USA Politics

[greg]

Because everyone involved with Chaz is a thug.

And there's been another shooting in Chaz: One person wounded in second shooting in Seattle's 'Chaz' protest zone

The left's dreams are coming true.

Don't know if I'm allowed to say it (mild spice level alert), but the newest nickname I've heard:

The Soyviet Union. 😆

[BasilValentine]

No, thug is the word.  The shootings prove it.  Chaz certainly needs trigger warnings posted, that much is certain.

I wasn't aware the shooter had been apprehended and identified as a Chazian citizen. Now that's some fine and expeditious police work there! 

[BasilValentine]

The Please Tell Me You Love Me Tour

You know, his (whoever's/whatever's) hair looks much better like that. One could almost mistake him for a normal American male!

[Karl Henning]

You know, his (whoever's/whatever's) hair looks much better like that. One could almost mistake him for a normal American male!

It would kill him, to hear you say so....

[drogulus]

     I'm getting liberty spam (guns, certifications).

[drogulus]

I wasn't aware the shooter had been apprehended and identified as a Chazian citizen. Now that's some fine and expeditious police work there! 

     Was the shooter a thug or the shootee?

[drogulus]

     For those interested, so far you have to register on a website to get your free copy of the Bolton book. There, I did a virtue signal. I will explore other options.

[Karl Henning]

"I tend to think the second explanation — Trump was not joking (he rarely does and has no real sense of humor, mistaking insults for jokes) but may not exactly have told the truth either — is the most likely. It is plain that Trump would like to make the data look better and probably has mused about de-emphasizing testing, but it's far from clear that he would have actually given such direction knowing his advisers would consider him ignorant, disturbed or both.

In short, we have a president who does not know how to lead, does not understand what sounds irrational to average Americans (outside his base) and does not have the will or ability to broaden testing and tracing, which, along with mask-wearing (which he also disdains), hold the best promise for reducing deaths before there is a vaccine. Pelosi hit the nail on the head: The president is ethically unfit and intellectually unprepared to lead."

[Christabel]

'The Biden campaign put out a statement bashing Trump's remark. In a written statement, the campaign argued that "as the American people suffer through rising coronavirus cases and fight to get back to work and get our economy back on track, Donald Trump made one of the most damning admissions in presidential history: that he ordered federal officials to slow down testing just to artificially suppress numbers and conceal his atrocious mismanagement of the worst public health crisis in generations." Biden's team declared that "it wasn't a joke: it was a confession. Look no further than Trump's own past statements." The statement concluded, "Donald Trump just announced to the entire country that he cares more about saving his job than he does about saving lives or building our economy back. And that is unforgettable."'

Neither the Trump administration nor the Democrats have covered themselves in glory;  both are equally execrable and if the Left was honest in the least they'd admit this too.  The American people are caught between a rock and a hard place and are being as dishonest as their political masters.  The end result is a neurotic and untrustworthy nation of narcissists.  All of it predicted 41 years ago in "The Culture of Narcissism:  American Life in the Age of Diminishing Expectations" by Christopher Lasch.  Wide reading essential for truth and understanding;  avoiding the luvvie media starting with the New York Times only traps you in your emotionally needy cocoon.

Dr. Thomas Sowell says, "the Left doesn't like facts because these leave them feeling emotionally unsatisfied".  Bingo.

[Daverz]

Here I was told the liberals and Dems were the party of science. As Molyneux likes to point out, national IQ in Asian countries is higher than most western ones. I don't find that racist or offensive.

I'm sure you probably find Charles Murray offensive, too.

Anyone one who follows the word "science" with the name "Molyneux" has zero understanding of what science is.  Molyneux is a misogynist, white supremacist hate peddler and would-be cult leader.  And he's creepy as fuck.

Yes, Charles Murray is offensive, because he's a racist crank who no serious person would represent as believable on any topic.

[greg]

I think I may have found a fake Trump tweet shared on facebook...

googled it word for word and found absolutely nothing about it. People outraged not even bothering to google it. I could tell it was suspicious because if he actually tweeted that it would be news, it was so inflammatory and quite racist.

Just the perfect thing we need, right? Idiots giving in to their tribalistic urges and not bothering to find out the truth when it is a one minute search will be the downfall... 

[Karl Henning]

Yes, Charles Murray is offensive, because he's a racist crank who no serious person would represent as believable on any topic.

Just like the President!

[Christabel]

Just like the President!

America is a sad, pathetic and neurotic nation not worth a pinch of shit.  Bad people get shocking leaders.  If you want better leaders you need to be better people.

[greg]

Watched a CNN video recently that was supposed to sell people the idea that Trump is a racist, using some clips of his (I do appreciate the actual source).

I'm willing to believe it, as I never liked the guy, but it did not sell me on it. It didn't seem to cross the line to be obviously racist to an indifferent party. Sure, his vague style of speech doesn't help, in that it is open to interpretation, which means enemies will take it to mean the worst.

Crossing the line would be something like the fake tweet that I saw today- it had the phrase "full of savages" when referring to Puerto Rico. But the thing even says "department of memes" in Spanish, and if you google it, it's nowhere, obviously fake (also the media would never let him live that one down). He's insensitive, inappropriate, but not seeing the racism, perhaps if you dig deeper or something? Still waiting for proof of it.

[Mirror Image]

America is a sad, pathetic and neurotic nation not worth a pinch of shit.  Bad people get shocking leaders.  If you want better leaders you need to be better people.

And where are you from again?

[arpeggio]

America is a sad, pathetic and neurotic nation not worth a pinch of shit.  Bad people get shocking leaders.  If you want better leaders you need to be better people.

Trump was elected as result of a quirk in our election system.  He lost the popular vote.

The majority of us knew the crises we are in would eventually happen.  If we said anything about three years ago we would have been accused at the very least of being paranoid.

The members of our electorate who support Trump are a minority but a sizable one.

[SimonNZ]

It's hard to follow Christabel's train of thought, but I suspect he's saying that the Obama and Clinton voters are the "bad people" and the fact that Hilary won the popular vote is evidence to him of...oh I dunno...something.

[SurprisedByBeauty]

Trump was elected as result of a quirk in our election system.  He lost the popular vote.

The majority of us knew the crises we are in would eventually happen.  If we said anything about three years ago we would have been accused at the very least of being paranoid.

The members of our electorate who support Trump are a minority but a sizable one.

Trump was elected, because enough people voted for him in enough states. The Electoral College has been in place since 1787. It's not news. It's elected every president, GOP or DEM. Let's not pretend we don't know how it works or why it exists in the first place. "He lost the popular vote" is really quite a meaningless statement, employed by the party that lost. It is merely coincidence, I suppose, that four out of five Presidents where the popular national* vote did not align with the actual election results as per EC, were Republican. (Hayes, Harrison, Bush, Trump) And compared to the first two such cases, the difference in popular vote (half a percent for GW and 2 percent for Trump) is marginal.

Those who, rightly for innumerable good reasons (and some less good ones), bemoan the election of Trump should not look to the EC but why 29,029,707 American voters cast their ballot for Trump in the first place.
That's not just a "sizeable" minority, it's -- if you squint -- half of the country that bothers to vote. Trump may be a freak - but he is no freak accident. And if those voters' concerns are not addressed (I'm not saying: pandered to!), this will repeat itself, sooner or later.

From my perspective, the constant bevy of awful choices among candidates, usually coming down to the lowest common denominator, is one factor. The fact that the American electorate doesn't take third party candidates as seriously as they well might (and ought to), another. Of course, the latter is groomed and furthered by the RNC and DNC in absolute harmonious lockstep. The Simpsons had an excellent episode about that (Zorg and Gorg [Kang and Kodos], I believe, turned out to be alien candidates... Oh, here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=chFaesfO7fQ.)

If there is a problem -- and I tend to think there is one -- it won't be solved by deriding the EC (which exists, will continue to exist, and has good reasons to do so), but by ridding ourselves of political Gerrymandering. But neither of the two main parties has any interest in that... and won't, until either party thinks that they are permanently, long-term, and systemically disadvantaged by the system. But unfortunately the rewards of 'getting to do it yourself' are too great for them to feel that way (as of yet).

[Herman]

Too bad there's not an automatic device that says bye-bye to people who only register here to post agit-prop posts and maybe one or two token posts about music.

[Todd]

The Electoral College has been in place since 1787.

1788.