US Politics Thread |OT| SAD TRUMP

[kingv]

So, if Suleimani was invited to Iraq at the behest of the United States, under the guise that he was there to begin negotiations to de escalate tensions between the US and Iran, and the the US uses knowledge of that meeting to assassinate him, is that perfidy? It sounds a lot like perfidy.

Which is a war crime.

[OnlyRegret]

So, if Suleimani was invited to Iraq at the behest of the United States, under the guise that he was there to begin negotiations to de escalate tensions between the US and Iran, and the the US uses knowledge of that meeting to assassinate him, is that perfidy? It sounds a lot like perfidy.

Which is a war crime.

who's going to do a thing about it?

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/hansilowang/status/1213897173248684044

 

[benjipwns]

This primary I've been getting a decent amount of text messages that I would describe as the equivalent of door knocking for a candidate. I assume the people behind these are juggling lots and lots of them at any one time so short response times aren't a reasonable expectation, but it's really hard to work up the energy to lie and say, "Shucks, I just haven't decided between Biden, Warren, or Sanders," as the chain of: initial contact, response, follow-up response drags into the following morning from early evening.

On the plus side at least it's not a 30 to 45 minute telephone conversation with a pollster who doesn't like that I do benji-style responses to questions.

Neither me or my parents have ever been polled by any of these methods. And they're their weirdo types who vote in every election. My dad was even a "swing voter" for years. None of my roommates had ever been polled or ladyfriends. I think some Steam friends had been when it came up once.

When this came up one thanksgiving, the only person on my mom's side of the family to have ever been polled was my one uncle I've mentioned here before. The one who watched InfoWars 24/7, bought all the Alex Jones supplements, thinks the Constitution says you don't need a license plate, and was a straight-ticket Democrat until Obama because he's racist. My uncle, not Obama. Although... (Even though the dummy had been voting for blacks locally forever, the only elections he really paid attention to were the Presidential and union ones in his shop so he probably didn't realize they were black while voting straight-ticket.)

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I have been asked to do plenty of surveys, especially academic but because the students constantly change I can't ever establish that they don't want me to see their survey and that someone who seems happy to look at your survey is a warning sign.

"Just so you know, if you're only handing these out on campus, your education variable is going to look awful unless you give them to the can collectors and street preachers."
"Can you just fill it out?"

I think I discovered the root of one political survey I kept getting asked by kids when I was assisting a department colleague with his computer issues and the class was going over their results and he was explaining how you always get at least one "above averaged educated/informed or engaged on politics or news" non-voter outlier. I was like "THAT WAS ME, YOU KEEP GETTING ME! I AM THE GHOST IN YOUR DATASETS!"

[close]

[benjipwns]

Speaking of which, why lie, just speak the truth about voting for Marianne.

[team filler]

This primary I've been getting a decent amount of text messages that I would describe as the equivalent of door knocking for a candidate. I assume the people behind these are juggling lots and lots of them at any one time so short response times aren't a reasonable expectation, but it's really hard to work up the energy to lie and say, "Shucks, I just haven't decided between Biden, Warren, or Sanders," as the chain of: initial contact, response, follow-up response drags into the following morning from early evening.

On the plus side at least it's not a 30 to 45 minute telephone conversation with a pollster who doesn't like that I do benji-style responses to questions.

Neither me or my parents have ever been polled by any of these methods. And they're their weirdo types who vote in every election. My dad was even a "swing voter" for years. None of my roommates had ever been polled or ladyfriends. I think some Steam friends had been when it came up once.

When this came up one thanksgiving, the only person on my mom's side of the family to have ever been polled was my one uncle I've mentioned here before. The one who watched InfoWars 24/7, bought all the Alex Jones supplements, thinks the Constitution says you don't need a license plate, and was a straight-ticket Democrat until Obama because he's racist. My uncle, not Obama. Although... (Even though the dummy had been voting for blacks locally forever, the only elections he really paid attention to were the Presidential and union ones in his shop so he probably didn't realize they were black while voting straight-ticket.)

spoiler (click to show/hide)

I have been asked to do plenty of surveys, especially academic but because the students constantly change I can't ever establish that they don't want me to see their survey and that someone who seems happy to look at your survey is a warning sign.

"Just so you know, if you're only handing these out on campus, your education variable is going to look awful unless you give them to the can collectors and street preachers."
"Can you just fill it out?"

I think I discovered the root of one political survey I kept getting asked by kids when I was assisting a department colleague with his computer issues and the class was going over their results and he was explaining how you always get at least one "above averaged educated/informed or engaged on politics or news" non-voter outlier. I was like "THAT WAS ME, YOU KEEP GETTING ME! I AM THE GHOST IN YOUR DATASETS!"

[close]

never been polled  but very often poled! 

[benjipwns]

Michael Bennet
Joe Biden
Michael Bloomberg
Cory Booker
Pete Buttigieg
Julián Castro
John Delaney
Tulsi Gabbard
Amy Klobuchar
Bernie Sanders
Joe Sestak
Tom Steyer
Elizabeth Warren
Marianne Williamson
Andrew Yang

hmm Sestak

[Dickie Dee]

I guess Twitter updated their TOS?

https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1213919480574812160

[benjipwns]

Based on what I've seen on sports twitter I'm pretty sure that threatening war crimes is not against the TOS.

[naff]

So, if Suleimani was invited to Iraq at the behest of the United States, under the guise that he was there to begin negotiations to de escalate tensions between the US and Iran, and the the US uses knowledge of that meeting to assassinate him, is that perfidy? It sounds a lot like perfidy.

Which is a war crime.

who's going to do a thing about it?

got 'em 

[Nintex]

So, if Suleimani was invited to Iraq at the behest of the United States, under the guise that he was there to begin negotiations to de escalate tensions between the US and Iran, and the the US uses knowledge of that meeting to assassinate him, is that perfidy? It sounds a lot like perfidy.

Which is a war crime.

who's going to do a thing about it?

"Hey UN stop me with your Army. Oh Wait you got no Army!" - Black Bush(as portrayed by Dave Chapelle) Donald Trump

Also if you think China or Russia will do anything you're mistaken. Russia has seen Libya, Iraq etc. they know the US will fuck up at some point and they can swoop in and take the oil, same with the Chinese.
Chances of the US installing a stable new regime after OPERATION EAGLE CREAMPIE are next to zero.

Plus it really benefits their propaganda that they are the 'good' guys and the US the 'bad' guys. That has more value to both than any potential partnership with the sanctioned state of Iran ruled by Khamenei would have.
The only potential leader of a post-Khamenei military dictatorship of Iran was toasted by Trump at Baghdad Airport and the potential military coup before a war went out the window with him.

[Kara]

Speaking of which, why lie, just speak the truth about voting for Marianne.

It's like I said in my Primary Season Preview, the only way to beat an old guy who's hot af is to run your own old candidate who's hot af.

[OnlyRegret]

Speaking of which, why lie, just speak the truth about voting for Marianne.

 

[OnlyRegret]

because of kara's post I wound up way in the past, saw the political sextant quiz and went to it

top four:
Marxist feminism 75%
Juche 70%
Compassionate conservatism 67%
Stalinism 67%

what the fuck

[Dickie Dee]

Based on what I've seen on sports twitter I'm pretty sure that threatening war crimes is not against the TOS.

Referring more to Twitter now being in compliance with the War Powers Resolution...

[Kara]

Whoever runs Sextant only learned about politics through Wikipedia. Some of the things you can score in there are even less real than national conservatism.

[benjipwns]

because of kara's post I wound up way in the past, saw the political sextant quiz and went to it

top four:
Marxist feminism 75%
Juche 70%
Compassionate conservatism 67%
Stalinism 67%

what the fuck

THE DISCOURSE:

The Church has committed fewer crimes than David Brooks

When I see a benji post, individualist feminism has always been the first thing that came to mind.

[benjipwns]

Tasty should show me how to make one of these quiz sites, I once wanted to make one full of made up categories that were mash-ups of other terms. I think one of the ones I came up with was "communitarian societyist" or something like that.

I also had an idea for one that rather than putting you into one of these groups like all the quizzes do, it instead tried to guess how you self-identify. Basically it was going to call most people "moderate/centrist/independent" back when these were not slurs like boomer.

[team filler]

https://twitter.com/mooncult/status/1213635574264815617

:amirox

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/J_ManPrime21/status/1213921758450814976

 

[OnlyRegret]

armbruster, so close to a beautiful last name, so close

[Nintex]

Trump, on AF1, to reporters on Iraq parliament vote to expel US troops, says if Baghdad asks them to leave and does not repay for joint air base:

“We will charge them sanctions like they’ve never seen before ever. It’ll make Iranian sanctions look somewhat tame.”

“They’re allowed to kill our people? They’re allowed to torture and maim our people, they’re allowed to use roadside bombs and blow up our people? And we’re not allowed to touch their cultural sites? It doesn’t work that way”

After strike, Trump seems to acknowledge that Iran may retaliate against American assets:

“If it happens, it happens. If they do anything there will be major retaliation.”

Trump is now threatening both Iran and Iraq. #progress #deescalation #diplomacy
 

[OnlyRegret]

https://twitter.com/liz_franczak/status/1213686388073218048

[bluemax]

This primary I've been getting a decent amount of text messages that I would describe as the equivalent of door knocking for a candidate. I assume the people behind these are juggling lots and lots of them at any one time so short response times aren't a reasonable expectation, but it's really hard to work up the energy to lie and say, "Shucks, I just haven't decided between Biden, Warren, or Sanders," as the chain of: initial contact, response, follow-up response drags into the following morning from early evening.

On the plus side at least it's not a 30 to 45 minute telephone conversation with a pollster who doesn't like that I do benji-style responses to questions.

I got a text from the Bernie team today. I responded over an hour later, and they sent me another long form response not long after. I haven't responded to that.

[Kara]

CAIR circulating a press release about people of Iranian background being detained at the Washington Canada border. (There was a concert in Vancouver.) Passports confiscated, enquiries about political beliefs, et cetera.

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/chicken__puppet/status/1213989990033711104

 

[OnlyRegret]

I knew an Iranian-Canadian or two. Good guys.
Fucking Amerisharts.

[nachobro]

sounds like fake news

[benjipwns]

this tweet hurts me so much

[Great Rumbler]

I knew an Iranian-Canadian or two. Good guys.
Fucking Amerisharts.

Stay safe, Wrath.

I mean...I know he's not Iranian, but still...

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/lhfang/status/1214007653044604929

 

[Himu]

Seeing Republicans defends this shit is making my head explode. It's just full of "look at Democrats defend Iran!!" Holy FUCK what is WRONG with conservatives?

[shosta]

play da hits baby

[benjipwns]

that article brehs https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/05/opinion/amy-klobuchar-2020.html

If you’re like a lot of Democrats, you worry that Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren are too liberal — or at least that other voters think so. You’re also not buying the Pete Buttigieg hype. And you get nervous every time Joe Biden opens his mouth.

So where are you supposed to find a comfortably electable, qualified candidate who won’t turn 80 while in office?

Senator Amy Klobuchar has become an answer to that question in the final month before voting begins. She has outlasted more than a dozen other candidates and has two big strengths: A savvy understanding of how to campaign against President Trump and a track record of winning the sorts of swing voters Democrats will likely need this year.

Yet she still emerged as one of the debate’s winners, and she is enjoying a burst of new attention. She raised more than twice as much money, $11.4 million, in the fourth quarter of 2019 than the third quarter. When I ask top Democrats which candidate has the best chance of beating Trump, Klobuchar is often their answer. If party leaders still chose nominees, she might now be the favorite.

In that way, she reminds me of another Midwestern senator who once seemed too ordinary to be president: Harry Truman. In the summer of 1944, an even more perilous time for global democracy than now, Democratic Party grandees chose Truman as vice president with the belief that he would soon be president, given Franklin Roosevelt’s declining health.

Truman was (as Klobuchar is) a loyal Democrat with populist leanings whom many Republicans, both senators and voters, nonetheless felt some affection for. He had a folksy manner and heartland accent. He was also a long shot for the nomination when the process began. The analogy extends to Klobuchar’s best-known weakness: Truman had a temper, too.

Her greatest strength is her understanding of how to beat Republicans. They like to portray Democrats as self-serious elites who look down on ordinary Americans. (Think about the caricatures of John Kerry, Al Gore and Michael Dukakis.) Klobuchar has built her political career on an image that combines working class and middle class.

She grew up in a family that struggled with alcoholism and divorce, and she talks about it. When her husband, John Bessler, was a child, he lived with his five brothers and parents in a trailer home. Klobuchar’s memoir is called, “The Senator Next Door.” She tells too many self-deprecating jokes to seem earnest. Some of them are even funny.

She is still a relative city slicker, having lived most of her life around the Twin Cities and attended Yale and the University of Chicago’s law school. But she knows how to persuade voters who are different from her that she respects them. She has learned the minutia of farm policy and rural development. She visits all of Minnesota’s 87 counties every year.

Klobuchar combines this persona with tough, clear explanations of how Republican policies will hurt the middle class: They will make prescription drugs more expensive, health insurance harder to get and climate destruction worse. If she’s elected, she promises to raise taxes on the rich, lift take-home pay for everyone else, take on big-business abuses and combat climate change.

In the 2018 midterms, as Klobuchar points out, Democrats focused on bread-and-butter issues while largely avoiding divisive ideas like Medicare for All.

I am also struck by Klobuchar’s views about how to run against Trump this time — to talk about how he has let down the country (which gives his old supporters permission to switch sides), to use humor against his demagoguery and to appeal to voters’ emotions and patriotism.

On that last point, her primary campaign could benefit from her own advice: Klobuchar would improve her chances if she could find the grace notes that lift the best campaigns by telling a story about America.

I’m not saying that Democrats should necessarily vote for Klobuchar. Other candidates have strengths she doesn’t. Buttigieg, for example, summons those grace notes naturally.

[OnlyRegret]

 

https://twitter.com/hashtag/Klobmentum?src=hash

https://twitter.com/search?q=%23Klobucharmy&src=tyah

[shosta]

nobody types the word "klobmentum" into their computer and means it

[Tripon]

Let it fucking end.

[shosta]

trying to figure out who has the worst merch. here's bloomberg's

[shosta]

pretty much everything on bernie's site is not cringe except I found this weirdness

[benjipwns]

(Image removed from quote.)

Let it fucking end.

That's not Super Tuesday.

[Kara]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/health/christian-health-care-insurance.html

[Nintex]

Ok, so when did they screen The Irishman at The White House 
https://twitter.com/janearraf/status/1213823941321592834

[VomKriege]

I didn't realize the symbolic meaning of threatening "52 targets" (still clinging on that ? Jesus...) and the diffuse ambiguity that some of the targets are important to "Iranian culture" which prompted international reminders that targeting cultural sites is a war crime.

 

[Joe Molotov]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/health/christian-health-care-insurance.html

Perfect encapsulation of the American health care system: Just pray you don’t get sick.

[Great Rumbler]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/health/christian-health-care-insurance.html

His family did not have traditional health insurance. “We could not afford it,” said his father, Mark Collie

Instead, they pay about $530 a month through a Christian health care sharing organization

advises its members that “there is no coverage, no guarantee of payment.”

Cool, very cool.

[Nintex]

I'm just waiting for the GOP to sell people a hat that says: "GREAT HEALTHCARE" and Trump to say: "See, we got you all covered!"

[Tasty]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/health/christian-health-care-insurance.html

His family did not have traditional health insurance. “We could not afford it,” said his father, Mark Collie

Instead, they pay about $530 a month through a Christian health care sharing organization

advises its members that “there is no coverage, no guarantee of payment.”

Cool, very cool.

"We can't afford real insurance."

*wastes half a grand a month on fake insurance*

[nachobro]

lol thinking $500 a month could cover a family with the ACA. That's maybe enough for one person.

[Tasty]

lol thinking $500 a month could cover a family with the ACA. That's maybe enough for one person.

Maybe dude should get a real job to take care of his family instead of chasing an unprofitable photography dream.

[nachobro]

cool, now what about the people who have "real jobs" that don't offer insurance?

[Brehvolution]

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/01/02/health/christian-health-care-insurance.html

His family did not have traditional health insurance. “We could not afford it,” said his father, Mark Collie

Instead, they pay about $530 a month through a Christian health care sharing organization

advises its members that “there is no coverage, no guarantee of payment.”

Cool, very cool.

"We can't afford real insurance."

*wastes half a grand a month on fake insurance*

Tax payers picked up the tab anyway.

[Tasty]

cool, now what about the people who have "real jobs" that don't offer insurance?

That was the point of my post -- he would pay for it with a profitable job.

[nachobro]

Or health insurance prices could go down to a reasonable level so they could be afforded by everyone. That seems like a better solution than "get a real job even though not all real jobs offer insurance or cover insurance costs"

[Tasty]

Just sounds like a basic scam.. "Give us $500 and you won't be fined $1500 by the government as you can use us to pretend you have insurance."

edit: Oh that fine was removed last year.. but honestly can't fathom why anyone would throw that money away.. maybe their state still has fines?

Because Fox News has poisoned the term "health insurance" so thoroughly that upstanding moral Christians can no longer partake in such a rigged, liberal, commie system. Only care from God and Church can save them. 🙏🏻

[Tasty]

Or health insurance prices could go down to a reasonable level so they could be afforded by everyone. That seems like a better solution than "get a real job even though not all real jobs offer or cover insurance costs"

I don't believe this is about health insurance costs. This is about Christian grift and anti-Obamacare sentiment fermented by News Corp and the GOP.

[nachobro]

Sounds like someone who doesn't have to buy insurance from the marketplace talking to me

[Tasty]

Sounds like someone who doesn't have to buy insurance from the marketplace talking to me

Contractors don't get shit.

[nachobro]

Maybe you should get a real job

[Tasty]

Maybe you should get a real job

I don't have a kid with a brain aneurysm.

[Great Rumbler]

Just sounds like a basic scam.. "Give us $500 and you won't be fined $1500 by the government as you can use us to pretend you have insurance."

edit: Oh that fine was removed last year.. but honestly can't fathom why anyone would throw that money away.. maybe their state still has fines?

I'm not even sure it would work for that, even if the fine still existed, since they specifically say it's not actually health insurance. But there was probably some kind of weird provision for religious folks [wouldn't surprise me] that would allow the fine to be bypassed.

I mean, it's still a scam either way, though.