All-purpose news and politics thread: Two Steps Beyond!

[zinderel]

But But #CIVILITY Right?

Well, at least he wasn't wearing a mask. Then people would have a reason to be scared!

[Mister Mets]

You are forgetting that there were sister marches across the country at the same time or at other times.

Add all these marches together, overlaid by the popular vote Trump didn't get to begin with, and I really think the Republicans are setting themselves up for disaster. Not that I care so much, they pretty much made their own bed.

I'm aware of the sister marches, but a large number of the activists went to DC.

Some of the largest were in New York City and Seattle, which aren't going to change any outcomes in congressional races or the White House.

The Republicans' popular vote loss isn't all that relevant since that isn't how elections are determined. There may be a backlash if the popular vote doesn't correspond to electoral outcomes, but that's a different story.

Dems might need to admit defeat n gerrymandering and go with it - eliminate the Republican party is solidly blue states. Not virtually eliminate it, actually do so by rigging the map. Because once conservatives get the bad side of gerrymandering on a larger scale, I'm certain the SCOTUS will finally strike it down. Provided Trump's next judge doesn't act like the last one and rule that things are different based on political affiliation.

Democrats are going to have tough time of this with popular Republican Governors in Massachusetts and Maryland, two of the most liberal states.

It also gives Republicans license to do it much more openly.

Right now, the Republican advantage in gerrymandering is relatively limited, one or two net seats. If they explicitly gerrymandered to win as many seats as possible, they'd consistently win 275 congressional seats, an increase of forty from what they have now.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com...tricting-maps/

Pelosi was in charge during her party’s defeat to THE worst candidate EVER to run for president. PERIOD! If Nancy Nerfherder had any pride or honor, she should’ve fallen on her sword and resigned the day after the election, hell, the rank and file should’ve DEMANDED she step down if she didn’t resign, because losing to Trump was an unconscionable screwup.

This doesn't take into account her biggest failing: the complete lack of a new generation of leadership.

[Mister Mets]

It'd be nice if they didn't target one side - the side that promotes American values like "Fascism is garbage and fascists are terrible" - with laws intended to combat bigoted garbage people while allowing the people the law was intended to combat to gather freely and spread their vile hatred and violent rhetoric. Why do racist shitheels get freedom of speech and assembly, but a handful of protesters get assaulted by overly militarized cops for daring to wear masks to protect themselves from doxxing by proveably violent Right Wing fanatics? There were 400 pigs, and about 50 protesters at a white power rally, and the cops assaulted the protesters.

None of the protesters were violent. None appeared to be armed. These pigs acted like partisan stormtroopers, using violence and the threat of violence to silence dissent. But hey, they're cops, so as a Republican, you'll defend them as 'upholding the law', rather than rightfully decrying the harm they do to the 1st amendment by threatening protesters and protecting neo-Nazis.

White supremacists are garbage. Their ideas are garbage. Free speech is awesome, but it comes with consequences, and the pigs decided that the consequences apply only to those who think fascism is a shit idea. So yeah, I'd like to see the filth NOT selectively apply the law to oppress the free speech and right to assemble of people who are defending American ideals. I'd also stop calling them pigs and filth if they didn't act like violent thugs, presenting an overwhelming threat of violence against peaceful citizens for daring to see a problem and act on it.



"Conservative" commentators have railed and wailed and gnashed their teeth about Maxine's supposed call for violence and how terrible it is that she told supporters to make Trumpians uncomfortable by confronting them. Your side is the one acting like her words are the same as actual calls for violence, not mine. Dana Loesch has ALSO got a history of using lies to dogwhistle her followers to violence against her political opponents while getting praise from the Christofascists taking over the nation.



As to "No one prominent advocating", I guess you've never heard your guy in the Oval Office encourage violence against protesters. Against any and everyone he wants. Maxine called for her followers to 'push back' and said that Trumpians should be made to feel "they're not welcome anymore, anywhere". Not because of the color of their skin, not because of their gender/sex/sexuality. Not because of their religion, even. But because of their OBJECTIVELY HEINOUS ACTIONS since gaining power.

There is absolutely nothing wrong with encouraging your constituents to protest and make life uncomfortable for people who are actively destroying the pillars on which our country used to stand. There IS something wrong with encouraging VIOLENCE. You know this. Auntie Maxine called for people to get out there and be involved, to make the corrupt administration feel the pressure by making them uncomfortable and unwelcome during leisure activities like eating at a mexican restaurant after a hard day denying the humanity of immigrants, for example. Meanwhile, Trump regularly calls for his people to HURT OTHER PEOPLE. But, y'know...both sides. Equally bad. *Rolls eyes*



So ONE Bernie supporter goes on a shooting spree, and that is the "nastiest partisan action of the last few years"...Meanwhile, in REALITY:

- Your guy in the Oval Office enacted a policy of ripping kids from their parents and putting them in cages.
- Mitch McConnell made no bones about his 'job' being to prevent Obama from accomplishing anything, not serving the American public.
- Your guy in the Oval Office is on record, supporting 'very fine' white supremacists.
- People on your side of the political spectrum bomb Planned Parenthood, set fire to or shoot up churches, and murder doctors while they are IN church, and then your pundits look the other way and try blaming it on the victims rather than acknowledging that it is their "Tiller the Killer"-style rhetoric that is driving already angry right wingers to commit atrocities.
- People on your side of the political spectrum support the 'right' of ANYONE - no restrictions or regulations - to get their hands on the most destructive weapons possible, then throw their hands up and say, "Well, there was nothing we could do to stop this tragedy. Thoughts and prayers." When they aren't blaming the parents of the tragedy FOR the tragedy.
- People on your side of the political spectrum were responsible for 59% of domestic terrorism last year. White supremacists ain't 'liberals', my friend. They vote, as a bloc, for your guys.

But one guy shooting some right wingers at a baseball game was the "nastiest partisan action of the last few years". Uh huh. Sure.

If the people in charge have the power to not enforce the law to protect people you don't like, they'll be able to use that power against people you do like. This is why laws against masks should be enforced even if the people wearing masks are more sympathetic than their enemies in this particular case.

You've moved the goalposts a bit in justifying the death threats against Dana Loesch, since your initial claim was that there wasn't anything the left did on par with the nasty comments the Huffpo got.

Trump's comments were about responding to people who pick fights, although it's not the most meaningful distinction.

I am unaware of a recent partisan political act nastier than a Bernie Bro shooting at Republican members of Congress. I did pick my words carefully to exclude actions that may be nasty but not partisan (IE- directed at members of a political group).

As for the 59% of domestic terrorism victims, that comes down to twenty people. It's also an increase of ten from 2016. It's sad, and we should prosecute the hell out of anyone responsible, but this isn't a major issue. More people are going to die if we spend time on this rather than something that kills hundreds of people an year (and even that may not be the wisest use of resources in a country of 310,000,000+ where 2.7 million die every year.)

Yeah, the shooting at the charity baseball game trumps the near daily videos we see of MAGAs calling the police on people for the crime of being black and/or verbally assaulting minorities, just like Jesus would. I wonder how many incidents there are like these that don't get caught on film.

I think you're arguing against a point I haven't made.

Yeah, seriously. I don't own a cell phone, but I sometimes wish I did, like today.

I was at the store and waiting in line to pay for my groceries when a couple of scabby, greasy-looking, filthy, 'genetically superior' 'good ol' boy' types ahead of me started ragging on the cashier for being...well, they weren't sure. But she was brown, see, so she didn't deserve to be treated like a human being. They laughed at her accent, they called her various vulgar insults for Latinx people, Middle East people, etc. Now, I'm sure that, from my avatar and the way I talk in some of my posts, I seem a certain way. That's cool. I often joke that, on the inside, I'm really a 5'3" 'sissy' twink, but in reality, I am well over 6 feet tall, burly, hairy, and a generally 'Viking Hagrid' looking fellow that people have literally crossed the street to avoid. So I watched these two gap-toothed shitheels for a bit. Watched the poor woman just try doing her job in the face of withering verbal assault. Watched all the other ostensibly 'liberal' Oregonian shoppers ignoring the situation, and finally had enough.

I stepped very close to one of the two probable brother-cousins, looked down at him, and very gently told him that if he didn't apologize for being a racist shithead, he and I would be having words once we were outside. Now, I'm a pacifist, but they don't know that. And I was calm, I was polite, but I was THROUGH with being passive in the face of their bullshit. They looked at me - together, they weren't as big as I am because racism and meth use tend to go hand in hand, after all - and paid their bill and left in a hurry. Without apologizing, mind you, but they were gone, so...win. As I left the store, they drove past me in their lifted pick up truck with Confederate flag, Trump 2016, and NRA bumper stickers, and called me a faggot while flipping me off and driving away.

Real brave 'men', all of a sudden.

This is the Republican base. These are the people ALL Republicans get into bed with daily. These are who represents them to the world.

Two douchebags in Portland are not the Republican base.

[zinderel]

If the people in charge have the power to not enforce the law to protect people you don't like, they'll be able to use that power against people you do like. This is why laws against masks should be enforced even if the people wearing masks are more sympathetic than their enemies in this particular case.

Since the people in charge already choose to enforce or not enforce laws based on the whims of their leadership, why is so strange to ask that law enforcement - which already had an overwhelming, militaristic presence - not target one side of a 'debate' by using a law meant to combat the OTHER SIDE OF THE 'DEBATE'? How about, instead of proving Antifa right by acting like jackbooted thugs, they just...I dunno...be present and only act if something happens, instead of targeting antifa for protecting their identities from a political (partisan) group that has ties to people who have gone on shooting sprees and driven cars into crowds and stuff.

You've moved the goalposts a bit in justifying the death threats against Dana Loesch, since your initial claim was that there wasn't anything the left did on par with the nasty comments the Huffpo got.

I didn't and do not "justify death threats." What I said was that Dana Loesch has used her public platform to call for violence against her 'enemies'. Huffpost has not, Maxine Waters has not, yet both of them get regular death threats. But, yeah, I mean, God forbid a failed actress turned gun manufacturer shill reap some of the threat of violence that she sowed in others.

Let me be CRYSTAL CLEAR: Death threats are unacceptable. Period. I don't care who issues them, I don't care why. The second you threaten someone's life, your argument is over and you lose. But it is VERY, VERY clear that in this day and age, in this reality, ONE side of the political spectrum not only MAKES threats, but often carries those threats out. To the extent that they are clearly in the majority, and are the more extant threat to America.

Trump's comments were about responding to people who pick fights, although it's not the most meaningful distinction.

And Maxine's comments were in regards to Sarah Huckabee Sanders being asked to leave a restaurant. One calls for violence against his enemies. One calls for inconvenience. One is given a pass by pretty much everyone on the Right. Why? Because he is the party's leader, and no one falls in line like a Republican. The other is not, because...why? Because she's on the left? A woman? A BLACK woman?

I am unaware of a recent partisan political act nastier than a Bernie Bro shooting at Republican members of Congress. I did pick my words carefully to exclude actions that may be nasty but not partisan (IE- directed at members of a political group).

"Partisan: 1. prejudiced in favor of a particular cause."

Partisan does not mean 'targeting one political group or another." It literally means what I used it to mean, and applies to EVERYTHING that white, cis/het 'bad actor/lone wolf' types do on behalf of the right wing pundits, pols and hacks who spread disinformation and lies to a willfully undereducated base who has guns and anger enough to act on the things they hear. Fascism is a cause. Murdering 'abortionists' is a cause. Racism is a cause. Hating queers is a cause. All are causes your side of the spectrum embraces gleefully.

Pizzagate. Remember that? That was Right Wing media (aka PARTISAN media) drumming up a nothingburger until a RIGHT WING (partisan) nutjob went into a place and threatened people with an assault rifle.

Tiller the Killer. Remember that? That was Right Wing media (aka PARTISAN media) - specifically, Bill O'Reilly - repeating, day in and day out, that a man who performed legal medical procedures was a murderer. Openly stating how blood was on his hands until a RIGHT WING (partisan) nuttjob went to Tiller's church and SHOT. HIM. IN. CHURCH. I think that's much more vile a partisan act than shooting politicians at a baseball game (though, if it isn't clear, I think BOTH are disgusting and wrong.)

The Sikh temple shooting. Remember that? That was a result of the endless Right Wing disinformation/fear campaign against Muslims on radio and TV (aka PARTISAN media) continuing day in and day out until a RIGHT WING (partisan, since we all know who White Supremacists support, politically...) nutjob took up arms and shot up innocent Sikhs - NOT EVEN THE RIGHT RELIGION - IN. THEIR. CHURCH. I think that's much more vile a partisan act than shooting politicians at a baseball game (though again, I think BOTH are disgusting and wrong.)

Heather Heyer. Remember her? Her death was the result of endless vilification of the left by Right Wing media (aka PARTISAN media) that served to dehumanize any and everyone who didn't attach their lips permanently to Trump's bloated ass. She wasn't the target of James Alex Fields' anger, but she - and the protesters she was with - were a target that Right Wing media had been railing against for years, not just the weeks and months leading up to that tragedy. Everyone who criticizes Trump, the party, or America are the enemy. That's the refrain, over and over and over, from every right wing outlet. And finally, he decided to do something about it, to strike a blow for 'right' and 'justice'...by driving a car into a crowd of innocent people and killing Heather Heyer. And the media circus on the right didn't stop. No, they just amped up their rhetoric of violence after empty offers of 'thoughts and prayers'.

Ronnie Paris, Gabriel Fernandez and Anthony Avalos. CHILDREN, ranging in age from THREE YEARS OLD to TEN. Murdered by their parents, sometimes after MONTHS of torture. Why? Was it because of illegal immigrants? Socialism? Economic unrest? No. It was because right wing media (aka PARTISAN media) never stops welcoming religious zealots who repeat, over and over, how sick, disgusting, evil, perverted, wicked, depraved, sinful, gross, deserving of death gay people are, and they were 'worried' that their son - their CHILD - might be gay.

You are essentially concern-trolling from one side of your mouth that the nastiest partisan act in recent history is a SINGLE EVENT from a disgruntled member of the left with no evidence tying him to any extremist group or violent literature (unless you call MSNBC extremist)...What Hodgkinson was is simple to understand (not excuse, mind you): a man with easy, legal access to weapons of mass destruction, disgruntled at his perceived failures and the direction he saw the country going, takes out his anger on the people he blames for his problems (many of whom likely actually DID vote for bills which made life harder for people like Hodgkinson) and commits suicide by cop rather than return home in disgrace. Tragic. Monstrous. Inexcuseable. A PERFECT example of an ISOLATED INCIDENT.

That you then, out of the OTHER side of your mouth, try to downplay the VASTLY LARGER pool of people from your side doing the same thing or worse - to INNOCENT people, not anyone actually connected to the things making them angry and miserable - is sad. There is this fantasy world where leftists are going out shooting and killing poor, innocent Republicans left and right, and then there is REALITY in which guys from your side of the political spectrum are CONSTANTLY going on shooting sprees (seemingly every other week...), murdering their leaderships opponents for them and/or innocent bystanders, calling for violence against their opponents, torturing their children 'for Jesus!', calling for the death of this or that minority, turning a blind eye to rape and assault, ripping children from their parents because 'the law!', lock those children in cages, drug them, make toddlers stand trial, turn a blind eye to solutions regarding gun violence for political (and monetary) reasons, and the like, it becomes clear that no amount of evidence will sway you to stand up and acknowledge the cancer at your party's core.

As for the 59% of domestic terrorism victims, that comes down to twenty people. It's also an increase of ten from 2016. It's sad, and we should prosecute the hell out of anyone responsible, but this isn't a major issue. More people are going to die if we spend time on this rather than something that kills hundreds of people an year (and even that may not be the wisest use of resources in a country of 310,000,000+ where 2.7 million die every year.)

This isn't a major issue to you, a straight, white, republican male. It IS a major issue to minorities who are targeted by these acts of partisan violence. It is an issue those of us on the left who keep getting called terrorists for punching fascists while actual domestic terrorists get coddled by fellow cis/het white males. It's a major issue when you try to use a SINGLE EXAMPLE of a leftie going nuts to damn us all, while ignoring the PLETHORA of them CONSTANTLY happening from your side of things.

Two douchebags in Portland are not the Republican base.

They are members of the base of your party, and proudly so. They are indicative of the type of Republican your guy in the Oval Office has empowered and provoked. And you know that.

[Handsome men don't lose fights]

This is not the way for Democrats to overcome Republicans' political dominance. Maxine Waters and the snarky late-night comedians will only lead the Democrats to defeat.

Oh, if anything, the comedians will encourage more people to vote. The wonderful thing about laughing at right-wing hardliners is that it makes them REALLY angry and shows others that they're not nearly as tough as they like to pretend.

[ed2962]

The RNC's "Unhinged" ad



Michelle Wolf's response

https://www.thewrap.com/michelle-wol...clusive-video/

"Now is not the time to be hinged!"

[Darkspellmaster]

Quick question. Do we have numbers or pictures of the marches from yesterday?

[zinderel]

Quick question. Do we have numbers or pictures of the marches from yesterday?

As far as I can tell, no numbers yet, though there were around 750 different marches, all told.

https://www.ocregister.com/2018/06/2...heir-families/
https://www.theatlantic.com/photo/20...arches/564251/
https://abcnews.go.com/News/families...ry?id=56282599

Some good pics in these articles.

Edit: At the main event in Washington, D.C., organizers said around 30,000 showed up. (source)

[JCAll]

Man arrested after shouting ‘womp, womp’ and pulling a gun on immigration protesters

But But #CIVILITY Right?

I'm just so disappointed that "Womp Womp" has become a rallying cry. How did we go this wrong as a society?

[zinderel]

I'm just so disappointed that "Womp Womp" has become a rallying cry. How did we go this wrong as a society?

Fascists ruin everything...

[Tami]

I'm just so disappointed that "Womp Womp" has become a rallying cry. How did we go this wrong as a society?

I wonder if they have any concept of just how stupid and moronic they sound.

[SuperiorIronman]

I'm just so disappointed that "Womp Womp" has become a rallying cry. How did we go this wrong as a society?

I can tell you why but nobody here is gonna like it.

1. They didn't let segregation go and so you have racists who eventually make there way into power or into political positions where they can try and create an ethnic state. It's not about the people who came to America and founded the nation, no, it's about a bunch of people who can't stand people of color being on equal footing. Slavery was not that long ago overall and you have had people in this thread trying to claim we didn't fight a war over not owning people. They really can't let that shit go.

2.Why do you think so many cops wrongly target or use excessive force on non-whites? It's a local way of being racist that communities for a long time just accepted as being a facet of life. And then the war on terror began and that meant that racists who had a bone to pick suddenly went into the military and became worse when they got a body count.

3. Once it is accepted as common place you have people who elect people like Trump, they just don't know why. But at the end of the day they are for a rebranding of Nazism if it means appealing to their own racism cause guess what, being common place some are raised to be this way and have no idea how destructive they really are. Segregation and slavery was common place and not that long ago.

[zinderel]

It is telling that many of those who make their living in the political industrial complex, whether Democrat or Republican or Washington Post editorial page, find the idea of socially shunning people because of their politics to be abhorrent. Their shudders are a symptom of the fact that DC is indeed a swamp—a friendly swamp, where all the gators and slugs and mudfish meet up at the end of the day for cocktails, because to them, politics is a job. To the rest of us, politics is the use of power in a way that has very real effects on our lives. Poverty is an affliction of history and the failure to remedy history’s crimes, of greed and self-dealing and the tax code. Sickness is often an affliction of the political decision not to build a fair and equitable health care system, so that a small number of people can get rich instead. Tens of millions of people around the world suffer under dictatorships that are supported by America to serve our own economic ends. People die because of political decisions every day. Politics is real. This is what is on one side of our current disagreement: death, and human rights, and freedom, and equality. And this is what is on the other side: wanting to eat at a nice restaurant without having anyone remind you that you are ruining people’s lives. The sides of this scale are not even close to balancing yet.

This is all going to get more extreme. And it should. We are living in extreme times. The harm that is being done to all of us by the people in the American government is extreme. To imagine that Mexican immigrants should happily cook for and serve meals to people who enable a man who is determined to demonize and persecute them as subhuman criminals is far more outrageous than the idea that those enablers should not be served in restaurants. I do not believe that Trump administration officials should be able to live their lives in peace and affluence while they inflict serious harms on large portions of the American population. Not being able to go to restaurants and attend parties and be celebrated is just the minimum baseline here. These people, who are pushing America merrily down the road to fascism and white nationalism, are delusional if they do not think that the backlash is going to get much worse.

Interesting think piece on the calls for civility in the face of barbarism, and why it's all bullshit:

https://splinternews.com/this-is-jus...ing-1827099100

[JCAll]

I can tell you why but nobody here is gonna like it.

1. They didn't let segregation go and so you have racists who eventually make there way into power or into political positions where they can try and create an ethnic state. It's not about the people who came to America and founded the nation, no, it's about a bunch of people who can't stand people of color being on equal footing. Slavery was not that long ago overall and you have had people in this thread trying to claim we didn't fight a war over not owning people. They really can't let that shit go.

2.Why do you think so many cops wrongly target or use excessive force on non-whites? It's a local way of being racist that communities for a long time just accepted as being a facet of life. And then the war on terror began and that meant that racists who had a bone to pick suddenly went into the military and became worse when they got a body count.

3. Once it is accepted as common place you have people who elect people like Trump, they just don't know why. But at the end of the day they are for a rebranding of Nazism if it means appealing to their own racism cause guess what, being common place some are raised to be this way and have no idea how destructive they really are. Segregation and slavery was common place and not that long ago.

That seems about right. And you're right, I don't like it.

It's just...I still don't understand the "Womp Womp". I know where it came from, and why, but it's just the dumbest thing. People rallying around a gameshow failure sound effect is baffling to me. If your theme song is just sad trombone noises, you're already a loser, you might as well carry around a big gong. It's just the...dumbest...thing... *sigh*

[SuperiorIronman]

That seems about right. And you're right, I don't like it.

It's just...I still don't understand the "Womp Womp". I know where it came from, and why, but it's just the dumbest thing. People rallying around a gameshow failure sound effect is baffling to me. If your theme song is just sad trombone noises, you're already a loser, you might as well carry around a big gong. It's just the...dumbest...thing... *sigh*

You gotta wonder if its a form of self-realization that this whole thing wont work. They are literally fighting a losing battle because the whole thing never succeeds. Ethno-states never work and so should Trump branded Nazism flourish, it's gonna crumble around them. That isn't hyperbole that's being surrounded on all sides by countries the administration pissed off, especially Mexico seeing as how its citizens are getting rights violated while in detainment.