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

[Mister Mets]

I actually can. You’re comparing a company releasing an illegal sex tape and a wrestler who lost his current job and a bunch of advertisements to a Dr. who is in politics having people on tv push conspiracy theories that won’t effect his job and you can’t even tie any backlash or death threats to it because he’s getting them anyways. It’s a bad case unless you literally get a smoking gun of the network and the people having a discussion that is essentially “hey guys want to make up some lies about Fauci on air so we can ruin his life”. And even if you got that, Fauci would still have to prove direct damages.

And even then a loss is going to be construed by the right as “Fauci lost the case, so see they weren’t lying”.

I also can’t stress enough that Hogan vs Gawker was about the most textbook case in the world where the material they published was illegal, illegally obtained, there’s really no reason to release a sex tape besides to maliciously embarrass somebody and Hogan has multiple employers and advertisers cut ties with him directly citing what was released on that tape. And as thirty pointed out, the truth is without a billionaire with a massive vendetta Hogan probably wouldn’t have fought it as long as it took to induce that settlement. Fauci would have an uphill case and quite frankly many politicians would be suing if that was the metric. Obama could have sued Fox News over about a thousand things. It just doesn’t work that way.

In Fauci’s case high risk/low reward situation. You aren’t likely to win, even if you win it really doesn’t change much, and eating a loss is just going to a red flag for your oppositions. Also by suing you add gas to the fire and give the story more attention.

This is one of those things where you go on tv and laugh that it’s ridiculous and dismiss it, have influential people do the same, and then let the public do its thing

Adding to that, another aspect of the Hogan case is that Gawker ignored court orders, which is going to piss off judges and juries.

The video was also essentially revenge porn, a category that will unite all sorts of people.

The initial argument also was that a lawsuit wouldn't be time-consuming for Fauci, that he could get his lawyers involved in 15 minutes, but that's also probably not the case. Lawsuits tend to be time-consuming for everyone involved. Depositions are lengthy, as is the process of preparing for being questioned under oath.

[PaulBullion]

Adding to that, another aspect of the Hogan case is that Gawker ignored court orders, which is going to piss off judges and juries.

The video was also essentially revenge porn, a category that will unite all sorts of people.

The initial argument also was that a lawsuit wouldn't be time-consuming for Fauci, that he could get his lawyers involved in 15 minutes, but that's also probably not the case. Lawsuits tend to be time-consuming for everyone involved. Depositions are lengthy, as is the process of preparing for being questioned under oath.

I've won my share of lawsuits that barely took up half an hour of my time.

In this case, the lawyer would prepare a written statement by Fauci that he is not, indeed, a mad scientist who cooked up a deadly virus to wipe out people in his own age group, he'd sign it and I can't see any scenario where he would be required to testify under oath against these completely ridiculous, slanderous and dangerous accusations.

[Kirby101]

I've won my share of lawsuits that barely took up half an hour of my time.

In this case, the lawyer would prepare a written statement by Fauci that he is not, indeed, a mad scientist who cooked up a deadly virus to wipe out people in his own age group, he'd sign it and I can't see any scenario where he would be required to testify under oath against these completely ridiculous, slanderous and dangerous accusations.

Where those lawsuits against large Media Conglomerates with unlimited resources?

[PaulBullion]

Where those lawsuits against large Media Conglomerates with unlimited resources?

Am I one of the most beloved public figures in this pandemic?

[Kirby101]

Am I one of the most beloved public figures in this pandemic?

All the more reason this will be a bigger case than firing off a letter. I just don't think Fauci wants to bother at this point.
Anyway Sinclair pulled the Doc because of all the pushback. They were publicly accused of wanting people to die.

[PaulBullion]

All the more reason this will be a bigger case than firing off a letter. I just don't think Fauci wants to bother at this point.
Anyway Sinclair pulled the Doc because of all the pushback. They were publicly accused of wanting people to die.

Yes, I am sure public opinion had a bigger impact than the inevitable defamation suit.

[PwrdOn]

Straw man. And worse against what? Please, explain what you mean here otherwise it's just going on a tangent without addressing the real gist of what you're defending. I assume it's about capitalism vs Communism, but your response is so disjointed it's like I came into a conversation you had with an invisible party.

The entire concept of intellectual property is simply cover for blatant monopolist extraction. Oh sure, it supposedly exists to protect the rights of artists and inventors, but somehow they never get much reward for their efforts while the rights are inevitably held by wealthy corporations that will sue anyone, including the original creators, into oblivion if they catch them tapping into their revenue stream. Even from a capitalist perspective, patent and copyright protections distort prices and create deadweight loss, not to mention that since most innovation comes from improving on existing ideas rather than sparks of inspiration out of nowhere, so strict IP laws stifle creativity more than anything. This is not a flawed system that can be fixed by slightly tweaking it, it's something that needs to be done away with altogether.

[worstblogever]

On this date, in both 2014, as well as in 2015, "Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day" profiled Allen West, the former Tea Party Congressman from Florida’s 22nd Congressional District, who was forced into retirement by the United States Army for detaining an Iraqi policeman and using advanced interrogation techniques like threatening to shoot him in the head, and firing the gun next to his ear, causing him to lose half his hearing. Attempting forced confessions in this matter is frowned upon in most rational circles, because we don’t live in the universe of Jack Bauer, you see. In his one term in Congress, Allen West said things like, “Joseph Goebbels would be proud of the Democratic Party”, “take your message of equality of achievement and take it to Europe, to the bottom of the sea, to the North Pole, but get it out of the United States of America”, that people with Obama bumper stickers were “a threat to the gene pool”, that the Democratic Party is “a 21st Century plantation”, that there were “78 to 81 communists in the Democratic Party”, that “George Bush got snookered into going into some mosque, taking his shoes off, and saying Islam was a religion of peace”, and chastised the Pentagon for saying “tolerance and inclusion” were a key to mission success. Allen West backed a military strike in Benghazi, over a year after the attack on the diplomatic compound there, as if the perpetrators were still holed up and waiting. He’s also convinced the Muslim Brotherhood has infiltrated our government, that President Obama is a secret “Islamist”, and that any Muslim advocacy group is secretly a terrorist organization. Oh, and illegal immigrants are being used to spread diseases through the population as a biological warfare experiment by the Obama administration, that gay marriage will lead to a civil war, and complained when the state of South Carolina moved to take down the Confederate flag at the state capitol, blaming it on “Islamofascists and socialists” who were attempting to re-write history “just like ISIS and the Taliban”. He is, for lack of a better term, a goddamn lunatic. While Allen West has been booted from office for half a decade, yet he still has a following in Tea Party circles, who bizarrely think he’s telling it as it is. West has gone on to start his own “journalism” site online, that exists simply as a platform for West to editorialize world events through his own paranoid, deranged prism. There were growing rumors that West may run for Congress in Texas in 2020, but instead, because it wasn't deranged enough, the Texas Republican Party recently voted to make him their chairman. Be ready for more in the headlines about this kook.

[Malvolio]

It's unlikely those are the actual words, since the point of the test is to recall unrelated words.

https://twitter.com/Stargzr613/statu...93744095412226



It might not be about rebel attitudes as much as people in hotter, southern states hanging out indoors where there's air conditioning.

https://thehill.com/opinion/energy-e...itioning-nexus

The numbers also suck in California.

I've heard it a little differently, that neither the Northern or Southern states saw the nation as more important than the state until after the civil war.

https://www.archives.gov/publication...ingular%20noun.

Things like that don't happen overnight. Everyone didn't suddenly start referring to the United States in the singular the second that Lee surrendered at Appomattox Courthouse. There were plenty of newspaper editors already doing it for several years. The end of the Civil War just made it a more popular thing to do.

[worstblogever]

In both 2016, 2017, 2018, as well as in 2019, “Crazy/Stupid Republican of the Day” presented profiles of the sitting U.S. House Representative from North Carolina’s 6th Congressional District, Mark Walker, who has already caught our attention while serving in his freshman term in office. As some of our more extreme GOP House members seem to be, Mark Walker was a newcomer to politics, only formerly serving as a pastor before jumping into politics in 2014, where he has deeply concerned for his psychological stability. At a town hall, he derided Islam, saying, “You can’t have a religion of peace when you’ve got nearly a billion” – that’s with a “b” – “people chopping off heads all over the country.” He also talked of impeaching President Obama for things he never did and will never do, like refusing to leave office, instituting Sharia Law, and “spending billions on vacations” (Obama spent less time on vacation than any president in decades). Walker also casually discussed going to war with Mexico to stop border crossings (because that wouldn’t make more people flee there), saying the military along the border could "laser or blitz somebody with a couple of fighter jets". He felt war with Mexico would be okay because "We've done it before." Ah, a pastor willing to go to war over immigration, just like Jesus would have wanted. Walker also made a threat to shut down the government over Planned Parenthood funding, and his belief that any criticism of North Carolina’s HB2 law is “bullying” (which is precisely backwards) and perpetuating the myth that transgendered citizens are assaulting women in public bathrooms. Walker’s outlook on climate change from his website isn’t just denial, but a partisan attack on Democrats, or as he called them, the “secular left”, who he accuses of using the issue to get rich. Anyway, during the GOP Primary in 2014, Pastor Walker, not surprisingly, stated his absolute dedication to being pro-life, without exceptions. Once he got to the general election of course, he suddenly DID believe in exceptions for rape and incest. His voting record once he got to office indicates his primary stance was his true one.

On June 21st, 2016, as House Democrats staged a sit-in on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives after the largest mass shooting in modern history in Orlando, trying to force Speaker Paul Ryan and Republicans to vote on legislation to make sure that those on the no-fly-list for being suspected terrorists could also not by firearms to carry out terror attacks…Paul Ryan attempted to hide the GOP's embarrassment by cutting C-SPAN cameras filming the sit-in, only to discover Democrats were filming it on Periscope, and providing live-feeds on the internet. Mark Walker wasn't going to take the protest in stride, and got on Twitter to shame the Democrats for their gun control support, by comparing their move to the REAL masters of the sit-in, who fought during the Civil Rights era:

"Calling this a sit-in is a disgrace to Woolworth's. They sat-in for rights. Dems are 'sitting-in' to strip them away."

There was just one enormous problem with that line of attack... one of the leaders of the Democratic sit-in was Georgia Congressman John Lewis. As in, civil rights hero John Lewis, who crossed the bridge in Selma only to be clubbed in the head by police, and actually SAT at the Woolworth's lunch counter that Mark Walker was referencing during his social media white-splaining. There's barking up the wrong tree, and then there's putting on a dog suit and yapping at a cactus until you get poked in the nose. Walker had done the latter.

We will finish our update by pointing out that with such relevant issues happening in our country such as Russia hacking into our election systems, or how we could better protect those voting systems… Walker likes to get on social media to focus on other, more pressing issues. Like to complain about “government waste” evidenced by the installation of small ramps near the reflecting pool in our nation’s capitol so that ducklings can get in and out without drowning. Mark Walker, ladies and gentleman. A soul so compassionate, he’d rather see dead baby animals on his way to work than have any solution created with taxpayer dollars. A man who is only pro-life as it applies to fetuses, and not any living being.

Walker’s fanaticism has even angered his own Republican colleagues, including during the brief search for a new House chaplain in April, when Walker requested candidates have “adult children and wives”. That ended up having him being forced to leave the committee to pick the next chaplain because he just effectively admitted he wanted to disqualify anyone who was Catholic, off hand, given their vows of chastity making the whole “wife or kid” prerequisite impossible. Apparently he’s only tolerant of fellow Baptists, at this point.
His voting record:

• January 23rd, 2019: Rep. Walker voted against HR 648, because he was gleefully enjoying the longest government shutdown in history.
• January 27th, 2019: Mark Walker couldn’t be arsed to vote against HJR 30, which was meant to express disapproval of Donald Trump not acting against Russian Federation for attacking our democracy. You see, he’s fine with our nation being sublet to Vladimir Putin.
• February 28th, 2019: Mark Walker votes against HR 1112, a bill which would have required universal background checks on all firearm purchases, and close the gun show loophole.
• March 7th, 2019: Walker votes against HR 183, a resolution to condemn anti-Semitism as a hateful extension of intolerance.
• March 14th, 2019: Rep. Walker votes against HJR 46, which sane members of Congress voted for to reject Donald Trump’s “national emergency” regarding the U.S. border and his attempts to reallocate funds for a border wall without Congressional approval.
• April 4th, 2019: Mark Walker is one of 158 Republicans who choose to vote against the re-authorization of the Violence Against Women Act.
• May 17th, 2019: Walker votes against The Equality Act, which would have prevented discrimination towards Americans based on their gender identity or sexual orientation.
• June 4th, 2019: Rep. Walker votes against the Dreamers Act, because he’s too xenophobic and partisan to care about immigration reform.
• July 16th, 2019: Mark Walker votes against a resolution to condemn Donald Trump for his racist statements that four people of color in Congress should “go back where they came from”.
• October 23rd, 2019: Walker is one of 41 Republicans who, while staring down the possibility of Donald Trump being impeached, stage a ridiculous publicity stunt in response by crashing a classified impeachment inquiry hearing for a “protest”.
• December 18th, 2019: Walker ignores his Congressional duty to hold a president who has been proven to commit high crimes and misdemeanors accountable and votes against the impeachment of Donald Trump.
• May 15th, 2020: Walker votes against the HEROES Act, to further support the healthcare industry and citizens affected by the Covid-19 pandemic.

Mark Walker has opted to not run for re-election in 2020, which may or may not have something to do with the fact that he was implicated in a corruption probe by federal investigators. He is alleged to have accepted $150,000 for his campaign in a bribery scheme to force North Carolia Insurance Commissioner Mike Causey to replace his deputy. Even if Walker avoids indictment, he’s going to spend the next several months under scrutiny from the House Ethics Committee (which is now controlled by Democrats, so good luck with that, Mark).

However… before we all start celebrating the end of Mark Walker’s career… keep in mind he’ll be running for U.S. Senate in North Carolina in 2022, to try to get the seat being vacated by Senator Richard Burr (an ethically challenged individual in his own right).

It's up to the people of the Tar Heel State to decide they don’t want corruption to be a part of their politics, it seems.

[Joker]

It's always nice to see Republican's coming out against Trump, but the Reagan Foundation wanting to distance itself, so Trump isn't tarnishing Reagan's legacy is laughable.

Reagan was also great at looking the other way while a health crisis plagued a group of people he didn't value.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

It's always nice to see Republican's coming out against Trump, but the Reagan Foundation wanting to distance itself, so Trump isn't tarnishing Reagan's legacy is laughable.

Reagan was also great at looking the other way while a health crisis plagued a group of people he didn't value.

Bingo! Saint Ronnie’s response to the HIV crisis in the early years was abysmal. Think of the lives that could’ve been saved (including Rock Hudson and Freddie Mercury) if Reagan had fully mobilized the country’s resources to develop medicines to combat the disease from the beginning.

[Kevinroc]

https://twitter.com/BarackObama/stat...17455447552002

We're 100 days away from Election Day and there is too much at stake to sit this one out. Now's a good time to make sure you're registered to vote––and to make sure your friends and family are, too. https://t.co/XdZz4dh82T?amp=1

[Tami]

So many images are getting to me, but this one really summed it up.

[Tami]

Trump campaign will ‘wait and see’ whether to accept the election outcome

In an interview with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi, Trump campaign National Press Secretary Hogan Gidley calls mail-in voting “idiotic” and defends the president’s use of federal officers on protesters in Portland, OR.