US Politics Thread |OT| SAD TRUMP

[Cauliflower Of Love]

I'm loving this scandal series comedy central is running.

[benjipwns]

ya'll on notice:
https://twitter.com/Delafina777/status/1191759977595076608

[benjipwns]

Libertarians are human scum.

[shosta]

How does the Kentucky governorship flip parties nearly every election?

[Tripon]

How does the Kentucky governorship flip parties nearly every election?

At least this year, Bevin was a weak incumbent. Dude says a lot of dumb things but doesn't have any of Trump's actual charisma.

[benjipwns]

seriously will be so mad if pete is the nom

Good thing it's never going to happen.

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/FrankLuntz/status/1191913564958679041

[shosta]

are you posting frank luntz ironically or unironically

[Tripon]

are you posting frank luntz ironically or unironically

Just for the percentage popularity.

https://twitter.com/politicoalex/status/1191913065610203136

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1191918979633291265

Virginia voted for the party that has a governor that admitted to black face, but not to dressing up as a Klan member, and a Liu. Governor accused of multiple rapes, and an Attorney General who also admitted to black face. 

[benjipwns]

Imagine being the kind of person that admired Rand Paul and would expect him to take a principled stand.

https://reason.com/2019/11/05/rand-paul-wants-whistleblower-outed-libertarians-want-the-old-rand-paul-back/

In the #MAGA era, Paul has become one of the biggest cheerleaders of Trump-style Republicanism and a tireless defender of the president's perspective.

"Glad Rand Paul could find a purpose in Washington once it became clear that the right doesn't care about the size of government," quipped HotAir blogger and anti-Trump conservative Allahpundit yesterday. "Nothing says 'libertarian' like [checks notes] intimidating people who allege abuses of government power."

"I am seriously struggling to find consistency between the purported libertarian philosophy of Rand Paul and his desire to place a lawful whistleblower in harm's way," tweeted national security lawyer and legal pundit Bradley Moss.

Even Rep. Justin Amash (I–Mich.)—one-third of the once libertarian-leaning Republican trio that included Rand Paul and Kentucky Rep. Thomas Massie—had what seemed to be a criticism of Paul's Trump rally comments. On Monday night, Amash tweeted:

Libertarians, constitutional conservatives, and classical liberals believe in protecting whistleblowers to expose government corruption. Trump Republicans believe in exposing whistleblowers to protect government corruption.

Paul himself was once a more robust defender of whistleblowers and advocated expanding protections for them. Back in 2014, Paul told a Campaign for Liberty conference audience that he was considering ways to "expand the whistleblower statute to government contractors," not just employees. "We've got so many millions of government contractors that when they see something wrong, they should be able to report it without repercussions," he said.

On Monday night, Republican 2020 presidential candidate Joe Walsh called on Paul "to have the courage to immediately find the other Rand Paul," the one Walsh "used to admire." He also accused Paul of being "emasculated by Donald Trump."

"I know this is gonna piss a whole bunch of people off but Nope. I'm done with Rand," tweeted libertarian podcaster Jen Monroe. "He's no different than any other garden variety Republican."

Official R.I.P. in pieces the Libertarian Moment™

spoiler (click to show/hide)

It will be interesting to see how reason reacts to Rand Paul “obstructing” this impeachment of Trump. On one hand, reason wants to use Rand Paul to act like reason is Libertarian. On the other hand, reason staff consider Orange Man bad.

Reason magazine is a joke.
Probably no better tool for turning people away from libertarianism than this publication

Rand Paul actually has the principles to understand that the ends don’t justify the means. Hell, I thought that was a big point of Reason’s whole philosophy, but I guess not even Reason is immune from TDS.

That consistency and principles matter? That the right to face yoir accuser is fundamental to the American system? Now are you going to hide behind the sophistry that claims that this isn’t a criminal proceeding?

Nothing says “free minds” like hiding information and trusting hard core partisans in government. Welcome to the new wokatarianism. It’s progressivism with slightly fewer regulations but just as many star chambers and death by character assassinations.

Rand Paul supports Trump? So what, plenty of people do who don’t like Trump or even agree with a lot of his policies, mainly because the alternative is so glaringly worse. I have a feeling Rand Paul made his choice after his Progtard neighbor attacked him. It doesn’t really matter what one side thinks when the other side believes the crime of your continued existence should be fixed by physical violence.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

Being a “whistle blower” doesn’t and never has mean you are entitled to remain anonymous. In fact, it means just the opposite. The point of having the status is to prevent your bosses from retaliating against you for being one. That necessarily implies your bosses know you have made such a complaint and they cannot retaliate against you.

The idea that a “whistle blower” should remain anonymous is absurd. It is also an attack on transparency and the integrity of the government. This guy says something happened, the Congress and the public have a right to know who he is and hear what he has to say.

The best way to protect someone from retaliation is to allow them to remain anonymous.

No it isn’t. If their bosses don’t know they are whistle blowers, then they can’t be held accountable for retaliation. That is the number one way retaliation claims are denied; showing the bosses didn’t know they were a whistle blower.

The guy who becomes a whistle blower is already disliked. That is why he blows the whistle. So, the first thing that is done when they file such a report is to put their bosses on notice that he did. The whistle blower wants that because that means he can claim retaliation if they do anything to him. I have never seen a case where a whistle blower wanted to remain anonymous. It goes against the entire purpose of having whistle blower protection.

Mike, you are completely ignorant of this matter. You need to try and learn something instead of just spewing talking points.

Because there is no law that says he is entitled to anonymity and the issue has become a Congressional issue. You can’t use his report as a basis to do something and then refuse to let the members of Congress and the public hear him testify. If members of Congress want him to testify, he should have to testify. His being a whistle blower doesn’t entitle him to immunity or to be able to refuse to testify in front of Congress if requested.

They are trying to impeach the President based on his word. It defies all credulity to claim that doing so without the public and Congress ever hearing the person making the claim testify and be questioned in public is in any way a legitimate process.

That is idiotic. This person made the claim. They have no legal right to anonymity. You are asking the House to take actions on their word. They should have to say it under oath and be subject to questioning over it. It is obscene not to. Just because “its politics” doesn’t make ignoring any rules of transparency or not making any effort to find the truth okay.

And you could say that any person who testified is risking their career. So, by your logic the entire thing should be done anonymously. What is so special about this asshole versus any other asshole who testifies?

And as far as your second paragraph, you just admitted my point that the whole thing is a farce. The fact that you admit that and think that is okay just means you are a lunatic not that I am wrong.

Hey dumb ass. That is a site about whistle blowing in the private sector not the government. Two totally different laws and systems. It is talking about people who report their employers’ criminal activity to the SEC or the government. Yeah, in those cases, the government doesn’t want to tell the employer that one of their employees has ratted them out.

Here we are talking about where a government employee reports his section of the government to another section of the government. It is all the same organization. They don’t get anonymity and there are a long list of legal protections they get by becoming a whistle blower. So, the supervisors are told. They have to be told for the reasons I explain above. Moreover, there is no law or regulation that prevents their supervisor from being told.

So, why don’t you just shut up and stop embarrassing yourself here.

spoiler (click to show/hide)

And now they are oddly silent as this whole thing unravels. The worst has been the behavior of self proclaimed “libertarians” like Ken White and Charles Grassley who did nothing but act as purveyors of government disinformation during the entire thing.

Matt Tlabbi has more integrity than White, Grassley, and the entire Volkh Conspiracy combined. It is really kind of scary to see how quickly people will walk away from their professed beliefs when social pressures require it.

[close]

[close]

[close]

[benjipwns]

are you posting frank luntz ironically or unironically

hey Luntz, you're an idiot!

[agrajag]

https://twitter.com/NPR/status/1191918979633291265

Virginia voted for the party that has a governor that admitted to black face, but not to dressing up as a Klan member, and a Liu. Governor accused of multiple rapes, and an Attorney General who also admitted to black face. 

my State

 

[shosta]

Ok, seriously:

In the past year, this thread has accumulated 400 pages. That's over half of its content. And most of it is not good content. Maybe 50% of it is spam from the usual suspects (I'm guilty too).

I was browsing this thread from about a year ago because it came up in another thread and the election night posts are goddamn funny. This is a great forum with great people and it sucks that the quality has gone down lately which drives off some of the other funnier posters (I noticed Esch is posting less this past month or so).

ban nintex from this thread (really). ban tulsi posts. No more tripon tweets that are just random things happening in the news. I will cut down my own posts by 80%. Let's all of us do our part and not just post because we're bored

[agrajag]

so your solution to improving the forum is removing all the posts, that's an interesting idea

[Joe Molotov]

Make America Gay Again

[agrajag]

https://twitter.com/thehill/status/1191924694984876033

[shosta]

I care-post so all you fucking assholes can keep the detached ironic kayfabe going and pretend you don't love each other, semper games

[Tasty]

Ok, seriously:

In the past year, this thread has accumulated 400 pages. That's over half of its content. And most of it is not good content. Maybe 50% of it is spam from the usual suspects (I'm guilty too).

I was browsing this thread from about a year ago because it came up in another thread and the election night posts are goddamn funny. This is a great forum with great people and it sucks that the quality has gone down lately which drives off some of the other funnier posters (I noticed Esch is posting less this past month or so).

ban nintex from this thread (really). ban tulsi posts. No more tripon tweets that are just random things happening in the news. I will cut down my own posts by 80%. Let's all of us do our part and not just post because we're bored

It's the election season, and the temperature of the water was different last time, not really comparable. Also, the clown show GOP primary was a hell of a lot more entertaining, especially not knowing the outcome.

filler's Tulsi posts will stop when she drops. Hopefully Nintex's Trump fanfiction will stop when he's out of office, mostly for his own sake. News tweets aren't going to stop because from my perspective more important/alarming stuff coming out more often than four years ago.

Also, the current crop aren't worse than Assy et al. That era became fairly insufferable. I'll take Tulsi tweets over Papa Peterson dissertations any day.

[benjipwns]

Ok, seriously:

In the past year, this thread has accumulated 400 pages. That's over half of its content. And most of it is not good content. Maybe 50% of it is spam from the usual suspects (I'm guilty too).

I was browsing this thread from about a year ago because it came up in another thread and the election night posts are goddamn funny. This is a great forum with great people and it sucks that the quality has gone down lately which drives off some of the other funnier posters (I noticed Esch is posting less this past month or so).

ban nintex from this thread (really). ban tulsi posts. No more tripon tweets that are just random things happening in the news. I will cut down my own posts by 80%. Let's all of us do our part and not just post because we're bored

okay, sorry.

[Tripon]

https://twitter.com/noUpside/status/1191922176225497088

[BIONIC]

Ok, seriously:

In the past year, this thread has accumulated 400 pages. That's over half of its content. And most of it is not good content. Maybe 50% of it is spam from the usual suspects (I'm guilty too).

I was browsing this thread from about a year ago because it came up in another thread and the election night posts are goddamn funny. This is a great forum with great people and it sucks that the quality has gone down lately which drives off some of the other funnier posters (I noticed Esch is posting less this past month or so).

ban nintex from this thread (really). ban tulsi posts. No more tripon tweets that are just random things happening in the news. I will cut down my own posts by 80%. Let's all of us do our part and not just post because we're bored

Go fuck yourself

[benjipwns]

I do try to not post many Twitter embeds if possible, like the Warren ones I posted earlier each had a good summary of what she said plus the actual video so I posted both of them. Otherwise I do try to find an article or just post the image/video or at least hide more than one tweet behind a spoiler.

For articles sometimes I give brief thought to whether or not anyone might click through, or if just skimming some longer quoted parts is more appropriate. They don't really add like images/Twitter/YouTube so they're a bit easier to just scroll past.

One thing is that a lot of people aren't really doing any disagreeing. There's kinda... not much in the primary race that really happens of importance, so it's more like random amusing things. Congress is sorta cockblocking itself from doing anything. Trump is Trump. The media's unhealthy obsessions are generally ever more boring. (Although the TRENDOLIZER/Lead Stories thing has some real explosive bomb shell turning point potential.) Impeachment "process" is just silly, nobody needs as many breathless explainers daily about it, the Clinton impeachment, Nixon, etc. Congress asking people to testify is a normal activity, the Mueller phony witch hunt coup orchestrated by Obama at least had people getting charged with shit and Paul Manafort trying to see if he could escape by burying the prosecutors in the paperwork of his charges and so on. And then there's all the daily articles which aren't even explainers or reporting but straight up fan fiction. Plus lots of "they know it all in secret, they're playing it close to the chest, the silence actually means big things are happening" on literally fucking everything on "both sides" (as in I don't mean just impeachment, but like Trump foreign policy or strategies) after everybody just got burned doing that fan fiction for Mueller for two years.

Then the other 90% of the time I just shitpost capital T Trash™ like some kind of insufferable human garbage.

[OnlyRegret]

once a forum cop, always a forum cop

[thisismyusername]

Real talk: Esch comes and goes. I think this is his third or fourth "vacation" and I wish him the best. He's one of the better posters on the board (and I still want to see his dick just so I can write my memoir with "saw Eric Estrada's dick" and have younger readers go 'WTF, Eric Estrada was in his 80/dead's at that time'") but I don't fault him for leaving. A lot of the GAF/ERA refugees are pretty shit. For every Pogi carepost that is good, you get Pogi outside of the trash thread posts that are trying to be Philosoraptor thraed/posts. (#NoTNoShade PogiBB)

Also, the clown show GOP primary was a hell of a lot more entertaining, especially not knowing the outcome.

If you say so. Some of us were telling you guys "uh, guys... Trump may win... as much as I don't want that" and ya'll (read: GAF/ERA) ignored it for "YASS QWEEN #FIRSTWOMANPRESIDENT" but beyond that, given how stupid the typical voting base is, I wasn't surprised Trump was stomping the shit out of the GOP base and calling that win (maybe not here, though)

I just want it on record I said Trump would win and Clinton wasn't popular outside of liberal strongholds and you fucks told me I didn't know what I was talking about.

Make America Gay Again

But anyway, the only one that truly needs to shut the fuck up is Nintex and that's only because of his blind Trump fanboy-ism and fanfiction. Sometimes those are funny, but a lot of the times he has misses that aren't worth the writing time.

once a forum cop, always a forum cop

#AFCAB #AMAB #ABorksAB

[Mandark]

I think the early stages of the Trump administration were more interesting because we were all trying to figure out what would happen.

Turns out he's predictable and boring in his own way and now that Dems have the House it's a stalemate on top of that.

[curly]

fuck shosta

https://twitter.com/RonPaul/status/1191384535755317249

[benjipwns]

https://medium.com/@JoeBiden/i-have-fought-for-the-democratic-party-my-whole-career-2ca4a2dac271

The other day I was accused by one of my opponents of running in the wrong primary. Pretty amazing. On one level, it is kind of funny.

I have fought for the Democratic party my whole career. I know what we stand for, who we stand with and what we believe. And it’s not just policies or issues. It’s in my bones. That’s not something everyone in this primary can say.

But at another level these kinds of attacks are a serious problem. They reflect an angry unyielding viewpoint that has crept into our politics. If someone doesn’t agree with you — it’s not just that you disagree — that person must be a coward or corrupt or a small thinker.

Some call it the “my way or the highway” approach to politics. But it’s worse than that. It’s condescending to the millions of Democrats who have a different view.

It’s representative of an elitism that working and middle class people do not share: “We know best; you know nothing”. “If you were only as smart as I am you would agree with me.”

This is no way to get anything done. This is no way to bring the country together. This is no way for this party to beat Donald Trump.

There are a lot of ways — a lot of progressive ways — to fix our health care system and to make our tax system fair and to address the challenge of climate change. I believe I have proposed the most progressive, transformational ideas in this campaign — and I can get them done.

I learned a long time ago that if you question someone’s motivations rather than their judgment you get nowhere. It’s hard to get past go if you start off by saying the other person is in the pocket of special interests or is corrupt. To get anything big done in this country, we need to persuade, to compromise, to reach consensus. That’s the way a democracy works.

But since some have questioned whether I’m running in the wrong primary — let me answer that question.

I’m running in the Democratic primary as a proud Democrat.

I stand with the Democratic Party of Barack Obama — the party that fought for and passed the Affordable Care Act — an historic transformation of our health care system that took a generation to achieve. And I’m proud to say I was there when we passed it. I’m not walking away from ObamaCare — I want to build on it. Maybe others want to walk away from ObamaCare — I don’t. And I don’t believe the Democratic party should walk away from it either. I make no apologies for that.

I stand with the Democratic Party of Nancy Pelosi. Nancy is an historic figure — she will be remembered as one of the great Speakers in the history of this nation. She knows what it took to win back the majority in the House of Representatives. And she doesn’t want to put that majority at risk. She knows what it takes to get big things done. Nancy Pelosi believes we should build on the Affordable Care Act. There has never been a Speaker who was tougher, smarter, or had a bigger vision for this country than Nancy Pelosi.

So — let’s stop these kinds of attacks. Let’s keep our eye on the ball. Above all else, we must defeat Donald Trump.

[benjipwns]

get Nate Silver on this STAT

[Cauliflower Of Love]

https://twitter.com/TulsiGabbard/status/1191526984729419783

on a less serious note:

Senate Republicans are privately debating whether they should use an impeachment trial of President Trump to scrutinize former vice president Joe Biden and his son Hunter as some Trump allies push to call them as witnesses while others dismiss the suggestion as a risky political ploy.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/senate-republicans-consider-including-bidens-in-trump-impeachment-trial/2019/11/06/bde22272-fff3-11e9-8bab-0fc209e065a8_story.html

[kingv]

https://twitter.com/taylorium/status/1191572801032876032

[Cauliflower Of Love]

I couldn't place it before, but he reminds me a pete holmes.



Between him and buttigeg. Pete has the bigger chance of become the first gay president.

[Brehvolution]

https://twitter.com/someknew/status/1191921370696798208

 

[Brehvolution]

https://twitter.com/chrislhayes/status/1191932209600630784

 

The level of effort to concoct a bullshit story is going to bring a lot of grifters down.

[kingv]

I don’t really get the significance of what he is alleging. I read a lot of news and don’t know what letter he is talking about.

[james]

Ok, seriously:

In the past year, this thread has accumulated 400 pages. That's over half of its content. And most of it is not good content. Maybe 50% of it is spam from the usual suspects (I'm guilty too).

I was browsing this thread from about a year ago because it came up in another thread and the election night posts are goddamn funny. This is a great forum with great people and it sucks that the quality has gone down lately which drives off some of the other funnier posters (I noticed Esch is posting less this past month or so).

ban nintex from this thread (really). ban tulsi posts. No more tripon tweets that are just random things happening in the news. I will cut down my own posts by 80%. Let's all of us do our part and not just post because we're bored

fuuuuuuuck oooooofffffff

[Nintex]

https://twitter.com/someknew/status/1191921370696798208

 

I wonder what will tip Trump to decide that it is time to bail out on this thing and leave the GOP hanging 

[CatsCatsCats]

I could totally see Trump writing a bunch of pardons and quitting if he thought he was gonna lose

[agrajag]

https://twitter.com/MotherJones/status/1192066130291986432

yo, this lady is a fucking monster

[Nintex]

She's not a progressive, she's not a liberal, she's not a conservative and she's not a fascist.

I think she might be a satanist 

She just wants what's the worst for people.
For all the hoopla about the War on Christmas, Kamala would actually cancel Christmas... and halloween, easter, thanksgiving etc. .
Unless everyone pays their taxes.

[agrajag]

Kamala Harris: "I just want to ruin your life."

Kamala2020

[Nintex]

Op-ed: "Why not skip the bullshit America?"
By: Kamala Harris

"Let's face it parents, your kids probably aren't going to stay out of jail, nor will they say 'No' to drugs and alcohol. Most of them will get shot in college by the age of 21. We could save our tax payers a ton of their hard earned money and skip the crime, police chase, trial and you paying for their bail. We could detain all youths when they turn 18. Which offers them free education, free healthcare and mandatory employment in a safe and secure environment and you comfort in knowing your child is safe.  I have a plan to build a total of 800 000 youth prison camps called "Opportunity Camps" here in the United States alone within my first 100 days in office. It would be paid for by the money we collect from the crackdown on tax evading homeless people, my Digital Streaming tax and abolishing benefits for single moms."

[agrajag]

Andy, I think it's a bit too early to kick the campaign into overdrive man

https://twitter.com/JacksonKernion/status/1170128333520031745

[D3RANG3D]

Is that incel icon The Joker...

spoiler (click to show/hide)

#Warrcels

[close]

[agrajag]

I think it's from Mad Max, but I'm not sure. Looks close enough to the Joker

[thisismyusername]

Wait, Andy stans Warren?

I love you Andy, but oh dear...

[kingv]

The. Joker. Fucking. Fucks.!!!!

[kingv]

Also, the supposed whistleblower stopped working in the White House in 2017...

Wtf am I missing? How could he even be the whistleblower?

[Cauliflower Of Love]

The s are shaking the tree to see what falls out.

[Joe Molotov]

Also, the supposed whistleblower stopped working in the White House in 2017...

Wtf am I missing? How could he even be the whistleblower?

The whistleblower only had secondhand knowledge of what happened. Now they’ve interviewed people with firsthand knowledge and they’re like “yeah, that’s what happened” but Trumpists think if they can declare the whistleblower a deep state nevertrumper, then Trump is innocent.

[kingv]

People with TS/SCI clearances don’t just like, chat about classified information all that casually. It seems to me the whistleblower would HAVE to had worked in the White House at the time to get wind of it, or work closet with the White House.

Also curious what this Barr report is going to be.

The biggest thing that should worry Trump is his hold on the press has flopped and nobody but fox will take his BS reports seriously anymore.

Whatever Barr has must be incredibly convincing or it’s going to be treated as seriously as some random shit Rudy says.

[team filler]

 



 

[kingv]

That’s pretty racist even for Ben Garrison.

[Nintex]

GOP: "We're going to put Trump in front a teleprompter to highlight our judicial nominees"

Trump: 

https://twitter.com/WhiteHouse/status/1192202004006920198

[OnlyRegret]

That’s pretty racist even for Ben Garrison.

that's because it's an edit

[TakingBackSunday]

I’m shocked filler would willingly post racist content

[agrajag]

"reposts are not endorsements"

[agrajag]

https://twitter.com/frank_stop/status/1192239109311488001

[team filler]

I’m shocked filler would willingly post racist content

anitsemite eli valley tweeted it, I should have never trusted that nazi scumbag 

[benjipwns]

near ultimate filler porn