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

[Tami]

Oh, by the by, CSGOPOTD just hit its fourth anniversary, so there's that.

Happy anniversary! That is very impressive.

[GindyPosts]

Oh, by the by, CSGOPOTD just hit its fourth anniversary, so there's that.

Ah, the fruit anniversary.

Lemme send you some Edible Arrangements that'll just go bad in a day.

Seriously, who thought perishable food with a hoity-toity presentation was a good idea?

[worstblogever]

Ah, the fruit anniversary.

Lemme send you some Edible Arrangements that'll just go bad in a day.

Seriously, who thought perishable food with a hoity-toity presentation was a good idea?

Who thought a president who resembles a rotting tangerine was a good idea?

[JCAll]

Oh, by the by, CSGOPOTD just hit its fourth anniversary, so there's that.

I want to say congratulations, but that doesn't seem right considering the nature of the thing.
Would offering condolences be more appropriate?

[Kevinroc]

https://twitter.com/GeoffRBennett/st...42192616706050

Source familiar tells NBC that Justice Kennedy had been in negotiations with the Trump team for months over Kennedy’s replacement. Once Kennedy received assurances that it would be Kavanaugh (his former law clerk) Kennedy felt comfortable retiring - @LACaldwellDC & @frankthorp

WTF...

[Tendrin]

Trump just issued pardons to two ranchers convicted of arson in the Bundy standoff's.

[WestPhillyPunisher]

https://twitter.com/GeoffRBennett/st...42192616706050



WTF...

Son of a bitch! Seriously? Is that sort of thing ethical, or legal? If the fix was in all along for Kavanaugh, and the whole thing was nothing more than a dog and pony show, what about the other candidates? Do they complain about not getting a fair shake? How will Congress respond to what appears to have been a rigged process?

[Kevinroc]

Son of a bitch! Seriously? Is that sort of thing ethical, or legal? If the fix was in all along for Kavanaugh, and the whole thing was nothing more than a dog and pony show, what about the other candidates? Do they complain about not getting a fair shake? How will Congress respond to what appears to have been a rigged process?

The Republicans will appoint him to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court.

[InformationGeek]

That just sounds like an excuse for laziness.

Obvious, open racism is not against Reddit’s rules, CEO Steve Huffman told a user in April. “On Reddit,” he said, “the way in which we think about speech is to separate behavior from beliefs.”

Huffman didn’t really unpack his reasoning at the time. But in a private chat with a different user this past weekend, Huffman, who goes by the username “spez,” finally explained why he has refused to ban hate speech on Reddit: Apparently, it’s just too hard.

Huffman’s April comments sparked an uproar because they largely excused r/The_Donald, a nearly 630,000-member subreddit that is a vicious and wildly popular breeding ground for targeted racism of all sorts. That outrage prompted Huffman to kinda-sorta walk back his initial statement, adding soon after that “while the words and expressions you refer to aren’t explicitly forbidden, the behaviors they often lead to are.” Nothing about that comment provided any clarity, but muddying the waters is a useful tool for frustrating would-be critics of Reddit, which was acquired by the major publishing company Conde Nast in 2006 and is now owned by Conde’s parent company, Advance Publications.

This past Saturday, Zachary Swanson, a Reddit user and cybersecurity researcher who goes by the username “whatllmyusernamebe,” decided to ask Huffman to reconsider his stance on hate speech.

After pointing out that Reddit’s rules ban violent speech ― which Reddit defines as “content that encourages, glorifies, incites, or calls for violence or physical harm against an individual or a group of people” ― Huffman argued that “hate speech is difficult to define. There’s a reason why it’s not really done.” He also claimed that enforcing any sort of hate speech ban is “a nearly impossible precedent to uphold.”

As Gizmodo has pointed out, though, defining and limiting hate speech very much is done. Some of the companies that officially ban hate speech include Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, Google Plus, YouTube, Tumblr, LinkedIn ― the list goes on. (Tumblr is owned by HuffPost’s parent company, Oath.)

And for whatever reason, the difficulty of policing hate speech hadn’t stopped Reddit before. In 2015, after months of public criticism and internal controversy, Huffman announced the following:

That was just two months after Reddit shut down the subreddits [not including the names since it may violate rules here], which were dedicated to mocking people for being overweight, trans and black, respectively. Policing hate speech in these instances seemed easy enough.

[Iron Maiden]

Son of a bitch! Seriously? Is that sort of thing ethical, or legal? If the fix was in all along for Kavanaugh, and the whole thing was nothing more than a dog and pony show, what about the other candidates? Do they complain about not getting a fair shake? How will Congress respond to what appears to have been a rigged process?

And part of it was easing Kennedy into riding off into the sunset, as in pointed out in a post I made a while back. Credit the "failing" NYT for putting the pieces together.

[Mister Ferro]

https://twitter.com/GeoffRBennett/st...42192616706050



WTF...

Son of a bitch! Seriously? Is that sort of thing ethical, or legal? If the fix was in all along for Kavanaugh, and the whole thing was nothing more than a dog and pony show, what about the other candidates? Do they complain about not getting a fair shake? How will Congress respond to what appears to have been a rigged process?

The Republicans will appoint him to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court.

Except this turned out to be #FakeNews.

I know it's easy to fall for when it paints a picture that y'all would love to rally against but y'all gotta check the original source.

[worstblogever]

From the Michigan-born governor of Massachusetts to the Utah senator?

What are the chances that an Republican mormon ex-governor of Massachusetts would lose the Senate election in Utah, the homeland of Mormons and a deep-red state that's voted for Republican presidential candidates since 1964?

If he wins the senate election, he'd become the third individual to serve as governor of a state and U.S. senator from a different state. The other two were William W. Bibb (who served as a U.S. senator from Georgia and as the first governor of Alabama) and Sam Houston (who served as the sixth governor of Tennessee and as a U.S. senator from Texas).

I don't think there's any chance of the Democrat upsetting Mitt Romney in November. It's a state about as red as Alabama, but as much as a pathological liar and aloof rich doofus as Mitt Romney is, he's a hero in Utah for getting Salt Lake the Winter Olympics, and not, y'know, a racist, anti-Semitic, court-ignoring, gay-hating pedophile like Roy Moore. I believe there's gonna be a Blue Wave, but no way in hell is it that big of a tsunami.

[Kevinroc]

Except this turned out to be #FakeNews.

I know it's easy to fall for when it paints a picture that y'all would love to rally against but y'all gotta check the original source.

You know, you're right.

https://twitter.com/LACaldwellDC/sta...03464137723904

I’ve deleted this tweet because it incorrectly implies a transactional nature in Kennedy’s replacement. I am told by a source who was not directly part of the talks that Kennedy provided Pres. Trump/ WH a list of acceptable replacements. (1/2)

Kavanaugh was the only one who was thought conservative enough to consider, I’m told. They added Kavanaugh – and 4 other names - to the public Federalist list that Trump would choose from in November. We are continuing to report this story. (2/2)

But not as far off the mark as implied, eh?

[Mister Ferro]

You know, you're right.

https://twitter.com/LACaldwellDC/sta...03464137723904



But not as far off the mark as implied, eh?

Yes it is far off the mark. The original tweet implies a transactional nature took place when there wasn't none to be had. Unless you are trying to say that a retiring SCOTUS Justice can't give thoughts on who would make a good SCOTUS Justice when asked?

[Tazirai]

All Trump's SCOTUS pick did was confirm 45 is guilty.

And 3 GOP Senators are no on him already.

We'll see it soo. I don't trust the Conservatives in this country. They say **** to get the left Hyped, then laugh when they stab us in the back.