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

[Joker]

I cannot speak for a group of people of which I am not a part.

[Jack Dracula]

Space Force Troops Get a Name: ‘Guardians’



Yes, boys and girls, this is serious. Predictably, snarkmeisters on Twitter are having a field day. Hopefully, Joe Biden will kill this nonsense after he takes office next month.

It may be silly but if I were in high school now I'd be looking at signing up for the Space Force.

[Iron Maiden]

Here's your chance everyone. Bid now! Atlantic City to auction off demolition of former Trump Casino

he Trump Plaza Hotel and Casino in Atlantic City went bankrupt and shut in 2014. Now, the city is auctioning off the chance to dynamite it for charity. The property was one of three Trump-branded casinos that once formed the centrepiece of the world-famous resort city nicknamed "America's playground". But as revenues plummeted, Mr Trump cut his losses and his ties with the city.City officials have called several times for the idle building to be torn down after chunks of the crumbling landmark repeatedly broke off and fell onto surrounding streets.

A bidding process that began on Thursday will determine who gets the right to count down and hit the button that will raze the 39-floor casino. Proceeds from the auction will fund the local chapter of the Boys & Girls Club of America, a youth development organisation. "I want to raise at least a million dollars and I think we can accomplish that," said Atlantic City Mayor Marty Small Sr, in a press conference. The mayor said his office has already been "bombarded" with phone calls about the auction, from Arkansas to Canada.

Trump lost all of his Atlantic property years ago and was bailed out to some extent by Carl Ichan ( a real billionaire, unlike Trump who probably owes a billion to various sources)

Trump is not liked very much in Atlantic City. He chiseled subcontractors left and right. The current mayor is no fan of his either

Atlantic City's Mayor Small has been critical of Mr Trump's past, saying: "He said he took advantage of the bankruptcy laws, took advantage of a lot of people, made a lot of money and then got out, so it's extremely important that we do something worthwhile with this [demolition]".

However, Mr Trump has held up his Atlantic City exploits as a success, once tweeting: "Does anyone notice that Atlantic City lost its magic after I left years ago?"

The demolition - originally set for January but postponed by inclement weather - will take place sometime in February.

BTW Carl Icahn was involved in battle over ownership Marvel Comics with Ron Perelman and that tale is a book in itself.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Here's your chance everyone. Bid now! Atlantic City to auction off demolition of former Trump Casino



Trump lost all of his Atlantic property years ago and was bailed out to some extent by Carl Ichan ( a real billionaire, unlike Trump who probably owes a billion to various sources)

Trump is not liked very much in Atlantic City. He chiseled subcontractors left and right. The current mayor is no fan of his either



BTW Carl Icahn was involved in battle over ownership Marvel Comics with Ron Perelman and that tale is a book in itself.

It’s hard to imagine Trump having a landing spot anywhere after leaving office without controversy. He’s long since worn out his welcome in Florida, and New Yorkers have hated his guts since about forever. Who knows where he’ll end up when all is said and done.

[AnakinFlair]

It’s hard to imagine Trump having a landing spot anywhere after leaving office without controversy. He’s long since worn out his welcome in Florida, and New Yorkers have hated his guts since about forever. Who knows where he’ll end up when all is said and done.

Probably Texas.

Speaking of the Not-So-Great Pumpkin, Tump is of course contradicting Pompeo and saying Russia isn't behind the hacks, it was China!

[Jack Dracula]

It’s hard to imagine Trump having a landing spot anywhere after leaving office without controversy. He’s long since worn out his welcome in Florida, and New Yorkers have hated his guts since about forever. Who knows where he’ll end up when all is said and done.

Personally, I'm hoping for someplace with bars on the windows and limited phone and internet access.
Not that it will ever happen.

[The Cool Thatguy]

Probably Texas.

Speaking of the Not-So-Great Pumpkin, Tump is of course contradicting Pompeo and saying Russia isn't behind the hacks, it was China!

I'd love to see Trump sweating through his makeup in Texas

[Tami]

SCOOP - Sidney Powell was in Oval Office last night as POTUS discussed making her special counsel for election fraud.

Trump campaign told to preserve all documents related to Sidney Powell and Dominion Voting Systems

Army leaders push back on Mike Flynn’s call for the military to ‘re-run’ the 2020 election

Giuliani asks DHS about seizing voting machines

[Tami]

The inside story of how Trump’s denial, mismanagement and magical thinking led to the pandemic’s dark winter

As the number of coronavirus cases ticked upward in mid-November — worse than the frightening days of spring and ahead of an expected surge after families congregated for Thanksgiving — four doctors on President Trump’s task force decided to stage an intervention.

After their warnings had gone largely unheeded for months in the dormant West Wing, Deborah Birx, Anthony S. Fauci, Stephen Hahn and Robert Redfield together sounded new alarms, cautioning of a dark winter to come without dramatic action to slow community spread.

White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, among the many Trump aides who were infected with the virus this fall, was taken aback, according to three senior administration officials with knowledge of the discussions. He told the doctors he did not believe their troubling data assessment. And he accused them of outlining problems without prescribing solutions.

The doctors explained that the solutions were simple and had long been clear — among them, to leverage the power of the presidential bully pulpit to persuade all Americans to wear masks, especially the legions of Trump supporters refusing to do so, and to dramatically expand testing.

“It was something that we were almost repetitively saying whenever we would get into the Situation Room,” said Fauci, who directs the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. “Whenever we got the opportunity to say, ‘This is really going to be a problem because the baseline of infections was really quite high to begin with, so you had a lot of community spread.’ ”

On Nov. 19, hours after the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention advised against Thanksgiving travel, Vice President Pence, who chairs the coronavirus task force, agreed to hold a full news conference with some of the doctors — something they had not done since the summer. But much to the doctors’ dismay, Pence did not forcefully implore people to wear masks, nor did the administration take meaningful action on testing.

“I think he’s just done with covid,” said one of Trump’s closest advisers who, like many others interviewed for this story, spoke on the condition of anonymity to candidly discuss internal deliberations and operations. “I think he put it on a timetable and he’s done with covid. . . . It just exceeded the amount of time he gave it.”

[The Cool Thatguy]

"White House Chief of Staff Mark Meadows, among the many Trump aides who were infected with the virus this fall, was taken aback, according to three senior administration officials with knowledge of the discussions. He told the doctors he did not believe their troubling data assessment. And he accused them of outlining problems without prescribing solutions"

So basically, we're in this mess because Covid outlasted Trump's attention span, and his White House can't do basic problem solving.

[skyvolt2000]

Well, yeah, but young Black people will find out about those blackface episodes of Community and 30 Rock sooner or later. Do you think they'll see the self-censorship in the manner it was intended or see it as a cover-up?

While Joker is not black, I am.

As far as I am concerned it's covering up stuff instead of taking responsibility for it.
So you took it off a streaming site. I still own the dvds. DVDs that stores still stock with no censorship.

In NBC going to offer to buy back those dvds and the ones sold? No.
Because all that would do is jack up the price on Ebay for those who don't return them.

Might as well leave those episodes there. Maybe film new footage of the writers and cast talking about that episode. Last time I checked Donald Glover, Yvette Brown and Tracy Morgan are BLACK. Donald Glover was a writer on 30 Rock.

Did they say anything?

And for the woke folks who do take issue-ask them do they take issue when it's black folks writing that stuff? Like Chuck Clayton on Riverdale. Like the treatment of black on RIverdale since there are black female producers on that show.

[Malvolio]

While Joker is not black, I am.

As far as I am concerned it's covering up stuff instead of taking responsibility for it.
So you took it off a streaming site. I still own the dvds. DVDs that stores still stock with no censorship.

In NBC going to offer to buy back those dvds and the ones sold? No.
Because all that would do is jack up the price on Ebay for those who don't return them.

Might as well leave those episodes there. Maybe film new footage of the writers and cast talking about that episode. Last time I checked Donald Glover, Yvette Brown and Tracy Morgan are BLACK. Donald Glover was a writer on 30 Rock.

Did they say anything?

And for the woke folks who do take issue-ask them do they take issue when it's black folks writing that stuff? Like Chuck Clayton on Riverdale. Like the treatment of black on RIverdale since there are black female producers on that show.

Good questions and good points. For instance, I would rather have Song of the South released on blu-ray, packaged with commentaries and interviews about the racism of the film than to just have Disney lock it in a vault and pretend like it never happened.

[Powerboy]

The discussions on censorship get a little messy since no one is really talking about government censorship, and most of us would agree that some forms of censorship are good (IE- I assume we don't want to see hard-core pornography aired on network TV on Saturday Morning.)

There are examples of corporate censorship. A data analysis at a polling firm was fired for retweeting an African American professor's analysis of 1968 election results which suggested a correlation between riots and Nixon overperformance.

https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/ar...nocent/613615/

James Damore, a Google engineer was asked for feedback from a diversity program he attended, and got fired for it.

There are efforts in academia to make sure that people with controversial conservative views are not allowed to speak at universities. This has gotten broader.

As for how big a problem self-censorship is, that does depend on the effects. If it encourages people to do a little bit more research to get the facts correct, or to hide repulsive views, that's not a bad thing. If it discourages people from saying objective facts, from discussing the potential consequences of policies, or results in institutions developing major blind spots, that will have bad effects.

I do want to make it clear that I don't think posting a video is an endorsement of everything Maher said outside the video. Or even every specific thing in the video. I was curious about WBE's argument, which dismissed the video because of what Maher has said elsewhere.

There are some warning signs for Democrats right now. Trump was a mediocre President, and almost won reelection against a Democrat who had a lot of electoral advantages (born in a key swing state, African American support from serving as Obama's VP, high name recognition which makes it difficult for Republicans to define him.)

This may sound strange but I think one of the appeals of Maher to liberals is very much the same as one of the appeals of Trump to conservatives.

Trump says things a lot of conservatives believe but don't dare say. There are things even many liberals roll their eyes at but don't say anything but Maher blurts it out. There is a visceral appeal to a guy who tells people to f themselves in a society of apologizing for everything.

As to the rest, yes, Biden barely beat a mediocre president with a dismal record, one of if not the worst president, because we are in a societal insane asylum where almost half the country sees him as one of the greatest presidents while the world laughs. Biden was the most centrist candidate they could find but even he mostly won because it was him or Trump while Republicans generally did well.

[Gray Lensman]

Good questions and good points. For instance, I would rather have Song of the South released on blu-ray, packaged with commentaries and interviews about the racism of the film than to just have Disney lock it in a vault and pretend like it never happened.

Especially when dealing in film and television - as well as other forms of entertainment. The literary character of Charlie Chan was conceived to help fight against the "Yellow Peril" stereotype that was prevalent at the time, but was presented as another stereotype and in film was portrayed by white actors in yellow face. And the "Ur example" is the incredibly innovative, yet deeply and disturbingly racist film "Birth of a Nation." The latter is still taught in film classes although there is almost always an accompanying discussion about how troubling it is.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

SCOOP - Sidney Powell was in Oval Office last night as POTUS discussed making her special counsel for election fraud.

Trump campaign told to preserve all documents related to Sidney Powell and Dominion Voting Systems

Army leaders push back on Mike Flynn’s call for the military to ‘re-run’ the 2020 election

Giuliani asks DHS about seizing voting machines

And all because Trump refuses to admit he lost. No doubt that poor, delusional bastard will go to his grave believing he had been cheated out of a second term.