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

[hyped78]

For the same reason Election Day isn’t a national holiday, because Qpublicans have pulled out all the stops to make sure voting isn’t easier or more convenient for the masses because, if it was, they fear more people would hit the polls to vote Democrat.

I can’t speak for “they”, but I’ve hated Trump LONG before he went into politics, going back to the late 1980’s when he went on a crusade to have the Central Park Five executed, despite the fact they were declared innocent after a trial, even going so far as taking out a full page newspaper spree to spew his noxious views about wanting those young men put to death. As late as 2019, Trump STILL believed those young men should’ve been executed. That’s why I hate him.

There's a Netflix mini series ''When They See Us'' about the Central Park Five, it's very good.

Before Trump went into politics, I think I just saw him as a 'joke'. Never in my wildest dreams did I think he would become POTUS - EVEN when he joined the GOP Primaries I assumed he would just lose and disappear.

[hyped78]

Saudi woman, PhD student in Leeds, UK, went to Saudi Arabia on vacation, got arrested and has been given 34 years in jail... for following and retweeting "activists" on Twitter:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-using-twitter

The Human Rights track record in Saudi Arabia - and most of the muslim world - continues to be "awesome".

[CaptainEurope]

'It's over' for the Trump Organization if its CFO Allen Weisselberg pleads guilty, legal analyst and ex-prosecutor says

A guilty plea from the Trump Organization's former chief financial officer in the criminal tax case against him would spell financial disaster for former President Donald Trump and his family business, said a former top federal prosecutor on Tuesday.

The Times reported that Weisselberg's deal would see him receive five months in prison, compared to a sentence of at least one year if he was found guilty in court.

"Once Allen Weisselberg pleads guilty, it's over for the Trump Organization," said Andrew Weissmann, a law professor at New York University and former lead prosecutor under Robert Mueller, on MSNBC's "The Last Word" with Lawrence O'Donnell.

He said that crimes committed by Weisselberg would be attributed to the Trump Organization, meaning the company would also be held responsible for the charges.

[Sharpandpointies]

And here I was thinking Canada was mostly bereft of the QAnon nutbags infesting the lower 48. My mistake.

Heck, no.

We have plenty up here in Canada (trucker convoy, anyone? Just for a start). It's just that decades of Maple-washing has created this false image of Canada being a beautiful place of peace and harmony, where no bad things exist.

*disgusted sound*

It's not. Not at all. The veneer has been cracking for years, and people around the world are finally seeing Canada for what it is - that is to say, not a hellhole (edit: though for some it is), but far, far from the image presented. We have tons of blatant and systemic racism, we have right-wing craziness, we have a performative government that supports industry over the people, we're crap on climate change, we've pursued a genocidal agenda against the indigenous people for centuries (edit: granted, Canada as a country has only been around since 1867, but go back further in our history and, well...), etc, etc. I could go on.

Cripes, we own Jordan Peterson (though to be honest, a large segment of the populace wishes we didn't).

[Tendrin]

Saudi woman, PhD student in Leeds, UK, went to Saudi Arabia on vacation, got arrested and has been given 34 years in jail... for following and retweeting "activists" on Twitter:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-using-twitter

The Human Rights track record in Saudi Arabia - and most of the muslim world - continues to be "awesome".

This is probably connected to this:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/09/tw...-saudi-arabia/

A former Twitter employee suspected of spying on behalf of Saudi Arabia was found guilty, Bloomberg reported Tuesday. The employee, U.S. resident Ahmad Abouammo, was also convicted by a jury of conspiracy to commit wire fraud, falsifying records and money laundering. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

Abouammo worked on media partnerships in the Middle East at the company from 2014 to 2015. According to the federal complaint, he and another Twitter employee, Ali Alzabarah, were approached by the Saudi government and offered cash and luxury goods for their cooperation collecting personal information on Twitter users of interest. Alzabarah, an engineer at the company, fled to Saudi Arabia and evaded trial. In light of his connection to the Saudi government, Twitter sent out warnings to some users that their accounts had been targeted by state-sponsored actors in 2015.

In the trial, the prosecution argued that a prominent member of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s government tapped Abouammo for help investigating his enemies. In the course of that cooperation, Abouammo allegedly collected personal information including birth dates, email addresses and phone numbers of the Saudi government’s critics and sent that data to his contacts there. Abouammo’s defense maintained that he only accessed the information as part of his regular work duties at Twitter.

Here's a good thread on it on twitter.

https://twitter.com/SilvermanJacob/s...44971958747137

[CSTowle]

Why talk about Bernie? That's news as old as he is. Sanders could have run in 2004 and stood a better chance than he did 12 years later. Not that I ever thought he'd win regardless.

He would have made the debates along with Kucinich (and shared the 0-2% Kucinich pulled in) on the far left of the stage, but that election had a wide range of candidates and he would have been marginalized as the outlier he was/is. He became successful in 2016 because we were being force-fed the worst nominee in my lifetime and primary voters desperately wanted an option, any option, to get out of it.

Add to that the often neglected left wing of the Party actually having a candidate who not only talked about the things they cared about, but seemed to actually believe the words that were coming out of his mouth instead of pandering (though windmills instead of hot-sauce in her purse, in their case). Still not enough to allow the establishment conservative Party leaders to allow it to happen, established shenanigans having been talked about and even acknowledged by her backers here on the boards ("Hey, it's politics. You play to win. He couldn't hack it.").

Do think Biden or Kerry or even a scream-less Dean would have beaten Trump, which is more than you can say for Hillary. The blessing and the curse of her was energizing the extremes of both Parties wanting to flee a corrupt and incestuous center, though I'd say opening the door for MAGA greatly outweighs seeing left-wingers energized (even if you discount reports she and Bill encouraged him to run, thinking he'd be easy pickings, hard to deny her failures gave him the opportunity).

Heck, no.

We have plenty up here in Canada (trucker convoy, anyone? Just for a start). It's just that decades of Maple-washing has created this false image of Canada being a beautiful place of peace and harmony, where no bad things exist.

*disgusted sound*

It's not. Not at all. The veneer has been cracking for years, and people around the world are finally seeing Canada for what it is - that is to say, not a hellhole (edit: though for some it is), but far, far from the image presented. We have tons of blatant and systemic racism, we have right-wing craziness, we have a performative government that supports industry over the people, we're crap on climate change, we've pursued a genocidal agenda against the indigenous people for centuries (edit: granted, Canada as a country has only been around since 1867, but go back further in our history and, well...), etc, etc. I could go on.

Cripes, we own Jordan Peterson (though to be honest, a large segment of the populace wishes we didn't).

And let's not forget Bryan Adams!

[Sharpandpointies]

And let's not forget Bryan Adams!

...dude, I'm listing the negatives.

^_^

[hyped78]

This is probably connected to this:

https://techcrunch.com/2022/08/09/tw...-saudi-arabia/



Here's a good thread on it on twitter.

https://twitter.com/SilvermanJacob/s...44971958747137

Interesting! Because one of the strange points on the story of the PhD student I mentioned is that she didn't have that big of a Social Media following, it seems like she's mostly a "normal person" who happens to follow anti Saudi government activist accounts, re-tweeted some of their posts etc. If there was a Twitter employee mining these types of Twitter accounts at scale, then it becomes far easier for the Saudis to identify "enemy" accounts

[CSTowle]

Shout-out to South Park, but I do like "Run to You".

[AnakinFlair]

There's a Netflix mini series ''When They See Us'' about the Central Park Five, it's very good.

Before Trump went into politics, I think I just saw him as a 'joke'. Never in my wildest dreams did I think he would become POTUS - EVEN when he joined the GOP Primaries I assumed he would just lose and disappear.

I think a lot of people just saw him as a joke. I saw him as a guy that amused me a bit when he showed up in the WWE, but other than that, I had no interest in him. I honestly can't explain where this cult of personality around him came from, though. I guess it's enough that he allows people to be the worst versions of themselves.

[Kirby101]

On Bernie, I agree with him on most things and see myself as very progressive. But I see the country as not. I do not think he can get enough support from the whole country to win the Presidency. And even if he did, he would not get enough of Congress to pass his agenda. This is more an condemnation of many of the voters here than of where Bernie sounds. It's about realpolitics rather than policy.
I voted for Warren in 2020

[hyped78]

I think a lot of people just saw him as a joke. I saw him as a guy that amused me a bit when he showed up in the WWE, but other than that, I had no interest in him. I honestly can't explain where this cult of personality around him came from, though. I guess it's enough that he allows people to be the worst versions of themselves.

Even when he created that fake issue about Obama's country of birth, it still seemed like he wouldn't go anywhere in politics

[WestPhillyPunisher]

I think a lot of people just saw him as a joke. I saw him as a guy that amused me a bit when he showed up in the WWE, but other than that, I had no interest in him. I honestly can't explain where this cult of personality around him came from, though. I guess it's enough that he allows people to be the worst versions of themselves.

My uninformed guess: Trump read the room to perfection when he launched his campaign in 2015, tapping into all the fear, rage and frustration whites felt at being marginalized and knocked from the top of the societal food chain, and turned it into a platform of rampant grievance and bottomless hatred of minorities, gays, Muslims, liberals, so-called elites and immigrants. Trump gave those “downtrodden” multitudes a voice, telling them he hated the same people they hated, and it was love at first sight, the cult was born, and it shows zero sign of going away so long as Trump continues breathing.

[hyped78]

My uninformed guess: Trump read the room to perfection when he launched his campaign in 2015, tapping into all the fear, rage and frustration whites felt at being marginalized and knocked from the top of the societal food chain, and turned it into a platform of rampant grievance and bottomless hatred of minorities, gays, Muslims, liberals, so-called elites and immigrants. Trump gave those “downtrodden” multitudes a voice, telling them he hated the same people they hated, and it was love at first sight, the cult was born, and it shows zero sign of going away so long as Trump continues breathing.

You're kind of simplifying/ generalizing it when you say "the fear, rage and frustration whites felt", it's best to say "many whites" or a "majority of whites".

According to Pew Research - https://www.pewresearch.org/politics...-2020-victory/

Out of all White Non Hispanic voters, Biden got 43% (and Trump 55%), including 46% on white women. And in Hispanics, Biden got 59% and Trump got 38%.

So it's not like we can just say "whites were frustrated and voted for Trump and minorities voted for Biden", that's an over simplification.

However, I do agree that as whites will become less than 50% of the US population, the GOP will need to make massive inroads with Latinos to recover those lost votes. On the other hand, the white population % decrease is larger in Liberals than in Conservatives.

[Farealmer]

Saudi woman, PhD student in Leeds, UK, went to Saudi Arabia on vacation, got arrested and has been given 34 years in jail... for following and retweeting "activists" on Twitter:

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-using-twitter

The Human Rights track record in Saudi Arabia - and most of the muslim world - continues to be "awesome".

Sounds like you love to hate them!