All purpose news and politics thread part VI: This Is Not The Time For Posing

[shooshoomanjoe]

They must be serious about the relief. In so far as getting it to people. Both my father and I are pending and will be available Monday. I am really glad they are not dragging their feet on this. Well not dragging after taking it forever to get passed.

How did you check to see this? The Check Your Payment Status says that it's temporarily offline...and it looks like it hasn't been updated since the last stimulus.

[AnakinFlair]

Josh Hawley is going to be president some day, and nothing in this world makes me less happy.

As a Missourian, I apologize for this jackass. Even if he actually lives in Virginia and used his sister's address to run for office in Missouri.

One guy just referred to him as Tucker Carlson's younger, more insecure brother. I think that fits rather well.

Jackson started the Indian Wars and tried to dismantle the U.S. banking system. He was a dumb, racist POS that didnt care about your ancestorss.

And, IF you think Ronnie tried to care for America... Ummm, what was his response to the AIDS crisis exactly? Remember the rhetoric that came out of the WH? "THE GAY DISEASE." And what did Ronnie call black people on welfare? "Welfare Queens." what about Iran-Contra or "Trickle-down economics"? How's that worked out? What did Reagan do to the mentally ill? He cut funding to hospitals and let them all out. I could write 3 essays on the failures of Reagan, but I'll just leave you with the idea that Trump has done far far less damage to this country than Ronnie did.

Trump's done more damage in the short term; while Reagans damage has continued for decades.

[Gray Lensman]

How did you check to see this? The Check Your Payment Status says that it's temporarily offline...and it looks like it hasn't been updated since the last stimulus.

I have a payment pending I need myself, based on my bank account app showing it there.

[4saken1]

Yes, but both parties have one thing in common. They both kiss the arses of their wealthy corporate donors. I believe it is called lobbyism.

Difference is, one Party has done more to try to curb how much these wealthy donors can contribute in order to diminish the effect of this legalized bribery. The Supreme Court decisions regarding campaign finance have been decided for the most part with Democratically appointed Justices favoring stricter limits on contributions from corporations. Fact of the matter is, studies have shown that candidates with more money tend to win significantly more Elections than those who don't. Can't change the rules if you don't get elected! Maybe dumbfucks who sat on their asses during the 2000 Election are more to blame than the politicians themselves who are trying to win in a game where the odds are stacked against those who don't take corporate contributions.

[babyblob]

How did you check to see this? The Check Your Payment Status says that it's temporarily offline...and it looks like it hasn't been updated since the last stimulus.

My father and I get our social security payments on a debit card. When there is money pending like our monthly payments it tells me a couple days before hand. When I called the number to check and make sure my monthly payment is pending it also had a pending deposit for $600 being avialible on Monday.

[Tami]

My father and I get our social security payments on a debit card. When there is money pending like our monthly payments it tells me a couple days before hand. When I called the number to check and make sure my monthly payment is pending it also had a pending deposit for $600 being avialible on Monday.

That's good news. I got my last Govt money through Direct Deposit, so I'm just checking my bank account periodically to see if anything happens. I don't know if they will deposit both my husband and mine in my account or each of us getting it in our seperate accounts.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

My father and I get our social security payments on a debit card. When there is money pending like our monthly payments it tells me a couple days before hand. When I called the number to check and make sure my monthly payment is pending it also had a pending deposit for $600 being avialible on Monday.

Like the first check, the new one for me will arrive as a paper check which I’ll deposit electronically.

[Tami]

Was 2020 the worst year ever? Historians weigh in.

In a clever bit of marketing, the self-therapy app Bloom recently asked 28 historians from Yale, Oxford, Stanford and other major universities to choose the worst year in history — or, as they put it, the most stressful. British historian Philip Parker led the effort. Following a depressing dive down the rabbit hole of historical misery, Parker compiled a list of the top worst/most stressful years in world, British and U.S. history. Then the historians made their picks.

The worst year in world history wasn’t even a close contest.

It was 1348, the height of the Black Death, during which as many as 200 million people died. That would be like wiping out about 65 percent of the U.S. population. The Holocaust in 1944 ranked second, followed by 1816, when a volcano eruption in Indonesia blocked out the sun, starving millions. 2020 ranked sixth.

In U.S. history, 2020 was well down the list at No. 8, just behind the 2001 terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, the Cuban missile crisis of 1962, the tumult of 1968’s riots and assassinations, the 1918 flu pandemic, the Trail of Tears of 1838, the 1929 stock market crash marking the beginning of the Great Depression, and at the very, very top, 1862.

That was, most historians say, the grimmest year of the Civil War, when the country’s total collapse seemed imminent.

[DebkoX]

Off topic but, happy NY everyone. Been a rough year and it's important to sometimes (if not all the time) look after your health.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

Off topic but, happy NY everyone. Been a rough year and it's important to sometimes (if not all the time) look after your health.

Thanks. Happy new year to everybody else.

Good news is that the bar's set low for 2021 to be better than this year.

[PaulBullion]

Was 2020 the worst year ever? Historians weigh in.

Why did a terrorist attack killing 3000 make 2001 worse than an insane president bungling a pandemic response so much that 350,000 Americans died?

[Tami]

Why did a terrorist attack killing 3000 make 2001 worse than an insane president bungling a pandemic response so much that 350,000 Americans died?

Possibly because the the domino effect that ensued afterwards with the Middle Eastern wars.

[Agent Z]

A Girlfriend of Alleged Nashville Bomber Was Sent for a Psych Evaluation After Telling Police He Was Building Bombs a Year Ago

In August of 2019, a girlfriend of Anthony Quinn Warner told Nashville police that she suspected Warner “was building bombs in the RV trailer at his residence.” The woman was then taken by ambulance for a psychological evaluation while authorities ignored the bomb information, claiming after the Christmas Day bombing that destroyed several blocks in downtown Nashville that Warner “was not on our radar.”

An attorney who represented both Warner and the woman in a civil case contacted authorities in August because he was concerned for her safety, according to The Tennessean, and when police arrived at her home, she was sitting on the porch with two unloaded weapons: “‘She related that the guns belonged to a ‘Tony Warner’ and that she did not want them in the house any longer,’ MNPD spokesman Don Aaron said in a statement to The Tennessean.”

She went on to tell responding officers that Warner had been making comments about bombs and was potentially assembling explosives in his R.V., later identified to be the same one used in the explosion. The attorney, Raymond Throckmorton III, then told officers that he was concerned for her safety and supported her claims that Warner had talked frequently about explosives and the military, police reports from the time show. But now police say that they “saw no evidence of a crime and had no authority to enter his home or fenced property” in a statement about the incident, additionally claiming Throckmorton advised Warner to deny officers permission to search his R.V.

The report was then given to a “hazardous devices unit” and passed along to the FBI, though no follow-up appears to have come from the passing of the information. Meanwhile, both the police and Throckmorton say that the woman was experiencing a “mental health crisis” and sent her, not Warner, who did not answer the door for police according to the report, for a psychological evaluation.

https://jezebel.com/a-girlfriend-of-...r-a-1845968578

[Comics N' Toons]

Again, I wouldn't presume to defend Trump, but a lot of what you folks consider Trump's damage I consider par for the course with American imperialism. He's loud, obnoxious and a man-child, and his voice is stronger than previous presidents because he uses Twitter as a bully pulpit and the media hangs on his every action. Calling Trump the worst president in history ignores history and seems little more than a convenient way to defend other presidents, their immigration policies, militarism, murder, and imperialism abroad, the prison industrial complex, and the 15 laundry lists of everything else that's wrong with the U.S. Trump didnt commit wholesale slaughter of Native Americans... that could be considered real damage. He's also not the most racist prez in history either. In modern times, that might be Wilson, based upon his rhetoric... or Reagan, based upon his policies.

Trump is vile... I can believe that Americans elected their class enemy to office, because that's what Americans do... they only elect those types of people because by and large, Americans worship wealth. The gentleman above, when replying to me, implied that I was "conservative" and I don't think I've ever been called that before. Interesting.

As far as what's wrong with being a liberal? Hypocrisy is the main problem. It satisfies the Liberal mind to have a (D) in office who carries out the exact same evil that a (R) does, only when it's a (R) does it seem like war, pollution, greed, corruption etc. is bad. Also, Liberals are far more complacent than conservatives... It's why the Left has lost so much ground. The Dems abandoned the working class in 1971 largely due to policy prescriptions of people like Frank Savickas and other Dem leaders who decided that corporatism was better for the party than championing the little guy. Since then, even progressives like the gentleman above have been largely content with moderates like Obama/Biden than actually standing up and demanding things. I find Liberals more dangerous than conservatives because conservatives are predictable... their anti-science rhetoric, hatred for non-whites, atypical sexes, and the poor is easy to spot. Liberals are far less harder to spot because... on the surface their hearts seem to be on the side of SOCIAL JUSTICE but they're so spineless that... as soon as that candidate with the (D) gets into office, they sit down, shut up and move on. Liberals also happen to be very much pro-police, even in the face of their brutality. Thankfully, BLM is a thing that raises people's consciousness. Liberals also throw words around like "democracy" that agree with the American narrative. They consistently fail to recognize that the US was founded as a plutocracy, built by and for white, rich, landowners. The founders absolutely were terrified of democracy as evidenced by James Madison's quote about the minority of the opulent being protected from the majority.

Back to Trump for a second... IF the pandemic hadn't happened would Trump still be on some folk's list as "The Worst in US History?" He was certainly better than Bush... And again, far better than Reagan, who is the measuring stick of American Evil... his successors are found in people like McConnell.

Secondly, IF the pandemic had happened under Obama or, if Hillary had been elected, would the outcome be similar? YES! Absolutely! Why? Because vaccines just became a thing 5 minutes ago. The death toll would have been less, no question... as Trump's rhetoric fanned a lot of flames... BUT there are so many anti-Hillary/anti-\Dem people that the anti-maskers would have still existed. The death toll could have been similar, me thinks.

American politics is the way it is because the radical narrative has been whitewashed for public schools. Rosa Parks was a Marxist, trained under Miles Horton... but they don't teach that at school. They don't teach about MLK's so******m either. This is why Liberals can feel comfortable when Obama kills brown children in the Middle East... it's justified based on how they were educated. Conservatives dont care because their religious fundamentalism agrees with imperialism.

[Tami]

Ticketmaster fined $10m for business 'intrusions'

Ticketmaster has paid a $10m (£7.3m) criminal fine for "intrusions into a competitor's computer systems", the US Department of Justice has confirmed.

The DoJ said the US ticket sales and distribution company had used passwords unlawfully retained by a former employee of a competitor to access computer systems.

It did this in a "scheme to 'choke off' the victim's business".

Ticketmaster said: "We are pleased that this matter is now resolved."
'Stolen passwords'

It added in a statement that the misconduct had taken place in 2017 and involved two employees, both of whom had been sacked.

"Their actions violated our corporate policies and were inconsistent with our values," the company said.

Bloomberg news agency said the competitor was identified "only as a UK company with an office in Brooklyn, New York, but details in the court documents indicate it was Songkick", which is a ticket-selling company.

The actions of the Ticketmaster employees in the case were condemned by Seth D DuCharme, acting US lawyer for New York's eastern district, and William F Sweeney Jr, assistant director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation's New York Field Office.