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

[Panfoot]

How this man was not thrown off the ballot for being this deranged and clearly unwell is just boggling

The magic "R" next to his name let's him get away with just about anything.

[babyblob]

The magic "R" next to his name let's him get away with just about anything.

The fact his base agrees with him helps him. Normal people would be outraged by hateful comments. They thrive on it and demand it from their leaders.

[kidfresh512]

World cup is a mess

Why did FIFA ban the LGBTQ OneLove armband at the World Cup?

Before the World Cup, FIFA president Gianni Infantino urged the 32 teams bound for Qatar that they should "let football take center stage" and "focus on the football," but just days into the tournament, that desire hasn't exactly gone to plan.

First, there was the last-minute ban on alcohol inside and around stadiums. Then, there were scores of empty seats midway through the game as host nation Qatar lost to Ecuador. On Monday, a major row between FIFA and seven European nations has ended with those countries ditching plans for their captains to wear a special anti-discrimination armband at the last minute.

Led by the Netherlands Football Association (known as the KNVB), sources have told ESPN that 10 nations were in contact -- the seven mentioned above plus Norway, Sweden and France. In September, nine nations (without France) announced the creation of the OneLove armband, designed to "use the power of football to promote inclusion and send a message against discrimination of any kind as the eyes of the world fall on the global game," as the accompanying news release stated at the time. In response, UEFA confirmed in a statement that it "fully supports" the OneLove campaign, adding it had "also approved the use of the armbands during the September international window, for those associations who reached out to us."

Iran soccer team silent during national anthem at its first World Cup game

Iran’s national men’s soccer team refused to sing the country’s national anthem at the World Cup in Qatar on Monday, in an apparent act of defiance against their government, which has become the target of growing and incendiary protests.

The team stood in a line with arms around one another’s shoulders, before their opening match against England, but instead of singing the words, as is traditional, the players looked stony-faced and stared straight ahead.

England’s players, by contrast, sang a verse of their national anthem.

The moment was not shown on state TV in Iran.

Earlier, Ehsan Hajsafi, Iran’s captain, acknowledged widespread dissatisfaction at home, becoming the latest public figure to support the protesters.

“We have to accept that the situation in our country is not good and that our people are not happy, they are discontent,” Hajsafi said at a press conference. “We are here, but it does not mean we should not be their voice or that we should not respect them. Whatever we have is theirs.”

“We have to perform the best we can and score goals and dedicate those goals to the people of Iran who are feeling hurt,” he added.

His statement followed Iran’s decision to punish a string of prominent Iranians who had publicly supported protests sparked by the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini in September, days after she was detained by police for allegedly breaking the country’s strict dress codes.

__________________________________________________ __________________
Meanwhile interview with the hero that took down the gunman in Colorado.
An Army Veteran Says He Went Into ‘Combat Mode’ to Disarm the Gunman

COLORADO SPRINGS — Richard M. Fierro said he was at a table in Club Q with his wife, daughter and friends on Saturday, watching a drag show, when the sudden flash of gunfire ripped across the nightclub. His instincts from four combat deployments as an Army officer in Iraq and Afghanistan instantly kicked in. Fight back, he told himself.

In an interview at his house, where his wife and daughter were still recovering from injuries, Mr. Fierro, 45, who left the Army in 2013 as a major, according to military records, described charging through the chaos at the club, tackling the gunman and beating him bloody with the gunman’s own gun.

“I don’t know exactly what I did, I just went into combat mode,” Mr. Fierro said, shaking his head. “I just know I have to kill this guy before he kills us.”

When the shooting started, Mr. Fierro said, he hit the floor, pulling a friend down with him. As bullets sprayed, he saw the gunman move through the bar toward a door leading to a patio where dozens of bar patrons had fled. Mr. Fierro, who served in the Army for 15 years, said he raced across the room, grabbed the gunman by a handle on the back of his body armor, pulled him to the floor and jumped on top of him.

“Was he shooting at the time? Was he about to shoot? I don’t know,” Mr. Fierro said. “I just knew I had to take him down.”

The gunman, who Mr. Fierro estimated weighed more than 300 pounds, sprawled onto the floor, his military-style rifle landing just out of reach. Mr. Fierro started to go for the rifle, but then saw that the gunman had a pistol as well.

“I grabbed the gun out of his hand and just started hitting him in the head, over and over,” Mr. Fierro said.

As the fight continued, he said, he yelled for other club patrons to help him. A man grabbed the rifle and moved it away to safety. A drag dancer stomped on the gunman with her high heels. The whole time, Mr. Fierro said, he kept pummeling the shooter’s head while the two men screamed obscenities at each other.

When police arrived a few minutes later, the gunman was no longer struggling, Mr. Fierro said, and he feared that he had killed him. The suspect in the shooting was taken into custody and remained hospitalized on Monday afternoon.

Mr. Fierro said he was covered in blood when the police arrived, and officers tackled him and put him in handcuffs. He said he was held in a police car for more than an hour, and screamed and pleaded to be let go so that he could see what had happened to his family.

[AnakinFlair]

Am I bad for not having any sympathy for war criminals?

World cup is a mess

Why did FIFA ban the LGBTQ OneLove armband at the World Cup?


Iran soccer team silent during national anthem at its first World Cup game

For the first, I'd love to see, maybe just for the final match, EVERY member of each team wear the One-Love armband. Just dare FIFA to yellow card both entire teams, and see what happens.

This entire World Cup is turning into a Fluster-Cuck. I'd also think, in a sane world, that Qatar's banning of alcohol stands at the last minute, among all of the other stuff they pulled (like accredited journalists with proper identification and papers being harrassed by the local police), would mean it would be very unlikely that another Muslim country would ever host the World Cup again- because they said, for years, that certain things would be allowed, only to yank those privileges away at the eleventh hour. Then again, this is FIFA, so whoever pays the biggest bribes will get the WC, regardless of other issues.

And it's been kind of breathtaking to see FIFA's President double down on all of this, and blame everyone but the host nation. And if I'm Anheuser-Bush, I'd be demanding most, if not all, of the money back that they paid to become a sponsor of the WC.

As for the Iranian team- the sad fact is that there is already talk that they will be arrested when they return home. But the protests in Iran have not abated, and that makes me wonder if we are seeing a prelude to a changing of the guard in that country. Only time will tell, I suppose.

[Jimbi]

I really wish we had more than Ds and Rs as legitimate political parties.

[Kirby101]

I really wish we had more than Ds and Rs as legitimate political parties.

This country has always had two main Parties. It's how it works. Both contain the spectrum of their political side. I am not sure if countries with more Parties that have to form a coalition government work any better?

[Catlady in training]

I'm reading that NATO has finally declared russia a terrorist state, but I can't seem to find any official source I feel satisfied with.
Stay tuned, I guess.

It's not easy to find, if you google Nazar Mikhailovsky and Arthur Bortnichuck, you'll get very few results. Figures. Still, illegal executions are a form of mass shooting.

The bottom line is that they're Russians and you can hate Russians. No one will bother and no one has.

Thank you for the contribution, I don't care.

Am I bad for not having any sympathy for war criminals?

Right now the only good russian soldier is a dead russian soldier. They could all have chosen to not go, or to mutiny, or surrender at first opportunity.

[useridgoeshere]

I really wish we had more than Ds and Rs as legitimate political parties.

I wish more people took the primaries seriously.

[Gray Lensman]

I'm reading that NATO has finally declared russia a terrorist state, but I can't seem to find any official source I feel satisfied with.
Stay tuned, I guess.




Thank you for the contribution, I don't care.




Right now the only good russian soldier is a dead russian soldier. They could all have chosen to not go, or to mutiny, or surrender at first opportunity.

There is a really easy way to prevent any Russian soldiers from being executed in Ukraine.....Putin can bring them all back to the 2014 borders of Russia.

That said, killing surrendering soldiers is a war crime, and any allegations should be investigated. However, I only trust one side to do it, and it certainly isn't the one that has made committing war crimes an open part of the battle plan.

[godisawesome]

To me, it’s less that I don’t trust the Russian news compared to Ukrainian news (I *do* trust the Ukrainians more, for the record), but rather the fact that those soldiers are there as part of an illegal invasion.

It *does*, to some extent, mitigate circumstances compared to other tragedies. Those Russian soldiers are still being murdered… but Putin himself bears significant responsibility for their death by putting them there, provoking violence from Ukraine with his own unprovoked violence, and for sending men drafted against their will into the war.

That alone changes the paradigm to be used here - war is already hell where war crimes happen, but when it’s an unprovoked invasion, that's already breaking some of the extra rules of civilization upon which combat conduct relies.

In contrast, a mass shooting of civilians in a country at peace is a different kind of atrocity that should be regarded as worse.

And thatks before getting into where Russia almost certainly has further aggrieved Ukraine and broken more rules of war towards them - which doesn’t erase the evil of killing Russian POWs, but does mitigate it as part of the tit-for-tat consequences caused by breaking the rules first.

[Tendrin]

To me, it’s less that I don’t trust the Russian news compared to Ukrainian news (I *do* trust the Ukrainians more, for the record), but rather the fact that those soldiers are there as part of an illegal invasion.

It *does*, to some extent, mitigate circumstances compared to other tragedies. Those Russian soldiers are still being murdered… but Putin himself bears significant responsibility for their death by putting them there, provoking violence from Ukraine with his own unprovoked violence, and for sending men drafted against their will into the war.

That alone changes the paradigm to be used here - war is already hell where war crimes happen, but when it’s an unprovoked invasion, that's already breaking some of the extra rules of civilization upon which combat conduct relies.

In contrast, a mass shooting of civilians in a country at peace is a different kind of atrocity that should be regarded as worse.

And thatks before getting into where Russia almost certainly has further aggrieved Ukraine and broken more rules of war towards them - which doesn’t erase the evil of killing Russian POWs, but does mitigate it as part of the tit-for-tat consequences caused by breaking the rules first.

Yeah, Russian apologists making claims about war crimes is always a good laugh given that we have Wagner group mercs on video murdering people with sledgehammers.

[Tendrin]

This country has always had two main Parties. It's how it works. Both contain the spectrum of their political side. I am not sure if countries with more Parties that have to form a coalition government work any better?

Coalition governments can *seem* more unstable, but it isn't inherently so, and it's not like we have a lot to brag about with regards to having a stable government lately.

[Zauriel]

This country has always had two main Parties. It's how it works. Both contain the spectrum of their political side. I am not sure if countries with more Parties that have to form a coalition government work any better?

Yes, look up United Kingdom, Germany and Italy for a good reference.

[Tendrin]

Yes, look up United Kingdom, Germany and Italy for a good reference.

Italy, which just elected a nationalist, pseudo-fascist government, and the UK, which is flying apart at the seams due to english nationalism, brexit, and decades of conservative austerity governments that have strangled social services? Maybe we ought to add Israel to the list, which has had five elections in four years or something like that? What about Sweden, where the far right just took hold of the government? :P

I'm not sure 'better' is a solid argument.

[Malvolio]

How this man was not thrown off the ballot for being this deranged and clearly unwell is just boggling

I still like the phrase Dave Chapelle used to describe Herschel Walker: "observably stupid."