with Hillary in '16. Except what I said was true when it comes to losers abiding by winners in elections, "surrendering" was an adequate metaphor for that.



Which is great, but not something Sanders was good at while he ran for office.

https://twitter.com/berniesanders/st...21453270769664





We're both emotionally invested in this, but I was less emotionally tethered to Warren than you were to Sanders. I was really sad and disappointed Warren dropped out, but I didn't go on a tantrum about it. There was nothing I could do, so I moved on. The reason it's bought up again and again is because of your refusal to admit you were wrong on those subjects, which are things progressives should care about. Not hold them over our heads like the Sword of Damocles as if our trying to fight abuse was thee case to let Trump having a second term to spite us. Which would have been fine, except rather then growing from the experience you're putting it all on Biden and pretending like the last couple of weeks didn't happen.



The only people who "moved on" stopped posting or find change their minds when they argued against us when we were fighting against sexism and abuse from Sanders camp. Things have slowed down to a crawl lately since several people dropped off the face of the Earth once Sanders losing became inevitable. But they'll be back in due time, I'm sure.

Jesus Christ.

You’re trying to tell someone that has campaigned for Warren (and never Sanders), has attended events for Warren (and never Sanders), has voted for Warren more times than Sanders, has donated to Warren (and never Sanders), has attended a rally for Warren as recently as right before SC’s primary (and never went to one for Sanders) that they are posing as a Warren supporter. You are basing this off things you never possibly know.

Strangely the only benefit you get out of making this accusation is to boost your weird obsession you have that I am emotionally invested in this, more so than you, after I went out of my way to try to stop arguing about this until you couldn’t let it go like an adult because.......

Are you really that desperate for validation? Or are you just trying to start an argument because you still aren’t over your anger at Sanders?

I’m just trying to see the benefit here?

[Wildling]

Maybe this would be a good time to remind everyone that Blasey Ford was not Kavanaugh's only accuser. She was the only one called to testify by the farce that McConnell and Grassley presided over after burying the rest of the accuser's reports.

Comparing him to Biden is ludicrous.

And Moscow Mitch was all social animal with this Beer Keganaugh fella, part of his little GOP racket routine, not too long ago in the middle of a budding national outbreak endorsed by the Midsommar-like white death cult while Bernie and Obama now can't posibly have their priorities any more straight and endorse Biden for election time and beyond, or else.

[Powerboy]

As for Trump...

It appears that the guy is putting Vince McMahon on this whole "Restart The Economy...." project.

Sure... Put a guy who likely has contracts with at least one network that dictates how many live broadcasts have to be a part of said contract.

That's the guy you want weighing in on exactly when it would be "Safe" to try to phase the economy back in.

A president who puts the head of the WWE in charge of a taskforce mostly as a favor to let him start selling tickets to WWE events again despite the public risk. And, somehow, that seems run of the mill on the Trump scale.

[KNIGHT OF THE LAKE]

A president who puts the head of the WWE in charge of a taskforce mostly as a favor to let him start selling tickets to WWE events again despite the public risk. And, somehow, that seems run of the mill on the Trump scale.

Trump’s a carny just like Vince. They cut promos and act like they run everything while selling a fake product

[numberthirty]

A president who puts the head of the WWE in charge of a taskforce mostly as a favor to let him start selling tickets to WWE events again despite the public risk. And, somehow, that seems run of the mill on the Trump scale.

Yeah...

There's also just the basic reality that a guy with a vested interest in the public being at events(and making the sorts of purchases fans would make at an event...) probably shouldn't have any sort of a role on such an advisory panel.

[Robotman]

I wish this was a headline from The Onion but it’s not.

Stimulus checks may be delayed as Trump demands US Treasury print his name on them

[Mister Mets]

What standard are you holding yourself to in supporting the party that nominated, elected, and now supports Trump with record approval?

It's just strange that you'd think your arguments regarding ethics and can be separated from your support of a blatantly unethical party.

Your "both sides" argument doesn't hold up under objective or factual scrutiny -- you've even admitted it's about your "fears" regarding the Democratic party rather than the facts themselves regarding their respective governance.

Renouncing the Republican party wouldn't mean you'd have to support Democrats regardless -- you actively choose to support a party you know is both immoral and unethical just because you "fear" politics that you disagree with.

That's not an accusation so much as an observation -- everyone is entitled to their own political opinion but I would expect someone as intelligent as you to hold yourself to a much higher stander than engaging in "both sides" arguments that can easily be disproven with minimal research.



It's not about getting to the truth with the Republican party -- it's about slandering others as cover for their own dishonesty and corruption.

I endorse decent Democrats over terrible Republicans, so in the context of American political discourse, I meet rather high standards, in comparison to partisans unwilling to own up to their hypocrisy.

This is a system with two main parties, as supporters of Bernie Sanders pissed off at the Democrats are constantly reminded. So renouncing Republicans is pretty much equivalent to supporting Democrats. And in order to support a party I disagree with politically, the other party would have to meet a high standard.

It's also ridiculous to suggest that policy differences don't matter. They should. We should simultaneously be civil in discussions, and mindful of the reality that the wrong policies will ultimately get people killed, and prevent people from reaching their full potential. If Republicans were on the right side on major policy issues, as I believe they are, I would be causing harm by advocating against them.

And I'm sure that you believe that establishment Democrats are on the correct side of most major policy issues, which means that setback so them have serious consequences, just as Bernie Bros believe that they're on the right side and a victory of a centrist Democrat over their agenda will ultimately lead to people dying and not meeting their potential.

Because I don't like to quote the parts of posts that are unnecessary or not relevant, particularly people to gish-gallop rather than get to the point.

Just like I'd rather not pretend someone is being taken out of context because they don't get all their misleading statements reposted ad nauseum.

But it was relevant to the point as an ultimate example of Democrats changing their tune about calls for resignation when it might actually cost the party.

The issue is that a lot of those problems that the author of that post had are easily attributed to misspeaking and generalized facts that have different definitions (1982 can be considered mid-1980s to some people and 15 is at least halfway between ten and twenty). That doesn’t mean it did happen, but I’d say it is a lot less suspect than the analogous case you seem to be trying to draw to Reade, whose inconsistencies are long-documented and clear. There is also the fact that there were numerous other folks accusing Kavanaugh of this behavior, if not towards women, than at least the behavior that precipitated the event. He also did not react particularly well to this information, trying to state no investigation was necessary and acting really indignant and entitled to the position. They are not directly analogous.



I do recall people asking both to step aside. That being said...I think that the allegations against Fairfax put into perspective the problems of asking Northam to step down for really bad judgment and insensitive actions, but nothing illegal or particularly heinous. I mean, Canada’s Prime Minister, Justin Trudeau, kept his leadership position for similar things to Northam. I think Fairfax should leave, but I think that Northam should take responsibility, apologize, and move forward.



Admittedly, I think that was a political move that resulted in this poor woman having to tell her story when she didn’t really want to put her safety at risk like that. That is distinguished by a Tara Reade allegation that came when she thought it would be appropriately timed against Biden, at least according to tweets directed at Ryan Grim.



Again, it is about taking these things seriously. I think Kavanaugh’s situation would’ve been different if he had pled for an investigation, established credibility, and kept his cool. So far, that has been Biden’s position on an allegation that seems to be more inherently problematic anyhow. Kavanaugh didn’t do the above and that created a firestorm that still hasn’t gone away. Nor should the fact that this occurred without meaningful evaluation of the allegations be forgotten.

The problem with insisting on calls for an investigation was that if Kavanaugh was innocent, there was no upside to anything open-ended. It is very difficult to prove a negative, to demonstrate that an assault 35 years ago at an indeterminate date at an indeterminate location did not occur. An open-ended investigation also gives an opportunity for Democrats to delay at a politically sensitive time (prior to Senate elections when there was a plausible path for Democrats to take both houses of Congress) when there are all sorts of incentives to argue in bad faith.

[Mister Mets]

Let's get real for a minute...

When was the last time someone called for that very credibly accused possible rapist to step down?

Now, think about when the last time someone brought up Trump being a credibly accused guy who has likely been involved in sexual assault/battery came up?

When you have a thread where people are consistently questioning why someone doesn't address every single thing that Trump does wrong, should a Democrat being credibly accused of rape just be left to lie after you have called on him to step down?

To me, it feels like it is on the party to call on that guy to step down even more than they bring up the accusations against Trump because he is one of their own who is using the party name while credibly accused.

If a party isn't doing that repeatedly?

I've got to ask myself why they aren't. I can't really come up with a good reason. The guy shouldn't just be sitting there as a Democratic politician who isn't regularly being called on to step down and get out of the party.

There is a major difference between a large-state Lieutenant Governor and the President, but there was definitely more the party could do.

The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee declared that they will not work with any private political vendor who supports primary challengers.

https://www.huffpost.com/entry/dccc-...b01ebeef0ec3ae

The various political committees could have made similar statements about any political vendor who might support Justin Fairfax in a future campaign. Otherwise it seems to suggest that a primary challenge against a flawed incumbent is worse than multiple credilble allegations of sexual assault.

Maybe this would be a good time to remind everyone that Blasey Ford was not Kavanaugh's only accuser. She was the only one called to testify by the farce that McConnell and Grassley presided over after burying the rest of the accuser's reports.

Comparing him to Biden is ludicrous.

Ramirez wasn't even sure it was Kavanaugh.

But do you think Swetnick's allegation that prominent high school students in the Washington DC suburbs regularly gang-raped women should count at all against Kavanaugh?

This seems to be the coming dangerous attitude of more and more Trump-minded Republicans

GOP congressman says letting more Americans die of coronavirus is lesser of two evils compared to economy tanking

Democrats do seem to be making a serious error here accepting his framing of the choice.

The current criticism does suggest that he's on the wrong side of a clearly understood choice, between higher numbers of casualties and a return to normalcy much faster than otherwise.

[aja_christopher]

It's also ridiculous to suggest that policy differences don't matter. They should. We should simultaneously be civil in discussions, and mindful of the reality that the wrong policies will ultimately get people killed, and prevent people from reaching their full potential. If Republicans were on the right side on major policy issues, as I believe they are, I would be causing harm by advocating against them.

Yet we both know that Republican policies are both harming people and getting them killed -- whether it's allowing for covering for police brutality against African-Americans by rolling back federal oversight of law officers, trying to deny women the legal right to abortion based on their own religious views, arguing against Constitutionally protected equal rights for LGBT citizens for no rational reason whatsoever, raising record deficits and denying climate change for short term profits, starting wars with other nations over false pretences such as "WMDs", torturing individuals in CIA blacksite off the grid "prisons", destroying respect for American leadership on a national stage by withdrawing from international agreements without coordinating with longtime allies first -- and even starting trade wars with said allies, supporting a corrupt authoritarian with no sense of fiscal or federal responsibilty or dozens of other "harmful" issues that you want to pretend don't exist.

Again, if you choose to overlook all of those faults within your party while trying to argue that the Democrats are the ones causing "harm" to our nation, then it says a lot more about you than it does the Democratic party -- If "harm" and "death" were your real concerns, you would have renounced the Republican party back when Bush Jr. was in office.

At a certain point one can only posit that you accept all the dishonesty and corruption inherent in said party even as you claim you don't -- Bush's decision to go to war with Iraq on false pretences got hundreds of thousands of innocent people killed and cost this nation trillions of dollars while Trump is now trying to send people back to work in the middle of global pandemic even though thousands have already died partially due to his and the Republican party's incompetence as no modern Democrat has even come close to that level of death and destruction all based on lies.

Meanwhile, unemployment hovers around 10% and the Republicans have yet to announce a real plan to address these problems. The Republican president is giving out false potentially harmful advice regarding this epidemic on a daily basis while the rest of the Republican party -- like yourself -- tries to pretend he is some kind of outlier when he has record support from the party, as well as Republicans veterans like McConnell, Graham, Barr, and Gingrich.

Your party's leader is currently defunding the World Health Organization in the midst of a global pandemic -- one only wonders how much more "harm" do you want to see done by Republicans before you will finally admit that they are not on the "right" side of policy issues, whether domestic or foreign. But again -- if you can sit here and make excuses for Republicans like Bush and Cheney then it shows that all your arguments about "harm and death" are disengenuous, regardless.

For all your complaints about "the left" everyone here (including you) knows the Republicans have done far more harm to this nation and the world at large over the past few decades than any other organization on the planet -- you have yet to show any proof that Democratic policies are more harmful than those of Republicans like Trump and Bush.

Nearly every argument you make in that regard is based on your own peronal bias -- not objective factual evidence.

[Wildling]

Your party's leader is currently defunding the World Health Organization in the midst of a global pandemic

Since it can't be denied the GOP is in Trump's pocket right now.

Is this the fabled "Trump who?" moment that folks like Mets will kickstart themselves from for years on end to justify voting fot their party from now on? Since effective leadership to pass COVID-19 is possibly the biggest 21st century challenge to be remembered from right now, barring whatever climate change also brings next.

[Tendrin]

The Kentucky GOP just passed fresh voter ID laws....

... in the middle of a global pandemic with the question of voting being at all safe being high up there. They might as well have called it the 'Save Mitch's Ass' law.

It will now have to be litigated in the courts packed by Mitch himself.

[aja_christopher]

Since it can't be denied the GOP is in Trump's pocket right now.

Is this the fabled "Trump who?" moment that folks like Mets will kickstart themselves from for years on end to justify voting fot their party from now on? Since effective leadership to pass COVID-19 is possibly the biggest 21st century challenge to be remembered from right now, barring whatever climate change also brings next.

I said a long time ago that they will only change when they are they ones who are finally hurt by Republican policies -- in that respect Trump is far ahead of schedule.

Then they'll develop collective anmesia and go right back down the path of self-destruction that we saw under the Bush clan -- right down to record deficits, William Barr, John Bolton, and economic recession.

When he says "harm" one can only assume he means only those who are privileged enough not to have to deal with the negative effects of his party's racism, homophobia, xenophobia and Islamophobia directly -- much less those who have to suffer as a result of their absolute incompetence when it comes to both domestic economic crises and unnecessary foriegn conflict.

It's the same old false "open borders" argument where he thinks people should be more concerned about the "evils" that might come across the border than the ones who are already in office -- so long as he isn't their target then no "harm" done.

[Tendrin]

Abolish.

ICE.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world...911_story.html

GUATEMALA CITY — Guatemala’s health minister said Tuesday that deportees from the United States were driving up the country’s COVID-19 caseload, adding that on one flight some 75% of the deportees tested positive for the virus.
Health Minister Hugo Monroy’s comments were dramatically out of line with what the government had previously said about infected deportees. Later, presidential spokesman Carlos Sandoval told reporters that Monroy was referring to a March flight on which “between 50% and 75% (of the passengers) during all their time in isolation and quarantine have come back positive.”