1. #55951
    The Nature Boy AnakinFlair's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Username taken View Post
    Between Kanye West, Trump and now Elon Musk, there's something to be said about these rich assholes inserting themselves into public discourse.

    In the past, a lot of these people would just keep to themselves and work from behind the scenes but now it's different. Somewhere along the line, society decided these guys are geniuses so they feel every nonsensical idea coming out from their mouths is something profound or meaningful. Most of what Trump, Musk and Kanye says and do is about hurting and bullying people in one form or the other just because they can.

    Culture seems to have evolved to a point where these people have an outsized influence on society in ways that can only be described as negative. Worse still is social media and traditional media (that should know better) is amplifying the nonsense coming out from these people. Outrage reporting means that hateful messaging gets severely amplified on social media and even "normal news sites" like yahoo generally put these clowns on their front pages because it drives clicks.

    I guess all this is the inevitable impact on society as more and more forms of media and communications became effectively taken over by what can be described as oligopolies. The people that were "in the shadows" are taking control of the narrative and as others have pointed out, a lot of hate and negativity will be normalized in the minds of young people.
    Trump spent decades painting himself as a millionaire/billionaire tycoon genius, even getting a hit TV show out of his image. All of that DESPITE almost every business venture he ever tried- including CASINOS!- going bankrupt. But he sold the image, and the people believed it, and some still do.

    Musk has spent years making successful businesses by taking credit for other people's work. But he paints himself as the genius, and people buy that.

    Kanye had a few hit songs and successful albums (most of which, IMO, were garbage). But again, people think he's a genius, and some people buy that.

    In the past, people like these would be flashes in the pan. But now we live in an age of social media, where they can reach out to the people and influence them directly. And that's the true danger of a guy like Musk owning Twitter. And if Donnie had half a brain, he'd jump back on Twitter and start spewing his BS there. But he won't, because of his pride. That's a small comfort. And meanwhile, an invaluable tool of public discourse has been sullied-perhaps forever- and is in real danger of going away for good. If not by the site going down due to lack of staff, then by it being removed from Apple and Android stores because they refuse to moderate anymore. And there isn't a true alternative ready to be used. Say what you want about Mastodon, but it's confusing as hell to set up and highly segregated by interests.

  2. #55952
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    Quote Originally Posted by AnakinFlair View Post
    Trump spent decades painting himself as a millionaire/billionaire tycoon genius, even getting a hit TV show out of his image. All of that DESPITE almost every business venture he ever tried- including CASINOS!- going bankrupt. But he sold the image, and the people believed it, and some still do.

    Musk has spent years making successful businesses by taking credit for other people's work. But he paints himself as the genius, and people buy that.

    Kanye had a few hit songs and successful albums (most of which, IMO, were garbage). But again, people think he's a genius, and some people buy that.

    In the past, people like these would be flashes in the pan. But now we live in an age of social media, where they can reach out to the people and influence them directly. And that's the true danger of a guy like Musk owning Twitter. And if Donnie had half a brain, he'd jump back on Twitter and start spewing his BS there. But he won't, because of his pride. That's a small comfort. And meanwhile, an invaluable tool of public discourse has been sullied-perhaps forever- and is in real danger of going away for good. If not by the site going down due to lack of staff, then by it being removed from Apple and Android stores because they refuse to moderate anymore. And there isn't a true alternative ready to be used. Say what you want about Mastodon, but it's confusing as hell to set up and highly segregated by interests.
    I tried Mastodon and was immediately turned off by the whole “select server” thing.

    They aren’t going to be a real alternative to Twitter for a while.

  3. #55953
    Ultimate Member Tendrin's Avatar
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    LisTeN to ThE DeTRansItiIonErs1111

    Ky Schevers is fighting back against the anti-trans movement she once took part in.

    Schevers was assigned the sex of female at birth and later chose to start gender-affirming care by taking testosterone to transition from female to male in her mid-20s. She stopped taking testosterone, though, in the years that followed while she continued to explore and question her gender, later falling into an online anti-trans group of "detransitioners" – people who once did but no longer identify as transgender.

    Now, Schevers says she has “retransitioned," identifying as transmasculine and gender queer, which means she identifies with both genders. Schevers uses she and her pronouns, but heavily identifies with masculinity, as defined by the LGBTQIA+ Health Education Center states.

    She says she considers herself to be a part of the transgender community.

    When Schevers initially stopped taking testosterone, she sought out advice and companionship in online forums about detransitioning. In this virtual community is where she began to adopt anti-trans beliefs that misogyny and a patriarchal society caused her to initially transition from female to male. In blog posts, YouTube videos, interviews and workshops, she spread and promoted these beliefs. These posts became a popular tool for anti-trans activists looking to discredit the trans community in the name of feminism.
    https://abcnews.go.com/US/former-det...ial_twitter_ab

  4. #55954
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    Quote Originally Posted by Username taken View Post
    I tried Mastodon and was immediately turned off by the whole “select server” thing.

    They aren’t going to be a real alternative to Twitter for a while.
    I'm on Post.news- I like it so far but it's a work in progress. They're still perfecting it.

  5. #55955
    Ultimate Member Tendrin's Avatar
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    It's gonna be a while before a clear front runner and altenrative to twitter takes off but it is just a matter of time. Elon Musk being reply-guy to extremist right-wing figures is going to result in twitters long term collapse.

    Twitters current situation is a good example of right-wing 'working the refs', amongst other things. We know from research that right-wing content was algorithmically boosted over 'left-wing' content: https://www.theguardian.com/technolo...d-news-outlets

    Conservatives, however, remained *absolutely convinced* they were 'deboosted' even if this was clearly not the case.
    Last edited by Tendrin; 11-27-2022 at 02:19 AM.

  6. #55956

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    On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as 2019, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” posted profiles of the U.S. House Representative from California’s 50th Congressional District, Duncan Hunter, the current U.S. House Representative for California's 50th District, who has a prolific record of voting against women's interests, like against the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act or renewal of the Violence Against Women Act, defunding Planned Parenthood back in 2011, and voting for measures like the Blunt Amendment and Personhood bills that would criminalize even some forms of birth control, let alone abortion. On gay rights, he has been opposed, even voting against the repeal of "Don't Ask, Don't Tell" and claiming "the homosexual lobby" was trying to take over our military. Hunter has also been a hard-liner against immigration, calling for an end to birthright citizenship guaranteed by the 14th Amendment, praising Arizona's SB 1070 law that allows racial profiling by law enforcement to catch illegal immigrants, and making outrageous charges that people were bringing the Ebola Virus across the U.S./Mexico border, or that 10 member of ISIS were caught attempting to cross it into the United States (which our nation's intelligence community completely rebuffed). Duncan Hunter is also a huge war hawk, having once listed nuclear war as an alternative to the treaty being forged with Iran, and playing the demagogue to President Obama on Syria, alternating stances from wanting intervention, to voting against it, to saying Obama should be impeached for ordering air strikes against ISIS there. His thoughts on the military are, as well, backwards and exist, as in a Armed Services hearing in January of 2016, he told Navy Secretary Ray Mabus he was “a greater threat to the Marine Corps than ISIS” for putting women in combat roles. In 2017, Hunter supported a Declaration of War on North Korea that didn’t exist, and expressed his support for Donald Trump by giving him the ringing endorsement of, “He’s an ***hole, but he’s our ***hole.” Rep. Hunter, also voiced his support for a GOP tax plan, in spite of both Republicans, Democrats, and in particular, Californians being opposed to it. He was actually quoted in an interview in late October of 2017, saying he would support such an unpopular piece of legislation, saying, “Why punish the rest of the nation because California is stupid?” The younger Duncan Hunter also has been a dedicated ally of the tobacco lobby, frequently doing everything he can to improve access to cheaper tobacco products on U.S. military bases, because our combat efficiency will be greatly improved with our troops being chain smokers. In 2016, Rep. Hunter showed how far his allegiance to the tobacco lobby (who have funneled tens of thousands of dollars towards him) went while in a Congressional hearing, he was arguing against laws that would ban vaping on airplanes, and decided to show his solidary for users of e-cigarettes by honest-to-goodness vaping in the middle of a Congressional hearing, dramatically puffing vapor out to prove his point. Hunter has interesting ethical problems arising from other hobbies he’s interested in, including video games which he illegally paid for using campaign money in 2015. He responded to that by starting off the new session of Congress at the beginning of 2017 by being one of a handful of Republicans attempting to gut funding to the Office of Congressional Ethics. If you’re wondering why it is that Hunter would be so terrified of facing the music over his children sneaking a credit card to pay for video games… oh, the rabbit hole kept going deeper. And literally, it involves a rabbit. It seems Rep. Hunter also used campaign money to have his family’s pet rabbit flown on a plane from California to Virginia… but that isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. The extent of him violating campaign finance laws was egregious enough to garner the attention of the FBI, and sparked a criminal investigation, because the Hunter family was using campaign money to pay for several personal purchases and utilities. Keep in mind, the honorable Congressman has already tried blaming this on his wife, and has recently forced the resignation of his campaign chief of staff, whom he has employed since 2014, and seems to want to take the fall for him. There’s one problem with that attempt at accepting responsibility for the crime… these abuses of Hunter’s campaign money that mysteriously benefit his household and his children have apparently been occurring since 2010, four years before that chief of staff was hired. Among the other things the Hunters charged to taxpayers? Trips to Costco, Riverdance tickets, shots at bachelor parties, and hotel rooms which he was using to screw mistresses behind his wife’s back (that would be the same wife he tried blaming all the illegal spending on). All told, he and his wife were indicted on 60 corruption charges. Now, we’d like to think the people of California’s 50th Congressional District are, at this point, just voting “Hunter” on their ballot for a man under indictment and who literally called Californians stupid within the current term of Congress because they haven’t noticed he isn’t his father who retired yet. So, in order to make sure he could hold onto power, he opted to go with full on bigotry in his campaign ads, claiming his opponent, Anmar Campa-Najjar, a former Obama White House staffer, was actually a member of the Muslim Brotherhood who changed his name to avoid being linked to terrorism. While the pending trial for his alleged crimes isn’t enough to prevent his re-election campaign for 2020… Hunter is still stubbornly trying to hang on to his Congressional seat but was unseated in the GOP Primary by fellow Republican Darrell Issa, who decided to carpet-bag his way over to California’s 50th to unseat his embattled colleague rather than try to take back his old district.

    On this date in 2020, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Reba Sherill, a 2020 candidate for the U.S. House of Representatives in Florida’s 21st Congressional District, who is the latest in a long line of Republicans we’ve had to profile who snagged that red pill and embraced the deranged Qanon conspiracy theory. Sherill was interviewed by a supporter and openly admitted attending a “Great Awakening” rally, taking a hipster’s approach to the nuttery by claiming she had “been following Q since the beginning”. When that interview was posted, she deliberately misspelled her “ThanQ you” back at her interviewer. Sherill rambled about a “new world order”, “globalism”, and fearmongered about the “sex trafficking” being done in underground cults (per the conspiracy theory), and burned through $350,000 of her own money during her campaign. That sum of cash translated to Sherill effectively spending $350 per vote she got, and amounted to all of 3% of the primary vote. It’s even more sad when you realize she finished with 1/14 of the votes by the winner… fellow conspiracy theorist Laura Loomer. As Sherill has about no chance to ever reach office, we’re going to set aside our profile of Steve Scheffler for the moment to cover another wacky Republican today instead. (Current crazy/stupid scoreboard, is now 1047-50, since this was established in July 2014.
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    On this date one year ago, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” first profiled David Armstrong, who was first elected to District 75 of the Wisconsin State Assembly in 2020, after getting to run for office in the GOP Primary unopposed, and there are some decidedly disturbing things about that.

    You see, prior to his being elected, the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel noted that in the wake of the shooting at the Emanuel A.M.E. Church in Charleston, South Carolina, Armstrong was vocal in his support of the Confederate flag, because Wisconsin is clearly on the side of the Mason-Dixon line where that would even make sense. But Armstrong went all the way to his hilt in his online rants about the removal of the Confederate flag, posting videos featuring outright racist lies being spread by David Duke. Even when Armstrong wasn’t linking to quotes from one of the most notorious white supremacists and Klansmen in modern history, his own ugly, bigoted opinions were on display when he was adding comments around things he linked to like, “Slavery: Blacks dirtiest secrets exposed… Apologies are due to who from whom?”

    David Armstrong also spent the build-up to the 2020 election liking and forwarding videos propagating the Qanon conspiracy theory, because of course someone who likes alternate history where slavery was the fault of the people being kept as slaves would also believe that insane pile of dreck. And while he deleted all of his comments from 2015 regarding slavery and the Confederate flag, on Qanon, he dug in, saying:

    Yes, he touted that conspiracy theories like Q are good because it’s hard to prove a negative.

    Regrettably, this virulently racist old coot was elected anyway, and he has, perhaps not coincidentally gone on to sponsor legislation to try to prevent schoolteachers from teaching “anti-racism and anti-sexism instructions and training, and instead, sponsor legislation that focuses on teaching children completely useless and obsolete things, like cursive.

    This white nationalist piece of garbage won re-election in 2022 primarily because he was allowed to run for re-election completely opposed in the primary or general election.
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  8. #55958
    Old school comic book fan WestPhillyPunisher's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tami View Post
    When Democrats discuss crime, they generally are discussing Gun involved violence, Bias based crime, lack of social support systems, and excessive use of force by Police

    When Republicans discuss crime, they are often also discussing 'illegal' immigration/migrants, minorities, illegal drugs, and poor people.

    It's not easy to meet in the middle.

    Just felt like saying this. No reason.
    Qpublicans were yammering 24/7 about crime during the midterms, relentlessly peddling fear about how blue cities/states were roiling cesspools of blood and terror and unchecked violence, and only THEY had the answers to solve those problems if you elected THEM to office instead of those villainous Democrats. However, after that much anticipated "Red Tsunami" ended up being little more than minor street flooding, there hasn't been so much as a peep heard from the GQP about crime....unless you count the utter perfidy that's Hunter Biden's laptop. Gotta love Qpublican hypocrisy.
    Last edited by WestPhillyPunisher; 11-27-2022 at 03:32 AM.
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    Ultimate Member Tendrin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by WestPhillyPunisher View Post
    Qpublicans were yammering 24/7 about crime during the midterms, relentlessly peddling fear about how blue cities/states were roiling cesspools of blood and terror and unchecked violence, and only THEY had the answers to solve those problems if you elected THEM to office instead of those villainous Democrats. However, after that much anticipated "Red Tsunami" ended up being little more than minor street flooding, there hasn't been so much as a peep heard from the GQP about crime....unless you count the utter perfidy that's Hunter Biden's laptop. Gotta love Qpublican hypocrisy.
    What's funny about this is, much like the attempt to juice gas prices to impact the mid terms, both efforts folded quickly when it was seen that they didn't work.

    Also, yeah, the 'BE AFRAID OF THE CITIES!!!" thing is just frigging exhausting -- but conservatives very much want us to be exhausted by the wall of BS they're constantly building.

  10. #55960
    Old school comic book fan WestPhillyPunisher's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tendrin View Post
    What's funny about this is, much like the attempt to juice gas prices to impact the mid terms, both efforts folded quickly when it was seen that they didn't work.

    Also, yeah, the 'BE AFRAID OF THE CITIES!!!" thing is just frigging exhausting -- but conservatives very much want us to be exhausted by the wall of BS they're constantly building.
    And because Qpublicans won't learn the lessons from their screwup in the midterms, they'll roll out this failed strategy yet again come '24 for the presidential election. Bet the mortgage and the kid's college fund on that.
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  11. #55961
    Ultimate Member Tendrin's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by WestPhillyPunisher View Post
    And because Qpublicans won't learn the lessons from their screwup in the midterms, they'll roll out this failed strategy yet again come '24 for the presidential election. Bet the mortgage and the kid's college fund on that.
    I mean, they're already doubling down on the real issues people care about: transphobia!

  12. #55962

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    It's much better for Fox News to ramble about whatever fake crisis of the moment they're inventing to fearmonger about, because it distracts from the fact that their party has no ideas that aren't a white nationalist wish list, and have delivered on absolutely nothing for the American people other than "tax breaks for billionaires" in the past 20 years. Seriously, zero substantial legislative achievements, other than preventing several that would have substantially aided the working class.

    Rather than shake a set of shiny keys like you could to entertain a baby, they do the same thing with a culture war tale of outrage to keep the boomers entertained. Because, as they say when they get taken to court for libel, they're not news, they're "entertainment". That's the product.
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  13. #55963
    Ultimate Member Mister Mets's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Tami View Post
    When Democrats discuss crime, they generally are discussing Gun involved violence, Bias based crime, lack of social support systems, and excessive use of force by Police

    When Republicans discuss crime, they are often also discussing 'illegal' immigration/migrants, minorities, illegal drugs, and poor people.

    It's not easy to meet in the middle.

    Just felt like saying this. No reason.
    It's telling that your view of what Democrats prioritize doesn't include identifying and capturing the perpetrators. This is one reason it's easy to knock Democrats as prioritizing criminals over victims and law enforcement. They should certainly pay attention to robberies in minority communities where there's no ethnic bias against the victim.

    It's possible to meet in the middle. Democrats don't need every Republican on their side to show that major legislation has widespread support. They could do their best to persuade and show that their views are best.

    We can also do our best to find common ground, such as enforcing laws that exist without sending people back to jail for paperwork mistakes, or striving to make sure that we don't support a permission support a permission structure for crime.

    Quote Originally Posted by WestPhillyPunisher View Post
    And because Qpublicans won't learn the lessons from their screwup in the midterms, they'll roll out this failed strategy yet again come '24 for the presidential election. Bet the mortgage and the kid's college fund on that.
    Do you think Republicans underperformed because they talked too much about inflation or dysfunction in the cities? Election results seem to suggest that candidate quality (specifically candidates who were part of the "stop the steal" movement) was the biggest factor.
    Last edited by Mister Mets; 11-27-2022 at 07:34 AM.
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  14. #55964
    Invincible Jersey Ninja Tami's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by Mister Mets View Post
    It's telling that your view of what Democrats prioritize doesn't include identifying and capturing the perpetrators. This is one reason it's easy to knock Democrats as prioritizing criminals over victims and law enforcement. They should certainly pay attention to robberies in minority communities where there's no ethnic bias against the victim.

    It's possible to meet in the middle. Democrats don't need every Republican on their side to show that major legislation has widespread support. They could do their best to persuade and show that their views are best.

    We can also do our best to find common ground, such as enforcing laws that exist without sending people back to jail for paperwork mistakes, or striving to make sure that we don't support a permission support a permission structure for crime.



    Do you think Republicans underperformed because they talked too much about inflation or dysfunction in the cities? Election results seem to suggest that candidate quality (specifically candidates who were part of the "stop the steal" movement) was the biggest factor.
    Note that I also didn't prioritize ID and Capture with Republicans either. On both sides, it's about the cause. Blame gets its share, more so with Republicans than Democrats but both sides do it.

    The problem with ID and Capture, along with prosecution and punishment, is that it is imperfect and easily biased.

    Sometimes we get it right, sometimes we get it really, really wrong. This is something that needs to be addressed by the Nation as a whole, not just by individual pockets of society.
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  15. #55965
    Mighty Member 4saken1's Avatar
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    Quote Originally Posted by scourge View Post
    Especially when if the Democrats take even a half step towards the middle (which they never should anyway), the Republicans SPRINT farther right and keep up their BS.
    Not to mention that Democrats risk alienating much of their own base when they do so.
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