All purpose news and politics thread part VII: News & Politics Total Landscaping

[WestPhillyPunisher]

Nuke Gaza moron isn't far from Trump's "Lets Nuke a Hurricane", but the blackmail angle here is something I've missed so far. Care to elaborate WPP?.

I think it was during one of his rallies that Trump boasted about the likelihood that he could be bought or blackmailed by foreign powers. I forget where I said it.

[Catlady in training]

Please tell me this is a joke article (although I suspect it isn't):

Trump 2028

The Twenty-second Amendment is an arbitrary restraint on presidents who serve nonconsecutive terms—and on democracy itself.

Lost in the Left’s endless babbling about Donald Trump’s alleged threat to democracy is a very simple but inconvenient truth: Trump’s re-emergence as the Republican presidential nominee in 2024 is a triumph of democracy.

Not only did Trump secure the nomination following his defeat in 2020—a rather incredible feat in and of itself—but did so in spite of every obstacle the mainstream media, the Republican establishment, and the lawfare apparatus have put in his way.

The primary voters and caucus-goers who chose Trump did so in spite of January 6, the prosecution of the former president, or even the popularity in some MAGA quarters of Ron DeSantis. They chose him because they damn well felt like it.

This is democracy in action: The voters surveyed the scene, tuned out the noise, and selected the man the rest of the world loves to hate. What could be more democratic than voting for your preferred candidate against the advice—the warnings, the threats, the fear-mongering—of your betters?

Yet, even if Trump returns to the White House this November, the Twenty-second Amendment will bar him from standing for re-election in 2028. Ratified in 1951, the amendment is largely seen as a kind of constitutional course correction following the four consecutive presidential terms of Franklin Delano Roosevelt.

The amendment reads, in part: “No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.”

This sounds reasonable enough, especially in light of FDR’s hold on the office. Yet those who supported the amendment more than 70 years ago could not have foreseen the prospect of a one-term president who lost the office but who later regained it in a subsequent election. Grover Cleveland remains the only president to have successfully vaulted himself to the White House in nonconsecutive elections, in 1884 and in 1892. (Theodore Roosevelt, president from 1901 to 1909, also gave it a try by running as the Progressive Party standard-bearer in 1912.)

In modern times, it is virtually inconceivable that any of the ousted one-term presidents would have seriously thought of running anew against the same opponent (now the occupant of the White House) who had bested them four years earlier. (Think about it: George H.W. Bush running against Bill Clinton in 1996?) This is not a reflection of a weakness in their character but the reality of American public life: Voters are fickle, and by the end of the first term of any presidency, they have long forgotten the loser from four years earlier.

As the primary season has shown us, the Republicans have not moved on from Trump—yet the Twenty-second Amendment works to constrain their enthusiasm by prohibiting them from rewarding Trump with re-election four years from now.

This is plainly unfair. Indeed, there has long been support for axing the Twenty-second Amendment due to the artificial limits it places on voter choice. Many popular presidents have agreed. In 1985, the Washington Post reported that Ronald Reagan supported repealing the amendment, saying in private remarks that the lame-duck label being applied to his second term left him feeling “handicapped.” In 2016, Barack Obama told David Axelrod that he was sure he would have coasted to a third term if such a thing were permissible: “I am confident in this vision, because I’m confident that if I had run again and articulated it, I think I could have mobilized a majority of the American people to rally behind it.”

The case of Donald Trump, however, makes an even more forceful ethical argument against the Twenty-second Amendment and for its repeal: If a man who once was president returns, after a series of years, to stand again for the office and proves so popular as to earn a second nonconsecutive term—as Trump seems bound to do—to deny him the right to run for a second consecutive term cuts against basic fair play. If, by 2028, voters feel Trump has done a poor job, they can pick another candidate; but if they feel he has delivered on his promises, why should they be denied the freedom to choose him once more?

Don’t let questions of Trump’s age in four years fool you.

Besides the glaringly obvious differences between the men in their brain power, physical strength, and ability to walk in a straight line, Trump and Biden are about four years apart, making this issue something of a wash. If Trump wins in November and would be eligible to run for re-election in 2028, he would be 82 years old during that election—the same age Biden will be later this year. And at the end of Trump’s hypothetical second consecutive term, in 2032, he would be 86—the same age Biden would be at the end of his second term if he is returned to the White House.

Conservatives have gritted their teeth for years as the Left, in their hatred of Trump, has attempted to pervert the meaning of first the Twenty-fifth Amendment and, more recently, the Fourteenth Amendment. The case for repealing the Twenty-second Amendment is far more straightforward: As with Prohibition, it is simply a matter of finding the will to get rid of a bad idea that needlessly limits Americans’ freedom.

Trump in 2028!

(The bolding is mine, just highlighting what I found most ridiculous.)

[useridgoeshere]

The Trump campaign needs money for rallies and voter turnout efforts in a few states, but how much is that really? The news media and social media platforms give him all the advertising he needs for free.

It works well for him, so it’s tough to see where motivation for change could come from.

I know he thinks it works well for him, but it’s been shown multiple times that for all his shenanigans, he’d be richer if he’d just invested this inheritance in an S&P 500 index fund. He’s been a horrible liar and cheater, but still underperformed financially.

[Tami]

The Trump campaign needs money for rallies and voter turnout efforts in a few states, but how much is that really? The news media and social media platforms give him all the advertising he needs for free.


I know he thinks it works well for him, but it’s been shown multiple times that for all his shenanigans, he’d be richer if he’d just invested this inheritance in an S&P 500 index fund. He’s been a horrible liar and cheater, but still underperformed financially.

Pulling this together from various sources and from memory...the feeling that I have come away with is that Trump has an inferiority complex, a need to prove to his late parents that he isn't 'worthless' or 'incompetent' or whatever. You are right that a normal person who inherited a lot of money and just wanted to live the life of a rig=ch person could have invested it and lived off of the income or interest.

Trump wanted to be a better businessman than his father and only proved that he was a better fraud, conman, and criminal.

[Jack Dracula]

Regarding chess, I am astounded how men have any advantage? I did look at a Chess site and the general consensus was that having female and male divisions is just a combination of tradition and the fact that there are far more men that play chess than women so that inherently slants things in men's favor just by the sheer numbers.

I've found that the sheer propaganda of the Right is sickening. To hear them tell it, trans women are dominating and destroying women's sports. Jeez** C****t, Lia Thomas tied for 5th in one race, won one race, and would have come in 12th had she competed in a year when the women's NCAA swimming times were better than the abysmal overall swim times the year she and Riley Gaines competed. Thomas has also lost speed as she continues to transition. No trans women holds any all-time women's sports record. Katie LeDecky would have lapped her twice had they competed the same year. Yet the Right promotes this absolute bald-faced lie.

It's not that I have no sympathy for a young woman (not Gaines) seeking out a broom closet to change clothes rather than be in a room naked with someone who was anatomically male at the time. But that problem has been long since dealt with yet conservatives keep running it into the ground as if it hasn't been adjusted for.

Then I see that hypocrite, Caitlin Jenner, siding with people who endlessly misgender her for heaven only knows what reasons. She just accused Lia Thomas of suing a swimming organization just for publicity. For f++k's sake, Riley Gaines has made a career out of her bigotry while launching a lawsuit.

You’ve just described the reality that the situation has been over exaggerated to make it seem like a major injustice where trans athletes are unfairly dominating a significant number of sports while in actuality the number of trans athletes is very small and their performance is pretty average.
Real world evidence reveals this to be a non-problem created specifically to gin up outrage against trans people in general. I can only assume it’s a tactic to engage people who wouldn’t normally care by giving them an enemy to fight against. It’s sick and cynical and a tactic historically employed by the worst, most morally bankrupt political parties.

[Tendrin]

Meanwhile, the latest in anti-trans panic is that the transgender day of visbility, which is March 31st, happened to fall on Easter Sunday and now they're all screaming about how Biden 'declared' it and it is an 'affront' to god-fearing Christians.

It's ridiculous.

[Tendrin]

Please tell me this is a joke article (although I suspect it isn't):

Trump 2028



(The bolding is mine, just highlighting what I found most ridiculous.)

It's not a joke. They want authoritarianism and they believe Trump can give them the Project 2025 led Christian authoritarian theocracy they hope for.

[Jack Dracula]

Please tell me this is a joke article (although I suspect it isn't):

Trump 2028



(The bolding is mine, just highlighting what I found most ridiculous.)

This is how it works. They’ll plant the idea that rules, laws, and norms intended to protect the democratic process are actually harmful and should be done away with. There is already a mode of thought circulating within the Republican electorate that democracy is a failure and it’s time for the security and assurance that authoritarianism brings to society.
That really worries me. Democracies die when ideas like that become too popular.

[Mister Mets]

The important thing is he did not put "Nuke Gaza" on a t-shirt.

If a politician suggests support for something controversial, it's worth asking about it.

Please tell me this is a joke article (although I suspect it isn't):

Trump 2028



(The bolding is mine, just highlighting what I found most ridiculous.)

It's shameless pandering, and unwise politics. If they were to reverse the 22nd amendment, Obama would be back.

On The Week:

As expected, the faux ignorance & sealioning is back, which is kind of silly considering how many of the posts on the subject containing the results of the Study he's read & reposted in the last few days. The evidence of it being deliberate is how Mets answers his own question similarly to how I pointed out legitimate numbers could be reached. The Week didn't do that, in fact adding 3 words to the 1-in-20 statement would have shut me up long ago: In Our Analysis. Why? Because that would be some sort of proof they didn't use just the results of the only Study they cite unaltered or unanalyzed. As we still don't have any nor any response to how Transphobic it is to make this report without mentioning "those raised as boys identifying as transgender", it's clear exactly how much Mets cares about being factually correct or focusing on the specifics of a situation.

Why does it matter that The Week didn't do this but Mets is asking us to do it? Because without the added steps of bringing in other studies or analysis it's clear that they are just making up a transphobic lie and if WE do the work to try and prove their statement then we are supporting not only misinformation but also transphobia. If they didn't care to try and find a Study that says exactly what they say it does, why should anyone work so hard to defend a study that's only "close enough" to what The Week stated it showed outright? Only Mets can answer that question, or explain why he still won't provide proof to back up his statements & wild theories about the reporters in this case.

Conspiracy Brain time, a plausible reason for fighting so long and knowing what the writers did to check chromosomal status & the like would be if Mets is moonlighting on his teaching gig and wrote up this story for The Week. Such a conspiracy theory has no evidence nor do I advance it seriously, but at least that would be an explanation for the behavior we've seen for so long.

The article was about a particular phenomenon.

It's perfectly appropriate for a media outlet to compare transgender identification rates between students raised as boys and students raised as girls, but that doesn't have to be done in every piece.

I could understand someone strongly opposing the piece if the information contradicted other studies, but it doesn't seem to do that. If you do the work, the math checks out. We can't expect a one page piece to explain everything in granular detail.

The big sticking point seems to be the use of transgender as an umbrella term for people who identify as belonging to a gender outside the traditional binary, and I'm wondering why anyone would so strongly see this as evidence that the reporter is exaggerating to rile up the normies.

It would make sense if there's an understanding that a lot of people who identify as agender, genderfluid, nonbinary, two-spirited, genderqueer, etc. aren't serious about it, and that it's an affectation, especially if someone does not explicitly identify as trasngender. Otherwise, I'm still not seeing why the style guide of a newsmagazine should worry about the distinctions. But if this is anyone's viewspoint, it should be made explicitly.

[Dalak]

According to these quotes, there is no reason to trust Mets when it comes to Math:

In Math, 0.3% of 4.2% would be 0.3% multiplied by 4.2% rather than 0.3% as a share of 4.2%, which would get the wrong number, although I do get where you're coming from.

Incidentally, when I said I get where you're coming from, that doesn't mean that I understood it before.

His understanding of it is on display, as he would prefer us to believe that he can't understand basic addition & subtraction rather than admit to being disingenuous here. Whatever you personally believe, there's no reason to believe the math checks out here.

Limiting the reporting to "those brought up as girls identifying as transgender" if a spike is supposed to be worrying is just as transphobic as nullifying the Chess championships of only Trans Men.

E: If you have to make assumptions and guesses and excuses, you aren't dealing with Facts.

The Week's article:

[Dalak]

I think it was during one of his rallies that Trump boasted about the likelihood that he could be bought or blackmailed by foreign powers. I forget where I said it.

This is all I can find, and it seems to be part of his claims about presidential immunity. Because for more than 200 years and FAR more caustic political shenanigans than are possible than today it wasn't a problem, but because Trump might see consequences it's time to change the law/constitution.

Please tell me this is a joke article (although I suspect it isn't):

Trump 2028

(The bolding is mine, just highlighting what I found most ridiculous.)

It's not a joke. They want authoritarianism and they believe Trump can give them the Project 2025 led Christian authoritarian theocracy they hope for.

This is how it works. They’ll plant the idea that rules, laws, and norms intended to protect the democratic process are actually harmful and should be done away with. There is already a mode of thought circulating within the Republican electorate that democracy is a failure and it’s time for the security and assurance that authoritarianism brings to society.
That really worries me. Democracies die when ideas like that become too popular.

These things are very clear problems, which is why they're ignored or dismissed as exagerration.

You’ve just described the reality that the situation has been over exaggerated to make it seem like a major injustice where trans athletes are unfairly dominating a significant number of sports while in actuality the number of trans athletes is very small and their performance is pretty average.
Real world evidence reveals this to be a non-problem created specifically to gin up outrage against trans people in general. I can only assume it’s a tactic to engage people who wouldn’t normally care by giving them an enemy to fight against. It’s sick and cynical and a tactic historically employed by the worst, most morally bankrupt political parties.

Meanwhile, the latest in anti-trans panic is that the transgender day of visbility, which is March 31st, happened to fall on Easter Sunday and now they're all screaming about how Biden 'declared' it and it is an 'affront' to god-fearing Christians.

It's ridiculous.

We're watching it excused more & more every day by people across social media and elected office, as well as folks closer to home.

[Malvolio]

Michigan Republican congressman suggests nuking Gaza, ending humanitarian aid




I guess this will lead to more Democratic fundraisers being protested by the "River to the Sea" crowd.

Nuke Gaza? Has anyone told this nincompoop how small an area Gaza is, and that any nuclear attack would effect the surrounding area, meaning Israel?

[Mister Mets]

According to these quotes, there is no reason to trust Mets when it comes to Math:





His understanding of it is on display, as he would prefer us to believe that he can't understand basic addition & subtraction rather than admit to being disingenuous here. Whatever you personally believe, there's no reason to believe the math checks out here.

Limiting the reporting to "those brought up as girls identifying as transgender" if a spike is supposed to be worrying is just as transphobic as nullifying the Chess championships of only Trans Men.

E: If you have to make assumptions and guesses and excuses, you aren't dealing with Facts.

The Week's article:

Dalak, I have engaged numerous times with the argument that people who fall outside the gender binary are not transgender. Sometimes you hold that view, sometimes you don't.

You can't blame me for failing to understand your view at a given time if it keeps changing.

Early on, you said "there is nothing about genderqueer, nonbinary, and others that make them Trans unless it's an intention to overestimate the number for shock value. You can apply LGBT to them, but that includes far more than just T. It also is pretty damning for reporters who make these stances to lack the education to have these false definitions in mind, and shows they either don't know the subject enough or are deliberately skewing things which is bad in either case for any claim of journalistic integrity. "

Later, you said the argument is more about rounding 2.7% to 5%.

I hope you aren't a math teacher, because it's simple to see where you are you are wrong here. I don't believe that these studies represent what you say they do, but since I'm not going through the effort to read through and prove it to someone who won't accept it I'll use simple math assuming they do:

3.7% x .66 = 2.44 round down to 2.4
2.4 + .3 = 2.7

You are defending rounding up from 2.7% to 5% to excuse believing a lying story or for supporting the transphobia that the story and Shrier are peddling. Your lies came from gaslighting me pretending you didn't understand what I was saying and trying to make me think I was arguing things I wasn't so many many times which you are continuing in this post. Just stop pretending Mets.

In this case, you argued that the percentage of college students who are AFAB and trans is 2.7%, but you've also included students who were assigned male at birth (cis men, trans women) in the surveys and they're not relevant to the question of whether there's an increase in identification among students assigned female at birth. And you said I was being obtuse for recognizing that your math was bad.

If you change arguments, get the math wrong and focus on personal insults rather than clarification, you will be misunderstood at times.

[Hypestyle]

Nuke Gaza? Has anyone told this nincompoop how small an area Gaza is, and that any nuclear attack would effect the surrounding area, meaning Israel?

unfortunately, morons like that congressman are just morally inchoate. Just awful.

[zinderel]

Meanwhile, the latest in anti-trans panic is that the transgender day of visbility, which is March 31st, happened to fall on Easter Sunday and now they're all screaming about how Biden 'declared' it and it is an 'affront' to god-fearing Christians.

It's ridiculous.

As I say elsewhere, if Easter wants to take precedent over everything else that happens on the day Easter chooses to fall THIS year? It can pick a set date to occur. But because there is a need to celebrate Christian mythology on a floating ‘Sunday’ that changes every year, SOMETIMES that celebration of mythology falls on a day that HAS a set date, and celebrates ACTUAL REALITY.

Christians and their holy days are not more important than anyone else. There is no reason, other than shittiness, to demand that their magical day of magical bunnies and eggs and zombie gods take precedent over anything else. Especially in light of the fact that America is not a Christian nation and thus, has NO OBLIGATION to acknowledge a day of Christian mythological fervor at ALL.

I’m so tired of Christians demanding special treatment and then turning violent when anyone ELSE gets even CLOSE to the same treatment.