Politics

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mockbee
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Re: Politics

#61 Post by mockbee » Mon Nov 12, 2018 10:49 am

Hype wrote:
Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:31 pm
I can see how someone who isn't racist might have voted for an already racist candidate. But I can't see how anyone who isn't racist could vote for him again and still not be racist. Voting for Trump in 2020 will be a racist act whether anyone likes it or not. Listen to Steve Bannon. Whether this "helps" or not is irrelevant. It needs to be said.
I agree it would be a racist act, and I think that it was a racist act the first time. It should be acknowledged.

If it is framed that 50% of Americans are beyond redemption, out and out racists by a group of elite liberals though, that just won't work. Democrats can't let Trump frame that debate.

Obama was really, really smart.

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Hype
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Re: Politics

#62 Post by Hype » Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:26 am

mockbee wrote:
Mon Nov 12, 2018 10:49 am
Hype wrote:
Sun Nov 11, 2018 5:31 pm
I can see how someone who isn't racist might have voted for an already racist candidate. But I can't see how anyone who isn't racist could vote for him again and still not be racist. Voting for Trump in 2020 will be a racist act whether anyone likes it or not. Listen to Steve Bannon. Whether this "helps" or not is irrelevant. It needs to be said.
I agree it would be a racist act, and I think that it was a racist act the first time. It should be acknowledged.

If it is framed that 50% of Americans are beyond redemption, out and out racists by a group of elite liberals though, that just won't work. Democrats can't let Trump frame that debate.

Obama was really, really smart.
Yeah. So, I have it on pretty good authority that Booker is that same type, at least in theory, and always has been (I know people who knew him at Oxford / Yale -- like Clinton, Obama, etc., he was thinking 20 years ahead...). That's why I've said that he's likely to have a good shot at beating Trump, unless he does something disastrously stupid, or fails to capture enough of the Midwest vote that Clinton absolutely tanked.

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Re: Politics

#63 Post by lollapaloser » Tue Nov 13, 2018 12:35 pm

Booker's got a confirmed groping in his past though doesn't he?

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mockbee
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Re: Politics

#64 Post by mockbee » Tue Nov 13, 2018 6:14 pm

lollapaloser wrote:
Tue Nov 13, 2018 12:35 pm
Booker's got a confirmed groping in his past though doesn't he?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... c233484719

This would be a non-issue with a swing voter, but I don't know how he gets out of a competitive primary in our current climate.

I've not been terribly impressed by the guy. :noclue:

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Hype
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Re: Politics

#65 Post by Hype » Tue Nov 13, 2018 8:12 pm

mockbee wrote:
Tue Nov 13, 2018 6:14 pm
lollapaloser wrote:
Tue Nov 13, 2018 12:35 pm
Booker's got a confirmed groping in his past though doesn't he?
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/mor ... c233484719

This would be a non-issue with a swing voter, but I don't know how he gets out of a competitive primary in our current climate.

I've not been terribly impressed by the guy. :noclue:
That is a very different case than the MeToo stuff though... :confused: We'll see.

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chaos
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Re: Politics

#66 Post by chaos » Sat Feb 16, 2019 6:33 pm


Hokahey
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Re: Politics

#67 Post by Hokahey » Sat Feb 16, 2019 7:49 pm

chaos wrote:
Sat Feb 16, 2019 6:33 pm
That pause makes it sooooo awkward and funny.

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SR
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Re: Politics

#68 Post by SR » Wed Apr 17, 2019 4:49 am


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Re: Politics

#69 Post by SR » Thu Apr 18, 2019 6:32 am

And taking office in Alberta as Premier-designate, Jason Kenney? Is this a pervasive shift in Canada? :banghead:

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Re: Politics

#70 Post by Hype » Fri Apr 19, 2019 1:07 am

SR wrote:
Thu Apr 18, 2019 6:32 am
And taking office in Alberta as Premier-designate, Jason Kenney? Is this a pervasive shift in Canada? :banghead:
Yes. Russian money has been funding anti-Trudeau sentiment for years on social media.

There's a concerted effort of fascist-minded wealthy elites in foreign places to mess with the international order. This sounds like a conspiracy, but it's not unified, it's just that it makes a lot of sense for a place as fucked as Russia to do what they're doing, and they've been perfecting it for a while, so now we're seeing the results.

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Re: Politics

#71 Post by SR » Fri Apr 19, 2019 4:42 am

He's poisoned so much and the march continues. Putin is formidable

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chaos
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Re: Politics

#72 Post by chaos » Mon Apr 22, 2019 6:07 pm


https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48007487

Ukraine election: Comedian Zelensky wins presidency by landslide
22 April 2019

Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelensky has scored a landslide victory in the country's presidential election.

With nearly all ballots counted in the run-off vote, Mr Zelensky had taken more than 73% with incumbent Petro Poroshenko trailing far behind on 24%.

"I will never let you down," Mr Zelensky told celebrating supporters.

Russia says it wants him to show "sound judgement", "honesty" and "pragmatism" so that relations can improve. Russia backs separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The comments came from Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, in a Facebook post on Monday (in Russian).

He said he expected Mr Zelensky to "repeat familiar ideological formulas" that he used in the election campaign, adding: "I have no illusions on that score.

"At the same time, there is a chance to improve relations with our country."

Mr Poroshenko, who admitted defeat after the first exit polls were published, has said he will not be leaving politics.

He told voters that Mr Zelensky, 41, was too inexperienced to stand up to Russia effectively.

Mr Zelensky, a political novice, is best known for starring in a satirical television series Servant of the People, in which his character accidentally becomes Ukrainian president.


Image


He told reporters he would "reboot" peace talks with the separatists fighting Ukrainian forces and volunteers in the east
.
"I think that we will have personnel changes. In any case we will continue in the direction of the Minsk [peace] talks and head towards concluding a ceasefire," he said.

There are sporadic skirmishes and the situation also remains tense around Crimea, annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014.


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Hype
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Re: Politics

#73 Post by Hype » Wed Apr 24, 2019 7:29 pm

chaos wrote:
Mon Apr 22, 2019 6:07 pm

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-48007487

Ukraine election: Comedian Zelensky wins presidency by landslide
22 April 2019

Ukrainian comedian Volodymyr Zelensky has scored a landslide victory in the country's presidential election.

With nearly all ballots counted in the run-off vote, Mr Zelensky had taken more than 73% with incumbent Petro Poroshenko trailing far behind on 24%.

"I will never let you down," Mr Zelensky told celebrating supporters.

Russia says it wants him to show "sound judgement", "honesty" and "pragmatism" so that relations can improve. Russia backs separatists in eastern Ukraine.

The comments came from Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev, in a Facebook post on Monday (in Russian).

He said he expected Mr Zelensky to "repeat familiar ideological formulas" that he used in the election campaign, adding: "I have no illusions on that score.

"At the same time, there is a chance to improve relations with our country."

Mr Poroshenko, who admitted defeat after the first exit polls were published, has said he will not be leaving politics.

He told voters that Mr Zelensky, 41, was too inexperienced to stand up to Russia effectively.

Mr Zelensky, a political novice, is best known for starring in a satirical television series Servant of the People, in which his character accidentally becomes Ukrainian president.


Image


He told reporters he would "reboot" peace talks with the separatists fighting Ukrainian forces and volunteers in the east
.
"I think that we will have personnel changes. In any case we will continue in the direction of the Minsk [peace] talks and head towards concluding a ceasefire," he said.

There are sporadic skirmishes and the situation also remains tense around Crimea, annexed from Ukraine by Russia in 2014.

This is way easier to understand if you take into account that Russia has tried to insist on Russian-friendly (i.e., puppet) leaders for former Soviet states since their independences in the early 90s. There was an "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine back in the early 2000s after a pro-Putin leader named Yanukovych was "elected" in widely disputed elections. After protests, a recount/runoff was held, and it was determined that one of the leaders of the revolution, Viktor Yushchenko, would be the new President. At the time, it was widely believed that Yushchenko had been poisoned with digoxin (presumably by the Russians), which left him with a disfigured face. Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko were widely held as pro-European heroes who would bring closer ties with the E.U.

Fast-forward a few years, and there appears to have been some infighting between these two, with Timoshenko ending up in considerable trouble (including being jailed for corruption). There were also harsh winters where Russia simply turned off the natural gas to Ukraine (accused them of stealing it), and insisted that they pay market rates, despite historic reasons why Ukraine was, like the rest of the ex-Soviet states, in no position to be paying Western market rates for gas from their former imperial overlords (a very tricky situation). Then, Yushchenko loses an election to, you guessed it, the old Russian-backed Yanukovych, who becomes President again. This time... it seems that Ukraine has simply realized it's time to get closer to Russia again, though Yanukovych had appeared to be ready to sign an "association agreement" with the EU, despite trying to also maintain closer ties to Russia. Yanukovych's reneging on the association agreement seems to have been the main impetus for the Euromaidan protests in 2013. (But it's also possible that Russia was involved in fomenting this as a pretext for the later invasion.) These protests led to the ouster of Yanukovych, who fled to Russia, and new elections. Weirdly, around this time audio was leaked of United States officials backing a guy named Arseniy Yatsenyuk for Prime Minister. Whether through direct or indirect means, American support seems to have paid off and Yatsenyuk, along with chocolate baron Poroshenko end up as the new leaders, with a decidedly pro-Western outlook. Meanwhile, Russia is engaging in an invasion without admitting it, and manage to annex Crimea under the pretext of a referendum which independent reporters widely suspected was a sham (though there is admittedly fairly widespread pro-Russian support in these regions).

That's the backdrop for what has just happened -- as far as I can tell, Russian backing seems to be behind Zelenskiy's win, and that seems born out in his subtle backtracking of the pro-EU Poroshenko policies, especially regarding the ongoing war in the east of the country.

It's really a mess though.

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Re: Politics

#74 Post by SR » Thu Apr 25, 2019 5:57 am

His reach is extending rapidly. It's really alarming. Here in the US, by the limited info being reported (and distorted), all indicators are that we have lost the battles in the last few years and the war looks almost insurmountable....willful ignorance/willing victims. :banghead:

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Re: Politics

#75 Post by drwintercreeper » Thu Apr 25, 2019 11:38 am

I am waiting to see how the dust settles. Zelensky won nearly every region of Ukraine except the far west (and he still did well there), so in that sense this election was the cleanest yet in that it didn't break down across traditional cleavages (language being the most salient). I wonder if this was more of a rejection of Poroshenko and his record or a rejection of his nationalist party platform (army/language/faith).

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chaos
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Re: Politics

#76 Post by chaos » Tue May 21, 2019 1:57 pm

Jesus Christ. This country runs despite itself. DJT's cabinet is useless (yeah, I know, I 'm stating the obvious). :scared:

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Pandemonium
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Re: Politics

#77 Post by Pandemonium » Fri May 24, 2019 1:18 pm

chaos wrote:
Tue May 21, 2019 1:57 pm
Jesus Christ. This country runs despite itself. DJT's cabinet is useless (yeah, I know, I 'm stating the obvious). :scared:
Carson's a buffoon. It's incomprehensible that he is or was a neurosurgeon.

At least he didn't ask about REO Speedwagon.

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SR
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Re: Politics

#78 Post by SR » Thu Jun 06, 2019 7:44 am

Light reading for the D-Day remembrance
https://www.abebooks.com/book-search/ti ... churchill/

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kv
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Re: Politics

#79 Post by kv » Thu Jun 06, 2019 2:29 pm

:tiphat:

I really should get those...


It's strange how people change differently with or without the change of time...

Before the internet I was a voracious book reader of anything non fiction (I'd spent my youth in fiction land)

Now I am a voracious internet user, musician and video game player lol..I watch little TV...useless it is live sports or news...ya live content...not pre-recorded ironically...TV and books sleep the fuck out of my brain now...and while I'm certain I am gleaning knowledge at at a greater rate these days, I'm aware that I'm controlling my viewpoint too much... where a good book is a separate stream from your own thought and can drag you along out your set.


I should read more books... :lolol:

.

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Bandit72
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Re: Politics

#80 Post by Bandit72 » Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:40 pm

Okayyyyy, so now we now have a c*nt in charge of the United States and a c*nt in charge of the United Kingdom.

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Mescal
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Re: Politics

#81 Post by Mescal » Tue Jul 23, 2019 2:30 pm

Bandit72 wrote:
Tue Jul 23, 2019 1:40 pm
Okayyyyy, so now we now have a c*nt in charge of the United States and a c*nt in charge of the United Kingdom.
Yep, exactly.

Crazy ....

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SR
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Re: Politics

#82 Post by SR » Wed Jul 24, 2019 6:43 am


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Re: Politics

#83 Post by SR » Wed Aug 07, 2019 6:24 am

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... edirect=on

President George W. Bush's chief speechwriter, Michael Gerson wrote:
"I had fully intended to ignore President Trump’s latest round of racially charged taunts against an African American elected official, and an African American activist, and an African American journalist and a whole city with a lot of African Americans in it. I had every intention of walking past Trump’s latest outrages and writing about the self-destructive squabbling of the Democratic presidential field, which has chosen to shame former Vice President Joe Biden for the sin of being an electable, moderate liberal.
But I made the mistake of pulling James Cone’s 'The Cross and the Lynching Tree' off my shelf — a book designed to shatter convenient complacency. Cone recounts the case of a white mob in Valdosta, Ga., in 1918 that lynched an innocent man named Haynes Turner. Turner’s enraged wife, Mary, promised justice for the killers. The sheriff responded by arresting her and then turning her over to the mob, which included women and children. According to one source, Mary was 'stripped, hung upside down by the ankles, soaked with gasoline, and roasted to death. In the midst of this torment, a white man opened her swollen belly with a hunting knife and her infant fell to the ground and was stomped to death.'
God help us. It is hard to write the words. This evil — the evil of white supremacy, resulting in dehumanization, inhumanity and murder — is the worst stain, the greatest crime, of U.S. history. It is the thing that nearly broke the nation. It is the thing that proved generations of Christians to be vicious hypocrites. It is the thing that turned normal people into moral monsters, capable of burning a grieving widow to death and killing her child.
When the President of the United States plays with that fire or takes that beast out for a walk, it is not just another political event, not just a normal day in campaign 2020. It is a cause for shame. It is the violation of martyrs’ graves. It is obscene graffiti on the Lincoln Memorial. It is, in the eyes of history, the betrayal — the re-betrayal — of Haynes and Mary Turner and their child. And all of this is being done by an ignorant and arrogant narcissist reviving racist tropes for political gain, indifferent to the wreckage he is leaving, the wounds he is ripping open.
Like, I suspect, many others, I am finding it hard to look at resurgent racism as just one in a series of presidential offenses or another in a series of Republican errors. Racism is not just another wrong. The Antietam battlefield is not just another plot of ground. The Edmund Pettus Bridge is not just another bridge. The balcony outside Room 306 at the Lorraine Motel is not just another balcony. As U.S. history hallows some causes, it magnifies some crimes.
What does all this mean politically? It means that Trump’s divisiveness is getting worse, not better. He makes racist comments, appeals to racist sentiments and inflames racist passions. The rationalization that he is not, deep down in his heart, really a racist is meaningless. Trump’s continued offenses mean that a large portion of his political base is energized by racist tropes and the language of white grievance. And it means — whatever their intent — that those who play down, or excuse, or try to walk past these offenses are enablers.
Some political choices are not just stupid or crude. They represent the return of our country’s cruelest, most dangerous passion. Such racism indicts Trump. Treating racism as a typical or minor matter indicts us."

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Hype
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Re: Politics

#84 Post by Hype » Wed Aug 07, 2019 4:49 pm

They want to be cruel. They think they earned the right.

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Re: Politics

#85 Post by Pandemonium » Sat Aug 10, 2019 2:46 pm

So gazillionare pedo trafficer Jeffrey Epstein committed suicide today...

Coincidently, just a couple days ago documents had been unsealed that mentions people like Prince Andrew, Senator Mitchell, Governor Richardson and of course, Alan Dershowitz was likely the tip of the iceberg. His pals and participants appear to cross political and national barriers. The stakes and ramifications for these and other high profile people involved in his pedo ring if Epstein ever got on the stand at trial would have been catastrophic for them.

After Epstein supposedly "harming" himself a few weeks ago and initially being found unresponsive, under any circumstances a prisoner like that would be under 24/7 watch *especially* with such a high profile trial looming. Supposedly, he was taken off suicide watch a couple weeks ago but still in his own cell away from general population and supposedly monitored. Even if he actually did kill himself, there has to be a ridiculous degree of malfeasance on the part of whoever was monitoring him to let this happen. Also, one report stated Epstein was not "dead" when the 911 responders took him to the Hospital. So, added opportunities to insure Epstein tells no tales.

This was probably the most predictable outcome of any such case in modern history. What's more shocking is that it actually happened exactly like most predicted brazenly for all to see. There's a very long lost of powerful and important people that are glad of the events of today. Expect more sudden, unexplained "deaths" to happen to key individuals in the coming months as this whole thing gets buried. Ghislaine Maxwell for one should be pretty paranoid.

I'm not a conspiracy nut, but in this case, if it walks like a duck, quacks like a duck.... well, do the math.

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