US Politics Thread |OT| SAD TRUMP

[benjipwns]

MANDARK: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/opinion/covington-march-for-life.html

Within living memory, political polarization had at least something to do with issues, but in the age of social media it’s almost entirely about social type. It’s about finding and spreading the viral soap operas that are supposed to reveal the dark hearts of those who are in the opposite social type from your own.

It’s about finding images that confirm your negative stereotypes about people you don’t know. It’s about reducing a complex human life into one viral moment and then banishing him to oblivion.

You don’t have to read social theory on this phenomenon; just look at the fracas surrounding the Covington Catholic High School boys.

For those of you vacationing on Mars this past weekend, a video went viral showing a group of boys, many of them in MAGA hats, surrounding an older Native American man who was banging a drum.

The man, Nathan Phillips, told two different versions of what happened. He told The Washington Post that he was singing a traditional song when the teenagers swarmed around him, some chanting, “Build that wall, build that wall.” He decided the right thing to do was to get away. “I’ve got to find myself an exit out of this situation.”

He told The Detroit Free Press that the incident started when the boys started attacking four African-Americans. So he decided to intervene. “There was that moment when I realized I’ve put myself between beast and prey. These young men were beastly and these old black individuals was their prey.”

Many news organizations ran one of these accounts. Before you judge the reporters too harshly, it’s important to remember that these days the social media tail wags the mainstream media dog. If you want your story to be well placed and if you want to be professionally rewarded, you have to generate page views — you have to incite social media. The way to do that is to reinforce the prejudices of your readers.

...

In this case the facts happened to support the right-wing tribe. But that’s not the point. The crucial thing is that the nation’s culture is now enmeshed in a new technology that we don’t yet know how to control.

In this technology, stereotype is more salient than persons. In this technology, a single moment is more important than a life story. In this technology, a main activity is proving to the world that your type is morally superior to the other type.

The Covington case was such a blatant rush to judgment — it was powered by such crude prejudice and social stereotyping — I’m hoping it will be an important pivot point. I’m hoping that at least a few people start thinking about norms of how decent people should behave on these platforms.

It’s hard to believe that people are going to continue forever on platforms where they are so cruel to one another. It’s hard to believe that people are going to be content, year after year, to distort their own personalities in service to a platform, making themselves humorless, semi-blind, joyless and grim.

[agrajag]

bomb bomb bomb bomb bomb Iran

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/IsaacDovere/status/1087567641437458433

[agrajag]

truth isn't truth

[benjipwns]

they weren't tapes, they were FLACs or WAVs, maybe MP3s, 128kbps at minimum

[agrajag]

SC is letting Trump admin proceed with its trans ban in the military, I bet that transphobic Copmala Harris and marrec had something to do with it

[Mandark]

MANDARK: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/01/21/opinion/covington-march-for-life.html

Everybody involved in the incident was operating in an emotional and moral context that has been set by the viciousness of the Black Hebrew Israelites.

If getting trolled by Black Israelites really affected people like that, Gallery Place-Chinatown would be the fucking Purge.

[james]

Does any Democrat propose bombing Israel

I doubt any American politician has ever proposed this.

This country is so far fucking right

[james]

FLASHBACK:

Remember the last time government shut down for like half a day and POLIERA was having a meltdown about

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?

[benjipwns]

https://news.grabien.com/story-ocasio-cortez-millennials-were-world-going-end-12-years-if-w

And I think the part of it that is generational is that millennials and people, in Gen Z, and all these folks that come after us are looking up and we’re like, the world is gonna end in 12 years if we don’t address climate change. Your biggest issue, your biggest issue is how are going to pay for it? — and like this is the war, this is our World War II. And I think for younger people looking at this are more like, how are we saying let’s take it easy when 3,000 Americans died last year, how are we saying let’s take it easy when the end person died from our cruel and unjust criminal justice system?

How are we saying take it easy, the America that we’re living in today is dystopian with people sleeping in their cars so they can work a second job without healthcare and we’re told to settle down. It’s a fundamental separation between that fierce urgency of now, the why we can’t wait that King spoke of. That at some point this chronic reality do reach a breaking point and I think for our generation it reached that, I wished I didn’t have to be doing every post, but sometimes I just feel like people aren’t being held accountable. Until, we start pitching in and holding people accountable, I’m just gonna let them have it.

[Dickie Dee]

FLASHBACK:

Remember the last time government shut down for like half a day and POLIERA was having a meltdown about

O
P
T
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C
S

?

F
U
C
K

O
F
F

W
I
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T
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S
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?

[Mandark]

benji, you still a climate change denial guy?

[benjipwns]

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/an-apology/

Early Sunday morning, I posted a “strongly worded” (Rich Lowry’s description) condemnation of the conduct, seen far and wide on video, of a group of high-school students at the conclusion of the March for Life on Friday afternoon. I was preachy and rhetorically excessive, and I regret it. The overheated post I wrote has been taken down. Let this apology stand in its stead, both here on the Corner and in the memory of readers who justifiably objected to my high-handedness.

Here's his deleted post: https://archive.fo/tlwIV

The Covington Students Might as Well Have Just Spit on the Cross

It appears that most of the teenagers in this video are from a Catholic high school near Covington, Kentucky, across the Ohio River from Cincinnati. They mock a serious, frail-looking older man and gloat in their momentary role as Roman soldiers to his Christ. “Bullying” is a worn-out word and doesn’t convey the full extent of the evil on display here.

For some of us, the gospel stories of Jesus’s passion and death are so familiar we no longer hear them. The evangelists are terse in their descriptions of the humiliations heaped on Jesus in the final hours before his crucifixion, the consummate humiliation. Read the accounts again or, if you’d rather not, watch the video. The human capacity for sadism is too great.

The man the crowd ridiculed is Nathan Phillips, an elder of the Omaha tribe. He was in Washington for the Indigenous Peoples March, on Friday. It coincided with the March for Life, which Covington Catholic High School organized a contingent of students to attend. According to Phillips, their confrontation with him, in the shadow of the Lincoln Memorial, involved a disagreement about “the wall.” He’s against it. They’re for it. Some of them, including the boy who makes himself the co-star of the video by stepping forward and getting in Phillips’s face, wore “Make America Great Again” hats.
 
They confused issues. Over the years, I’ve heard (and perpetrated, I confess) some imaginative definitions of the “seamless garment,” or “consistent ethic of life.” It’s a matter of identifying a common principle that can be shown to underlie and unite various causes — the abolition of abortion, of euthanasia, of the death penalty, of you name it — that most people would say are disparate and unrelated. How heightened border security might be of a piece with protecting unborn children is less intuitively obvious than most such hypothetical linkages I’ve encountered.

Among the unfortunate messages that the Covington students are sending through the video, several versions of which have gone viral, is that in its heart the pro-life movement in the United States in 2019 is less concerned to advocate for human rights than to cheer for one of the two major political parties or, more broadly, for one side in the great divide between Right and Left, or red and blue, as if the abortion debate were a Yankees–Red Sox game. Don’t do that if you want to persuade Democrats and independents who are ambivalent about abortion to hear you out on why their lives mattered even when they were gestating, and on why the lives of those who at any given moment are conceived but not yet born matter no less.

In a joint statement, Covington Catholic High School and the Diocese of Covington apologized, condemning the students’ actions and noting that their conduct “is opposed to the Church’s teachings on the dignity and respect of the human person.” I don’t know how Phillips would describe his religious affiliation. He speaks of indigenous traditions. Some people who observe them integrate them with Christianity, but some don’t. In any case, keeping in mind the parable of the proper priests and the Good Samaritan, whose religious practice Jesus’s listeners thought was wrong, listen to Phillips reflect on his experience on the Mall. Decide for yourself who is more pleasing to Christ, Phillips or his mockers. As for the putatively Catholic students from Covington, they might as well have just spit on the cross and got it over with.

https://amgreatness.com/2019/01/21/call-out-conservatives-join-the-lefts-lynch-mob/

But the fact that editors for National Review also bought into the various lies escaped mention. This also included senior editor Jay Nordlinger, who deleted a January 19 tweet that read, “the images of those red-hat kids surrounding and mocking that old Indian are unbearable. Absolutely unbearable. An American disgrace.” Jonah Goldberg hand-waved away Frankovich’s vicious post as just “different people reaching different conclusions or having different opinions.”

So, what motivated a seemingly measured man like Frankovich to pen a midnight hit piece on teenagers? What compelled Lowry and Nordlinger to join the outrage mob, and Goldberg to defend their choice? Why do NeverTrump (or even SometimesTrump) “conservatives” like Lowry more often than not side with the Left’s mercenaries in the media who are hellbent on destroying this presidency and the people who support it? After all, these are the same folks who warn us on a daily basis that the president cannot be trusted, that he’s a dishonest purveyor of the truth, and that his cult-like followers have no ability to distinguish fact from fiction.

The easy explanation for their bad behavior this weekend would be confirmation bias, the propensity to select or ignore evidence to support a specific viewpoint. Anti-Trump “conservatives” long ago decided that Donald Trump not only is unfit for office, but that his supporters are ignorant rubes with racist tendencies. (NR’s David French wrote recently that Trump is the reason for a supposed—but actually imaginary—rise in white supremacy.)

In an interview Monday night, Goldberg again defended his side’s confirmation bias by invoking another tactic—false equivalence. “The confirmation bias that says, ah ha, this proves that the people I disagree with aren’t just wrong, they’re evil, which is rampant on both sides of the aisle these days.” Contrary to how Goldberg tries to sell it, it’s pernicious on one side: His.

But this time they crossed a line. It wasn’t their usual hyperventilating about Trump-Russia conspiracies or “shithole countries” comments or exit strategies for our troops in the Middle East. No, this time they exploited innocent high school students for their own political gratification. They abandoned not just their professional duty but their self-proclaimed conservative principles and any sense of decency—all in order to Get Trump.

It’s hard to see how they can stoop any lower.

And these weren’t just any group of random high schoolers. These are boys who were attending an event to support a cause that conservatives have championed—despite immense cultural opposition—for the past four decades. Young boys who attend a religious school and presumably are from faithful families trying to instill traditional values in their children despite the Left’s continued assault on those values. Young boys who probably represent everything that the modern-day conservative movement has claimed to promote since its inception. Young boys who probably view their MAGA hats as a sign of patriotism and respect for the president, not a symbol of Racist Rube Nation. Young boys who we now know acted in a polite and deferential manner even while they were under attack by grown men taunting them and hurling hateful epithets at them.

But what did Trump-hating “conservatives” do? They betrayed boys who, by all appearances, are the progeny of conservatism. They aided the Left in the virtual thrashing that prompted death threats against the children and their families. They acted in the same way—worse!—they accuse the president of behaving. They sided with the enemy.

And when confronted with evidence, there is no real apology or soul-searching. The public and the maligned families are just supposed to accept their vague, “oops, my bad” tweets and move on.

Further, the same crowd of call-out conservatives, the nags who constantly are telling us which Republican lawmaker or presidential aide or Fox News anchor must be reprimanded for one imagined offense or another, have been silent on calling out their own tribe for joining the Covington High School outrage mob. Where is David French “calling out” his pal, Bill Kristol, for his two (deleted) tweets about the kids, including calling them “MAGA brats”? Where are the Referees of the Right demanding that Ana Navarro or Ben Howe or Jennifer Rubin apologize for vilifying innocent kids? Where are the conspiracy trackers like Jim Swift condemning Jim Swift for peddling this fiction? And why isn’t one conservative demanding that S.E. Cupp be fired from CNN for slandering these kids on her program? (She unconvincingly apologized on Twitter on Monday.)

When the Trump era is over, there will be a long list of journalists, opinion outlets, and commentators who have irretrievably lost their credibility. That list will include many “conservative” influencers who betrayed pro-life religious teenagers at the behest of the Left’s ongoing lynch mob. Shameful.

[Joe Molotov]

https://twitter.com/IsaacDovere/status/1087567641437458433

I think they were EPs but they might have been full albums.

[TakingBackSunday]

who's shocked that jaydubya hates native americans

[agrajag]

https://twitter.com/JacobAWohl/status/1087736259517108224

huge if true

[Joe Molotov]

https://twitter.com/JacobAWohl/status/1087736259517108224

huge if true

https://twitter.com/JacobAWohl/status/1087756242154475521

Wikipedia link as "confirmation", Benji help.

[Nintex]

I'm not sure why all these Democrats are throwing their hats into the ring for 2020.
By the time the campaign is done they'll be spit out, trampled on and completely ruined and the chance that you will be virtue signaler in chief from a field of 20 candidates is slim.

[agrajag]

https://twitter.com/NatashaBertrand/status/1087752212951060481

Take that Copmala!

[Mandark]

I'm not sure why all these Democrats are throwing their hats into the ring for 2020.
By the time the campaign is done they'll be spit out, trampled on and completely ruined and the chance that you will be virtue signaler in chief from a field of 20 candidates is slim.

You can't relate? You keep posting on a forum where nobody has even a tiny bit of respect for you.

[agrajag]

 

[Nintex]

That's right Mandark. Distract, change subject, deflect and never aplogize, never back down.

I'm proud of you my apprentice. 

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/1087563055226146816

Oh Rudy 

[agrajag]

https://www.thedailybeast.com/for-dollar29-this-company-swears-it-will-brainwash-someone-on-facebook?via=newsletter&source=DDMorning

this is really tempting

[CatsCatsCats]

I would try it on some friends if they had a switch political affiliations program

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/officialmcafee/status/1087772979730239490

John hasn't paid taxes in 8 years. Now the IRS is after hm. He's now campaigning from his boat from an unspecified location.

His location is known. He's headed towards Venezuela. 

[Nintex]

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/absolutely-out-of-control-cliff-simss-book-depicts-life-in-trumps-white-house/2019/01/21/883d2412-1d92-11e9-9145-3f74070bbdb9_story.html?noredirect=on&utm_term=.5efcb8734191&wpisrc=nl_politics&wpmm=1

POLICY WONK

At times, Trump evinced less rage than a lack of interest. Sims recounts one time when Ryan was in the Oval Office explaining the ins and outs of the Republican health-care bill to the president. As Ryan droned on for 15 minutes, Trump sipped on a glass of Diet Coke, peered out at the Rose Garden, stared aimlessly at the walls and, finally, walked out.

Ryan kept talking as the president wandered down the hall to his private dining room, where he flicked on his giant flat-screen TV. Apparently, he had had enough of Ryan’s talk. It fell to Vice President Pence to retrieve Trump and convince him to return to the Oval Office so they could continue their strategy session.

The Mooch

Sims writes that Scaramucci ordered them to reply to anyone in the White House instructing them to leak information to a reporter, including then-Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, by saying: “I cannot do that. I only report to Anthony Scaramucci and he reports directly to the president of the United States.”

Even Trump was amused.

“Can you believe this guy?” the president told Sims. “He’s completely out of his mind — like, on drugs or something — totally out of his mind. We’ll figure it out, but the guy is crazy.”

[CatsCatsCats]

Anyone else see the Mooch on celebrity big brother last night on that swing thing lookin like a puppet from wienerville?

[james]

https://twitter.com/JacobAWohl/status/1087736259517108224

huge if true

Thats a lot of hoops to jump through to avoid this little fact:

Born   Kamala Devi Harris
October 20, 1964 (age 54)
Oakland, California, U.S.

[Great Rumbler]

https://twitter.com/JacobAWohl/status/1087736259517108224

huge if true

Thats a lot of hoops to jump through to avoid this little fact:

Born   Kamala Devi Harris
October 20, 1964 (age 54)
Oakland, California, U.S.

Not really, conservatives don't like that kind of birthright citizen and want to get rid of it [on account of no-good Messicans coming across the border to have their anchor babies].

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/IngrahamAngle/status/1087783479247552513

Shit is lit

[Boredfrom]

Yep, those kids are idiots.

[agrajag]

https://twitter.com/JacobAWohl/status/1087736259517108224

huge if true

Thats a lot of hoops to jump through to avoid this little fact:

Born   Kamala Devi Harris
October 20, 1964 (age 54)
Oakland, California, U.S.

President Stephen Miller is working hard to amend the constitution and revoke the very corrupt and unfair birthright citizenship, checkmate libturds.

[TakingBackSunday]

fuck these dumb kids.  fuck the media,

[agrajag]

Elizabeth Warren should schedule a photo op with Nathan Phillips

[I'm a Puppy!]

I am astounded that Guliani is somehow still a lawyer. It's like "Dude, it's not your job to disclose your client's crimes in public. In fact, it's exactly your job to stop that from happening."

[kingv]

Elizabeth Warren should schedule a photo op with Nathan Phillips

She already has pics with her dad.

[Mandark]

I am astounded that Guliani is somehow still a lawyer. It's like "Dude, it's not your job to disclose your client's crimes in public. In fact, it's exactly your job to stop that from happening."

I guess the defense would be that he's really just doing a PR job with the title of lawyer, but he's still awful by those standards.

[Nintex]

Imagine being this kid.
"Hold for the President please"
"But I'm playing Fortni..."
"BILLY, BILLY IS THAT YOU?"
"I'm not billy but yes I'm the kid from the video"
"Absolutely fantastic. Now we got to have the wall right. You support Trump right? Your mom is she like hot? You can bring her as well don't bring dad it'll be akward just you and me and mom. You can come here we'll have a good time."
"You mean I can visit the White House?"
"Yes it'll be so great. Do you have time tommorow? What can I get you. McDonalds you kids love McDonalds right. Also my favorite."
"Well, the school is closed now so..."
"Oh and so is the government. DEMOCRATS AM I RIGHT?"
"Ok I guess...but I don't know how to get to DC"
"Don't worry, we'll get you with a helicopter. Where do you live like is it nice there. Do you have a helipad? I live in the White House. It's a dump really. So anyway did you vote for me?"
"Let me see if there's a place to land so... but I'm not of voting age yet Mr. Pres.."
"ENJOY. Say hi to your mom now, bye"

[I'm a Puppy!]

I am astounded that Guliani is somehow still a lawyer. It's like "Dude, it's not your job to disclose your client's crimes in public. In fact, it's exactly your job to stop that from happening."

I guess the defense would be that he's really just doing a PR job with the title of lawyer, but he's still awful by those standards.

He's worse as a PR person. I know several PR people and they view their job as convincing those against them to their side. Not burn every bridge you got except for your base.

[agrajag]

I think Rudy might be slightly senile.

[Mandark]

Imagine if you were a lawyer who'd lost a case against Giuliani in the 80's and you see him on cable TV now. How bad would you feel?

[I'm a Puppy!]

I think Rudy might be slightly senile.

I don't think so. I think he's stuck in the same echo chamber that conservatives are in. They think the vocal minority is the general public and so they're like "It doesn't matter." Same thing with Trump. They all think their base is the majority and are growing. Yeah....not so much.

[Boredfrom]

I doubt they think that they are the majority. Seems that they are just desperate and hoping this blows over.

[Nintex]

Rudy has a strange character arc. It seemed like he was just one of the many grifters and has beens that wanted to join with Trump to get some attention again.
He actually broke with Trump after the Access Hollywood Tapes and rejected an offer for a position in the administration.

A blow for Trump because Rudy had ties to the NY FBI which he used during the campaign (like Weiners laptop and Clinton's server). Comey even started investigating this 'leaking and potential corruption' within the bureau.

Suddenly Trump brought him back into the fold unofficially and he started giving advice on a number of different subjects.

At some point for some reason Rudy became Trump's new lawyer and ever since no one really seems to know what the hell he is doing.

[Mandark]

I doubt they think that they are the majority.

It feels like there's been a real shift from conservatives feeling they represented most of America to feeling like an embattled minority, and that's connected with their embrace of restrictive voting laws and panic about immigration.

I remember in the early 2000's there was a lot of chatter about a "permanent Republican majority," how the GOP was hoping to hold on to Congress as long as the Democrats had with the New Deal coalition, etc. And this was after a presidential election where they lost the popular vote. For all the trolling and bluster, Trump supporters don't have anywhere near that level of confidence going forward.

[kingv]

I am astounded that Guliani is somehow still a lawyer. It's like "Dude, it's not your job to disclose your client's crimes in public. In fact, it's exactly your job to stop that from happening."

Would anyone be surprised when it comes out that Rudy hasn't actually been a lawyer in 20 years? Also lmao at his personal life section on wiki.


"In May 2001, Giuliani's attorney revealed that Giuliani was impotent due to prostate cancer treatments and had not had sex with Nathan for the preceding year."


Why the fuck would your lawyer ever need to reveal that kind of thing publicly

I didn’t even know Giuliani was gay.

[Great Rumbler]

I am astounded that Guliani is somehow still a lawyer. It's like "Dude, it's not your job to disclose your client's crimes in public. In fact, it's exactly your job to stop that from happening."

Would anyone be surprised when it comes out that Rudy hasn't actually been a lawyer in 20 years? Also lmao at his personal life section on wiki.


"In May 2001, Giuliani's attorney revealed that Giuliani was impotent due to prostate cancer treatments and had not had sex with Nathan for the preceding year."


Why the fuck would your lawyer ever need to reveal that kind of thing publicly

I didn’t even know Giuliani was gay.

[agrajag]

but Nathan is... a woman?

[james]

Youve all seen Giulianis teeth right?

[agrajag]

Hey Rudy, why don't you throw on a dress and do a horrifying skit with Donald Trump, that'll help you with the gay vote, see.

[Mandark]

[Cryo]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/supreme-court-apos-inaction-leaves-152349891.html

[Great Rumbler]

https://www.yahoo.com/news/supreme-court-apos-inaction-leaves-152349891.html

Which was why Trump offering 3 more years of DACA to the Dems as a "compromise" was so stupid and pointless.

[Mandark]

On top of that, the "compromise offer" had a bunch of permanent restrictions on asylum seekers tacked on.

Even by current political standards, the compound stupidity of the shutdown is pretty impressive.

[Nintex]

WASHINGTON — The Senate will vote Thursday on two separate bills that would bring an immediate end to the partial government shutdown: one backed by President Trump that includes $5.7 billion for his border wall and another that would simply extend funding for shuttered agencies through Feb. 8.

 

[james]

Maybe include a link next time

[james]

Failing NYT:

As Venezuela Crumbles, Opposition Led by Juan Guaidó Sees an Opportunity

Conditions in Venezuela have deteriorated to a point where the opposition — gutted by the jailing and exiling of many of its leaders and discredited after several failed efforts to oust President Nicolás Maduro — is seeing an opportunity. Leading them is a virtually unheard-of 35-year-old, Juan Guaidó.

You could literally write this about the USA.

As United States Crumbles, Opposition Led by Alexandria OCasio-Cortez Sees an Opportunity

Conditions in the United States have deteriorated to a point where the opposition — gutted by the jailing and exiling of many of its leaders and discredited after several failed efforts to oust President Donald Trump — is seeing an opportunity. Leading them is a virtually unheard-of 29-year-old, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.

[Dickie Dee]

apparently you couldn't?

[I'm a Puppy!]

The whole 3 year DACA thing is laughable. Just talk to a dreamer. They're already like "Why would I give my address and info to the government when I know they could just turn around and use that to find me and deport me in 3 years? No way. I'm not that stupid." I mean for a "master negotiator" this is an exceedingly stupid deal. I can't believe they even want to vote on it.