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

[Jack Dracula]

Again...

Getting out of the "Argument..." frame of mind is gonna need to happen here.

Back to the question...

The Black Panthers regularly showed up armed to make a political statement.

Do you, personally, believe that the group being armed was proof that they never had any intention of making a peaceful political statement?

Edit: Never mind. I don’t have the patience for this kind of nonsense anymore.

[skyvolt2000]

Again...

Getting out of the "Argument..." frame of mind is gonna need to happen here.

Back to the question...

The Klan regularly showed up armed to make a political statement.

Do you, personally, believe that the group being armed was proof that they never had any intention of making a peaceful political statement?

Fixed it for you....

Because Black Wall Street and a TON of black folks and supporters didn't survive those "peaceful" statements.


How many times have the Black Panther showed up and attempted to break into a building with the intent to harm certain folks?


Unlike the Jan 6th crew who had ZERO evidence of election fraud.

Yet went to the Capital and some of them broke in and did damage. Along with looking for Mike Pence and others to do do HARM.

Not all of them went there for a peaceful protest.

[JackDaw]

How many times has it been ditched for POC?

Plenty of times, I guess.

Do you favour it being ditched?

[Malvolio]

Bottom line: black people with guns makes a political statement. White people with guns also makes a political statement. But to pretend that both make the same statement is at the very least disingenuous and at worst out and out lying.

[aja_christopher]

Plenty of times, I guess.

Do you favour it being ditched?

Yet another open ended question that doesn't address the entirety of the issue at hand -- what individuals favor often has little bearing on actual jurisprudence especially when it comes to the rights of "minorities".

What is favored is moral consistency -- not a system that imprisons "minorities" for crimes such as marijuana possession while individuals like Trump can commit far greater crimes and never face real consequences.

Nor arguments that defend said behavior while ignoring the fact that Republicans have repeatedly given Trump a pass for overtly criminal actions as well as to those who attempted to overthrow democracy in Trump's name.

In arguing for principles that defend democracy be wary that you don't empower those who would end it: if the goal is to protect democracy then one shouldn't let idealism overshadow the reality of Republican behavior.

Unlike the Jan 6th crew who had ZERO evidence of election fraud.

Yet went to the Capital and some of them broke in and did damage. Along with looking for Mike Pence and others to do do HARM.

Not all of them went there for a peaceful protest.

As a result of McConnell's denial of the first black president's Supreme Court pick Trump was able to select three of the Supreme Court judges who could potentially determine his fate.

McConnell and the rest of the Republican party ignored or defended Trump's overtly racist and fascist behavior until said behavior became the norm.

It's no coincidence that after Obama we now have an openly white nationalist Republican party aligned with a right-wing Supreme Court that is willing to tip the scales in their favor in order to promote the conservative agenda.



Their leader is channeling Hitler and they only love him all the more for it.

[aja_christopher]

[shooshoomanjoe]

AI discovered satellite images of craters in Gaza, evidence that Israel is bombing civilian areas it said would be safe: New York Times

I guess Israel allowed Oct 7 to happen so they can have an excuse to commit their genocide agenda.

[Catlady in training]

For something lighter, UK's "favorite" minister, Cruella de Vil (AKA Suella Braverman, the one who claimed that homelessness is a lifestyle choice) received a prestigeous award D*ck of the Year. You can watch her receive it here:

[Catlady in training]

Meanwhile, the UK government is continuing to fight against their greatest enemy, trans and non-binary children.

Transgender guidance: Schools to keep parents informed

[WestPhillyPunisher]

What is favored is moral consistency -- not a system that imprisons "minorities" for crimes such as marijuana possession while individuals like Trump can commit far greater crimes and never face real consequences.

Nor arguments that defend said behavior while ignoring the fact that Republicans have repeatedly given Trump a pass for overtly criminal actions as well as to those who attempted to overthrow democracy in Trump's name.

In arguing for principles that defend democracy be wary that you don't empower those who would end it: if the goal is to protect democracy then one shouldn't let idealism overshadow the reality of Republican behavior.



As a result of McConnell's denial of the first black president's Supreme Court pick Trump was able to select three of the Supreme Court judges who could potentially determine his fate.

McConnell and the rest of the Republican party ignored or defended Trump's overtly racist and fascist behavior until said behavior became the norm.

It's no coincidence that after Obama we now have an openly white nationalist Republican party aligned with a right-wing Supreme Court that is willing to tip the scales in their favor in order to promote the conservative agenda.



Their leader is channeling Hitler and they only love him all the more for it.

Of course they are. It doesn’t matter if the country is slip sliding into fascism, the GQP only cares about regaining the power they lost after 2020, and Trump is the answer to their prayers.

[Mister Mets]

What specific argument are you supporting by placing that stipulation on the situation?

It doesn't work as evidence that Trump should have expected something bad to happen, since in this case, he could easily argue that he was correct to dismiss that concern.

There is a more complicated argument that he was fomenting chaos, and didn't know what exactly would happen, but wanted to something to happen in order to take advantage of it. But that's a harder fact pattern to establish, and gets into some procedural questions about who should make that determination.

[Tami]

It doesn't work as evidence that Trump should have expected something bad to happen, since in this case, he could easily argue that he was correct to dismiss that concern.

There is a more complicated argument that he was fomenting chaos, and didn't know what exactly would happen, but wanted to something to happen in order to take advantage of it. But that's a harder fact pattern to establish, and gets into some procedural questions about who should make that determination.

Jan. 6 attack was 'exactly' what Trump intended, special counsel claims in court filing - December 6, 2023

Special counsel Jack Smith, in a court filing Tuesday, detailed additional evidence he plans to introduce at the trial of former President Donald Trump on charges of unlawfully trying to overturn the results of the 2020 election, including evidence of Trump's alleged state of mind as his supporters attacked the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6.

"This evidence shows that the rioters' disruption of the certification proceeding is exactly what the defendant intended on January 6," Smith said in the filing.

Smith's office, in the filing, provided notice of a range of information and testimony prosecutors hope to introduce at trial that -- while not part of the actual charges against Trump -- will speak to his "motive, intent, preparation, knowledge ... and common plan," they say.

Smith said his office has texts from the unnamed employee showing the employee was encouraging "rioting and other methods of obstruction" at the convention center in Detroit when votes in the state began trending in support of Joe Biden. As Trump's supporters flooded the convention center to raise illegitimate challenges to votes being counted, Trump tweeted baseless allegations that there was illegal activity taking place there, further fueling the chaos, according to Smith.

"Evidence of the defendant's post-conspiracy embrace of particularly violent and notorious rioters is admissible to establish the defendant's motive and intent on January 6 -- that he sent supporters, including groups like the Proud Boys, whom he knew were angry, and whom he now calls 'patriots,' to the Capitol to achieve the criminal objective of obstructing the congressional certification," Smith says in the filing.

"In addition, his statements in this time period agreeing that he then held, and still holds, enormous influence over his supporters' actions is evidence of his knowledge and intent to obstruct the certification, as he chose not to exercise that influence to mitigate the violence on January 6," the filing says, adding that "evidence of the defendant's statements regarding possible pardons for January 6 offenders is admissible to help the jury assess the credibility and motives of trial witnesses, because through such comments, the defendant is publicly signaling that the law does not apply to those who act at his urging regardless of the legality of their actions."

---

WATCH: Former White House aide says Trump knew Jan. 6 protesters had weapons - Jun 28, 2022

WASHINGTON (AP) — Cassidy Hutchinson, a key aide in Donald Trump’s White House, told the House committee investigating the violent Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection on Tuesday that Trump was informed that people rallying on the mall that morning had weapons but he told officials to “let my people in” and march to the Capitol

Hutchinson quoted Trump as directing his staff, in profane terms, to take away the magnetometers that he thought would slow down supporters who’d gathered in Washington. In videotaped testimony played before the committee, she recalled the former president saying words to the effect of: ”“I don’t f-in’ care that they have weapons.”

“They’re not here to hurt me. Take the f-in’mags away. Let my people in. They can march to the Capitol from here,” Hutchinson testified.

---

Evaluating the Jan. 6 Committees Evidence, in Full - August 21, 2022

In other words, the committee’s hearings should—at least in our view—be adjudged a success from an evidentiary point of view to precisely the extent that they would convince a reasonable person of the seven points the committee declared it would prove:

1. Trump attempted to convince Americans that significant levels of fraud had stolen the election from him despite knowing that he had, in fact, lost the 2020 election;
2. Trump planned to remove and replace the attorney general and other Justice Department officials as part of an effort to pressure the department to spread his allegations of election fraud;
3. Trump worked, in Cheney’s words, “to pressure Vice President Mike Pence to refuse to count electoral votes on January 6th”;
4. Trump tried to convince state lawmakers and election officials to alter election results;
5. Trump’s lawyers and other members of the president’s team directed Republicans in multiple states to produce fake electoral slates and send those slates to Congress and the National Archives;
6. Trump assembled a destructive group of rioters in Washington and sent them to the U.S. Capitol; and
7. Trump ignored requests to speak out against the violence in real time and failed to act quickly to stop the attack and tell his supporters to depart the Capitol.

Trump may have believed that Nothing Bad would happen to Him.....but he clearly Knew and Wanted something Bad to Happen to Congress.

I doubt that Trump would have shed a single tear if the mob had killed any of his best Congressional Republican Boot Lickers.

[achilles]

In keeping with the theme of this thread, here's a political landscape!

[worstblogever]

On this date in 2018, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day” profiled Rich Hobson, a failed candidate in 2018 for the U.S. House of Representatives seat to represent Alabama’s 2nd Congressional District. Hobson finished a distant fourth in the GOP Primary for this seat with about only 7.5% of the vote, and well behind the incumbent and CSGOPOTD alumni Martha Roby. So what is it about Rich Hobson that makes him worthy of one of our profiles? Well, Hobson was Roy Moore’s campaign manager during his disastrous run for U.S. Senate in Alabama in the last part of 2017. And it isn’t just that he’s a die-hard Roy Moore supporter to this day, still standing by the racist, anti-Semitic, homophobic, pedophilic theocrat… we just think back to Moore’s campaign and realize how he was extraordinarily bad at his job. Even when you take the details about how terrible Roy Moore is… what the hell was up with coming up with the gimmick of having him badly ride a horse to the polls like a drunken John Wayne movie villain on multiple occasions? We’ll not that Hobson’s campaign platform is almost identical to Moore’s pathlogically insane one, including his passion for the highly unconstitutional idea of putting Ten Commandments monuments in government buildings. Anyway, Hobson thought he would score points with GOP primary voters by giving away AR-15s at campaign events, because there aren’t enough of them floating around this country already, and also, he was dumb enough to campaign with his old pal, the accused pedophile himself. Because he remains that brilliant of a campaign strategist.


On this date in 2014, 2015, 2016, 2017, 2019, 2020, 2021, as well as in 2022, “Fanatical Republican Extremist of the Day posted profiles of Montana State Senator Keith Regier, who has repeatedly tried to create laws criminalizing “attacks upon an unborn child” that are blatant attempts at overriding Roe v. Wade, and in defending those sorts of laws, has on more than one occasion compared pregnant women to cattle. His problems with the female gender don’t end there, as Regier attempted to re-write sumptuary laws in the state capitol to keep female legislators from showing too much knee. Regier also tried manufacturing outrage over “Obamaphones”, a right-wing myth that President Obama started giving out free phones to minorities that is based on an insane version of reality where the program of getting welfare recipients functioning phones established during the Reagan presidency is now a conspiracy being perpetrated by Obama. He has voted for laws to attempt to nullify federal firearm laws, as well as voted to drug test welfare recipients, as well. In Keith Regier’s first term in the Montana State Senate he has tried passing anti-abortion legislation in the form of a “fetal pain” bill, and sabotaged a bill aimed at curtailing revenge porn by inserting language that indicates it’s only a crime if a person “financially profits” from it, a new form of anti-woman dickery from Keith. It also ignores the fact that the main motivating factor is right in the name of the crime “REVENGE porn”. Regier also began dabbling in Islamophobia, by pushing for a bill to attempt to create an unnecessary ban Sharia Law in Montana that could inadvertently affect how tribal law is conducted on many Native American reservations in the state in its poorly thought out language.

Regier won re-election in 2020 with 55% of the vote, and we would like to point out that he made headlines in April of 2021, when during a debate on a bill about vaccine mandates, Regier promoted the conspiracy theory that the Covid-19 vaccine somehow contains “microscopic tracking chips” during debate on the floor of the Montana State Senate. The quote:

”It's still requiring an employee to put something into their bodies in order to be employed. That's crazy. What's next? I've read articles about putting a little chip in with the vaccine. There you got, right there — so what if that is federally approved and the employer requires that?”

Just… Lord Almighty, what a kook.

Keith Regier is facing term limits in 2024. He’s got nothing to lose, and if you needed more evidence of that, we point in the direction of the fact that he wielded his power in the Montana House to bully transgender collage Zooey Zephyr for daring to appeal to the consciences of Republicans who voted for an anti-trans bill to deny gender-affirming care to minors. Sadly, though, he has a daughter in place in the state legislature that’s using nepotism to make sure his agenda will be carried on for another decade, unless she’s bounced sooner than that. Now in his last year, though, we're expecting him to attempt some truly awful things on his way out the door.

[Tami]

Biden’s economy vs. Trump’s, in 12 charts

Despite the economy’s rapid recovery from the pandemic, President Biden has struggled to convince Americans that his policies are improving their finances. In polls, the majority of Americans still say they trust former president Donald Trump’s handling of the economy over Biden’s.

Both presidents’ economic records have been defined by the pandemic and its aftershocks. The covid crisis upended the job market, stoked decades-high inflation and added trillions of dollars to the federal debt.

The economy today is vastly different from it was in 2017, when Trump took office. But the data shows just how each administration has left its mark: Biden, by adding 14 million jobs in less than three years, bringing the Black unemployment rate to a record low and reducing student loan debt by billions. Trump, meanwhile, presided over a period of low inflation, low interest rates and low gas prices.