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

[PwrdOn]

Woo talk about wrong direction - less regulation and more freedom is what people need to remain free and conversant. It might not look like a conversation to people in the middle of it but circumscribed speech is friendly to commercial interests not ideas.

That's a great sounding campaign slogan and all, but to see the problems with that idea you just have to look at what happens on Gab and Parler, which were in theory bastions of free expression, but in practice just cesspits of racist garbage where any attempts at intelligent discourse are drowned out by people shouting the same regurgitated talking points at you nonstop. Is it really free speech if I just grab a megaphone and shout racial slurs at you to drown out whatever you are trying to say?

[Kirby101]

Without giving you too much grief...

If this one was a snake, it would be about to bite you on the nose.

It is obviously an issue that what is in blue takes place.

Will it seriously make sense to just throw hands up and say "Well, can't be helped..." for every single time this sort of thing happens going forward?

Huh, I still don't know know what you are arguing through this misplaced condescension? You want the Government to decide for all media what is allowable, including forcing them to allow speech they don't want on their platform?
Without being to impolite, what the f*@k are you talking about?

[Tami]

Yoga, organic food and misinformation: Wellness influencers are taking the anti-vaccine movement mainstream

Glance at Jessica Alix Hesser’s Instagram page and you may feel a little like you’ve just opened up a pamphlet for a meditation retreat. Amid photos of lagoons and a waterfall, Hesser (eyes closed, one hand touching the side of her face) is awash in rainbow-hued lens glare, or soaking in a bath with flowers floating on top. Her website contains blog posts recommending natural cardamom floss and Gregorian chants.

Sprinkled throughout, however, are posts where Hesser urges her nearly 37,000 followers to question the safety of the vaccines. “Would you sign your children up to be part of a pharmaceutical trial and take them into a lab to get shot up with some experimental drug created by a criminal company?” she asks in one June post. In another one from April, she writes that “many of you have heard about the large number of poke-free women” experiencing changes in their menstrual cycles “after spending time with people who got the jab.” Medical experts say that’s impossible. Hesser did not respond to requests for comment.

For many, the term “misinformation” conjures up images of conspiracy-theory chat forums and Russian bots. But an alarming amount of it is reaching audiences in the health and wellness realms. Many social media influencers who focus on natural remedies, holistic health and new age spirituality have been sharing posts and videos questioning the wisdom of vaccinating against the coronavirus. Public health experts say widespread vaccine hesitancy increases the threat of the virus mutating and helps keep the pandemic raging.

There’s a whole genre of accounts on social media that mix in vaccine skepticism with general healthy living posts. Evie Kevish, a CrossFitter and “certified juice therapist,” who frequently posts on Instagram about which vegetables and fruits she’s juicing, wore a shirt emblazoned with “VACCINES ARE POISON” in a video she posted on June 27. Tania Khazaal, known online as “Tania the Herbalist,” often posts self-portraits with long captions about eating non-GMO foods and refusing any ingestible products that contain fluoride, alcohol and aluminum. She encourages her nearly 50,000 followers to “eliminate pills and introduce plants.” She’s also been posting vaccine-skeptical content since April 2020.

In an email, Khazaal said she wasn’t against vaccines, but believed that skeptical voices were being silenced. “I’m not anti anything. I’m pro-choice and pro-freedom,” she said. Kevish did not respond to requests for comment.

[Tami]

USCP Officers Arrest California Man with Bayonet & Machete

This morning the United States Capitol Police arrested a California man who had multiple knives in his truck near the Democratic National Committee headquarters.

“This is good police work plain and simple,” said Chief Tom Manger. “We applaud the officers’ keen observation and the teamwork that resulted in this arrest.”

Around midnight, a Special Operation Division Officer was on patrol when he noticed a Dodge Dakota pickup truck, with a swastika and other white supremacist symbols painted on it, outside of the DNC headquarters. The truck did not have a license plate. Instead, a picture of an American flag was placed where the license plate should have been. The Capitol Police officer pulled over the truck along the 500 block of South Capitol Street, SW.

The officers noticed a bayonet and machete, which are illegal in Washington, D.C., inside the truck.

The driver, 44-year-old Donald Craighead of Oceanside, California was arrested for Possession of Prohibited Weapons.

Craighead said he was “on patrol” and began talking about white supremacist ideology and other rhetoric pertaining to white supremacy.

[Xheight]

That's a great sounding campaign slogan and all, but to see the problems with that idea you just have to look at what happens on Gab and Parler, which were in theory bastions of free expression, but in practice just cesspits of racist garbage where any attempts at intelligent discourse are drowned out by people shouting the same regurgitated talking points at you nonstop. Is it really free speech if I just grab a megaphone and shout racial slurs at you to drown out whatever you are trying to say?

Gab and Parler failures are function of marketplace not policy or ideals which is what I allude to as the underlying motive of the FB and Twitter for their practices that have carved out a section of the discourse and does not migrate. It is like saying see Amazon is more successful because they serve the public better than the competition when there is not any meaningful competition much less an alternative way of exchange.

[Xheight]

Huh, I still don't know know what you are arguing through this misplaced condescension? You want the Government to decide for all media what is allowable, including forcing them to allow speech they don't want on their platform?
Without being to impolite, what the f*@k are you talking about?

If government can already protect consumers against discrimination by business why not internet business?

[Xheight]

USCP Officers Arrest California Man with Bayonet & Machete

Our Police State at work. How a car without License Plates gets to DC is even more of a question of these highly trained enforcers.

[PwrdOn]

Gab and Parler failures are function of marketplace not policy or ideals which is what I allude to as the underlying motive of the FB and Twitter for their practices that have carved out a section of the discourse and does not migrate. It is like saying see Amazon is more successful because they serve the public better than the competition when there is not any meaningful competition much less an alternative way of exchange.

Gab and Parler failed because the nature of how social media works overwhelmingly favors existing platforms over new ones in the marketplace. However, it's easy to imagine a world where Gab and Parler came to market before Facebook and Twitter and carved out a dominant position, in which case we'd all be stuck using social media platforms that promote unchecked hate speech, and it'd be liberals trying and failing to establish alternatives.

[Tami]

Our Police State at work. How a car without License Plates gets to DC is even more of a question of these highly trained enforcers.

Assuming that the suspect drove his car from California to DC, then the question as to why he wasn't stopped along the way is a good one. However using the term 'Police State' in the same breath as talking about a man who was armed and potential threat being arrested by the Capitol Police...well which is it?

Are you upset that he was arrested? Are you upset that he wasn't arrested sooner? Are you angry at the Police? or at the man who had enough weapons in his car for a small army? Do you ask how this man got the weapons? Or do you think that he has a right to bring weapons into D.C. like that?

Which side are you on?

[Tami]

Gov. DeSantis says that cities and counties that require vaccines for public employees will face a $5,000 fine per infraction — potentially millions of dollars in fines to local govts.

A worker who doesn't want to get vaccinated featured in press conference with DeSantis just said, "The vaccine changes your RNA."

For months DeSantis and his office have pushed back against any suggestion that the governor wasn't doing enough to promote the vaccine.

Today, he is standing next to people sharing anti-vax conspiracies in a press conference that is airing on taxpayer funded Florida Channel.

[babyblob]

Gov. DeSantis says that cities and counties that require vaccines for public employees will face a $5,000 fine per infraction — potentially millions of dollars in fines to local govts.

A worker who doesn't want to get vaccinated featured in press conference with DeSantis just said, "The vaccine changes your RNA."

But But Desantis was not spreading misinformation. He just shared a stage with a public employee who was exercising their first amendment right to share why they do not want the vaccine. That is what we will hear.

[Tami]

Melania Trump like Marie Antoinette, says former aide in hotly awaited book

According to Politico, reporting the first details of the hotly anticipated book, I’ll Take Your Questions Now: What I Saw in the Trump White House, Stephanie Grisham also compares Melania Trump to Marie Antoinette.

The first lady was like “the doomed French queen”, Grisham reportedly writes. “Dismissive. Defeated. Detached.”

Grisham worked for Melania Trump either side of a nine-month spell as press secretary to Donald Trump in which she did not hold a single press-room briefing.

Politico reported that on 6 January, as Trump supporters attempted to violently overturn the election, Grisham texted Melania Trump: “Do you want to tweet that peaceful protests are the right of every American, but there is no place for lawlessness and violence?”

A minute later, “Melania replied with a one-word answer: ‘No.’”

According to Grisham, the first lady was more concerned with setting up a photo shoot for a rug.

Grisham, who resigned “within hours”, reportedly writes that Melania Trump also refused to reach out to Jill Biden, wife of president-elect Joe Biden, to set up a traditional inauguration tea – because she believed Biden’s win was illegitimate.

Melania Trump reportedly told Grisham “something bad happened” and did not listen when her aide tried to explain there was no wide-scale electoral fraud.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Melania Trump like Marie Antoinette, says former aide in hotly awaited book

Can’t say any of that surprises me. Melania has no choice but to go along with the big lie, mainly because Trump would cut her off without a cent in alimony in a divorce if she didn’t toe the line. Unlike past First Ladies, Melania has zero skills to fall back on since she’s nothing but glorified arm candy and, frankly speaking, couldn’t survive a week without Trump’s money.

[Castle]

About the California recall, anyone but Larry Elder or a Trumpist republican. Heck I don't even care if Arnold The Terminator comes back or Gavin Newsom keeping his job, just anyone but Elder. Larry Elder is a clown and a very dangerous person. The nerve of this guy.

First he always claims racism does not really exist anymore and no longer a big deal and he gets attacked by a white woman in a gorilla mask and he cries racism? funny he seems to have ignored or dismissed all of this when Barrack Obama got the same hate money chants.

Secondly he says there is nothing really holding minorities back and there is no systemic racism or higher power working against African Americans and other people of colour but now that he is about the loose in California, he cries the system is rigged against him and there could be voter fraud. he is playing of Trump's playbook.

Sorry Larry Elder, this is what happens when a black man like you, sells yourself to white supremacy and let white supremacy use you as their tool to say all the garbage they cant say anymore in a common sense public space, you don't get to cry about anything you have a habit of dismissing minorities of on a daily basis on your crappy radio show.

Also, Larry, you have zero experience and that should make you very unqualified for the role of Governor of California, which is a top 10 world economy place.

[Castle]

Melania Trump like Marie Antoinette, says former aide in hotly awaited book

Can’t say any of that surprises me. Melania has no choice but to go along with the big lie, mainly because Trump would cut her off without a cent in alimony in a divorce if she didn’t toe the line. Unlike past First Ladies, Melania has zero skills to fall back on since she’s nothing but glorified arm candy and, frankly speaking, couldn’t survive a week without Trump’s money.

With Donald and Melania, I don't think they have a marriage anymore. When last did we see them officially together and how often do we see them together? Trump has been out there 24/7 and refuses to go away and we hardly see Melania standing by him or joining him for rallies. I would not be surprised if she has some contract or something in her prenup, that makes her not been able to just easily file for divorce.

People liked to give Bill and Hilary a hard time that their marriage has been a sham from day one because of Clinton's infidelities. However, while I don't think Bill and Hilary have a marriage like George and Laura or Barrack and Michelle. I do think there is love between Bill and Hilary, even if I cannot say for a fact they are in love with each other. I don't think there is any version of love between Trump and Melania, not after everything that has happened.