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

[PwrdOn]

It doesn't help that a lot of Republican voters are so concerned with their religious beliefs and practices and "America First" that their general knowledge base has all the depth of a kiddie pool.

The two gems I've come across in my travels are one person sincerely believing Rhode Island is a literal island, and another person being astonished that non-white human beings existed in Australia long before the whiteys arrived. These are people who have no interest at all in learning about the world outside their preferred bubbles.

I think most people would rather just live in ignorance than accept the reality and undertake the harsh task of trying to set things right. Countries like America and Australia didn't just come about from a lucky accident of history, some boat being blown off course and landing in some magical new land or whatever, they were built from centuries of genocide, slavery, and exploitation, and by us continuing to participate in these societies and enjoying the comfort and material wealth that comes with it, we in some sense share some culpability for the oppression and suffering, past present and future, that's necessary to make it all function. But at the same time, it's not possible for us to just stop participating in society, just the act of existing in this world, posting on these forums with electronic devices that were built with sweatshop labor, or doing a daily commute using cheap gas made possible by the bombing of countless Middle Eastern towns, all contributes to the continuing misery of the rest of the world. So either we have to radically change everything about our lives and accept a significantly diminished quality of life, or we can just tell ourselves that all these bad things are good actually and that actually we did everyone a favor by building this modern country on top of land that a bunch of savage tribes were letting go to waste, and that all this cheap labor overseas we rely on for all our stuff is actually creating jobs and developing their economies, and that bombing Iraq was necessary to spread freedom and democracy or whatever, and that you know, even if America does do some bad stuff it doesn't really matter cause you know the world is full of bad people like the Russians and the Chinese and Islamic terrorists and that if any of THOSE people were in charge you know things would be MUCH worse even.

[Madam-Shogun-Assassin]

How does it make any sense to have a news cycle where the top stories go back & forth b/w reporting on a pandemic raging out of control, a growing domestic terrorism threat & pundits asking if new admin will compromise w/ party directly responsible for the pandemic & terrorism??? This obsession with whether the Democrats (the nation’s only borderline responsible political party at the moment) will engage in bipartisanship instead of asking why the Republicans won’t treat our COVID crisis as the emergency it is... beltway journalism at its worst.

[Tami]

EXCL: The Scottish Parliament will this week stage a debate - and vote - on whether ministers should pursue an Unexplained Wealth Order to investigate the source of financing for Donald Trump’s Scottish resorts. My @TheScotsman story.

[Hellion]

EXCL: The Scottish Parliament will this week stage a debate - and vote - on whether ministers should pursue an Unexplained Wealth Order to investigate the source of financing for Donald Trump’s Scottish resorts. My @TheScotsman story.

HAR! This made my day. My cousins across the pond have more backbone than the entire Republican machine in DC.

[Amadeus Arkham]

Trump’s new legal team for the second impeachment announced.

[PwrdOn]

How does it make any sense to have a news cycle where the top stories go back & forth b/w reporting on a pandemic raging out of control, a growing domestic terrorism threat & pundits asking if new admin will compromise w/ party directly responsible for the pandemic & terrorism??? This obsession with whether the Democrats (the nation’s only borderline responsible political party at the moment) will engage in bipartisanship instead of asking why the Republicans won’t treat our COVID crisis as the emergency it is... beltway journalism at its worst.

I mean, Biden was elected on the back of promises that he would compromise with Republicans and avoid extreme policy positions, so it's natural to ask him to follow through on this. If you wanted a guy who was gonna tell the GOP where they can stick their bipartisanship and pull out all the stops to help ordinary people, well that's just not who Biden is.

[Kirby101]

Trump’s new legal team for the second impeachment announced.

I can't find this from any other news source.

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

I mean, Biden was elected on the back of promises that he would compromise with Republicans and avoid extreme policy positions, so it's natural to ask him to follow through on this. If you wanted a guy who was gonna tell the GOP where they can stick their bipartisanship and pull out all the stops to help ordinary people, well that's just not who Biden is.

To be fair, there's been plenty of Dems criticizing that stance Biden took.

[Emperor-of-Dragons]

How does it make any sense to have a news cycle where the top stories go back & forth b/w reporting on a pandemic raging out of control, a growing domestic terrorism threat & pundits asking if new admin will compromise w/ party directly responsible for the pandemic & terrorism??? This obsession with whether the Democrats (the nation’s only borderline responsible political party at the moment) will engage in bipartisanship instead of asking why the Republicans won’t treat our COVID crisis as the emergency it is... beltway journalism at its worst.

Because they want access to “both sides”? They like the conflict, it generates content for them, and lets them continue to profit from the system in place as is. Which they will prop up at all costs.

[Mister Mets]

How does it make any sense to have a news cycle where the top stories go back & forth b/w reporting on a pandemic raging out of control, a growing domestic terrorism threat & pundits asking if new admin will compromise w/ party directly responsible for the pandemic & terrorism??? This obsession with whether the Democrats (the nation’s only borderline responsible political party at the moment) will engage in bipartisanship instead of asking why the Republicans won’t treat our COVID crisis as the emergency it is... beltway journalism at its worst.

They don't blame Susan Collins or Mitt Romney for the terrorism.

Reporters are generally knowledgeable enough about the pandemic to know that it's not clearly exclusively the fault of Republicans either.

There is also the question of whether the Democratic bill is clearly significantly better. What does the extra $1.3 trillion provide?

[Mister Mets]

I can't find this from any other news source.

A letter was sent to the press less than an hour ago, so it is rather new.

https://twitter.com/Acosta/status/1356015238932557824

There was a good response to the story.

“Sir, no lawyer in the country is willing to defend you”

“What about Jeff Epstein’s guy?”

“Sir, it turns out one lawyer in the country is willing to defend you”

[Jack Dracula]

That's super easy.

People don't do their homework when voting. General motivation is limited to political ideology and campaign ads, but you'd be hard pressed to see the average voter take time to examine news articles, social media, and campaign websites to see who they are thanks to a combination of busy lives, laziness, lack of motivation, or partisanship.

You're bound to sneak in some wretched creatures this way.

Or they vote for the person who panders to their single issue the loudest.

[Malvolio]

It doesn't help that a lot of Republican voters are so concerned with their religious beliefs and practices and "America First" that their general knowledge base has all the depth of a kiddie pool.

The two gems I've come across in my travels are one person sincerely believing Rhode Island is a literal island, and another person being astonished that non-white human beings existed in Australia long before the whiteys arrived. These are people who have no interest at all in learning about the world outside their preferred bubbles.

To be fair, there are several actual islands off the New England coast that are in fact part of Rhode Island. The majority of the state, however, does share a land border with Massachusetts and Connecticut.

[PwrdOn]

To be fair, there's been plenty of Dems criticizing that stance Biden took.

Those Democrats are the same people that are regularly panned as pie in the sky idealists who are just as bad as Trump except from the other side just for wanting everyone to have healthcare. The whole reason Biden was nominated and subsequently elected was this belief that there was a large bloc of voters who just thought Trump was too vulgar to hold office but were basically fine with the status quo policy wise, and that the most electable candidate would be someone who would just stay out of spotlight and basically do nothing. The Democratic party spent the better part of the last year telling all the Bernie Bros and other leftists that we just needed to STFU and get in line behind a president whose main selling point was his steadfast resolve to do nothing, and now everyone is shocked and appalled that nothing is getting done?

Because the party failed to pressure its own caucus to all get behind nuking the filibuster, that means that if they use reconciliation to do the stimulus checks, then they'll have used up their one chance to pass anything this whole year which means they won't be able to get to anything about health care, the environment, immigration, or any of that. Or they could sit on this for a bit and try to pass the more comprehensive package with reconciliation, but again because of their failure to discipline their caucus, they will probably have to expend a ton of political capital just to lure one or two Republican votes to get it through which will necessarily mean watering it down substantially before it can pass. I mean, I suppose the media could be blasting stories all day trying to shame the Republicans for being traitors and religious fanatics until ten GOP senators defect and give the Democrats the supermajority they'd need to govern effectively, but I wouldn't hold my breath for that.

[Revolutionary_Jack]

What does the extra $1.3 trillion provide?

It's laid out clearly here:
https://www.cnn.com/2021/01/14/polit...lus/index.html

Discussed in more detail by this nation's most respected economist here:
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/14/o...n-economy.html