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u.s. politics: molotov cocktail through the overton window


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4 minutes ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

Not seeing the disconnect between a joke and action? Okay, not sure how to respond to that. If I had posted a video of Ted Cruz getting his ass stomped with the heading "thing of beauty" then yeah, that would be equivalent to what Sword of Doom did. If you can't make the distinction between that and "goddamn but Ted Cruz has a punchable face" then I don't know what to tell you.

 Yeah, I get that Nazis have and still do kill. I'm not discounting that fact, but to compare what's going on the WWII is a false equivalency. If it weren't, simply punching Nazis would be "doing it wrong". You'd want to be stabbing, shooting and blowing up Nazis were that the case.

 I'm not telling anyone to be anything, I'm ridiculing the posting of violence porn with the heading "a thing of beauty" underneath it.   

No, it wouldn't be equivalent.  

But yeah, let's just wait until Nazis have an army, take over some countries, and declare war before doing anything.  It's just a little genocide.

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11 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I don't think that's a fair recounting of history (otherwise known as six weeks ago).  First, we don't know if McCain offered reassurances to like-minded Senators allowing himself to receive all the blame (and momentary "glory" from the media) for killing the bill.  Second, many voted for the bill contingent upon there being a conference committee in which they could basically, ya know, negotiate an entire other bill with the House.  Not that didn't necessarily have to happen - the House could have just passed the skinny repeal themselves and sent it to the president - but this raises another obstacle skinny repeal had, approval from the House.  This current bill, btw, would have to also pass the House by next Saturday as well.  

There are other difficulties to consider - Capito and Portman were courted through increased funding for opioid treatment.  Moreover, the block grant method of Cassidy-Graham may disproportionately hurt their states:

Overall, the strategy for this bill seems to be derived from the same strategically McConnell used in June and July:  we're not sure exactly how to get to 50 votes, but the deadline will pressure Senators get on board.  While that obviously failed then, still, it is time for the resistance to mobilize once again.  Hopefully for the last time.

I still have zero faith that Republican senators will care if it hurts their states provided that they can at least say they did something that helps - like the aforementioned Capito deal, or the Alaska deal from McConnell's attempt earlier. Or they'll claim they were doing it for party allegiance, like Heller did when he voted for it and then said how happy he was that it got defeated. 

And there are a whole lot of senators who can be happy being able to say 'see, we fulfilled our promise of repealing'. 

Heck, Trump at this point is happy to repair the ACA  as long as he can claim that he called it repeal and replace. (Democrats do not appear to be going along with this

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Seen a lot of this on the internets, and I think it's pretty damn silly.  Colbert had Spicer come on in a way that was not only making fun of his own ridiculousness, but tacitly admitting the entire administration is a farce.  If you wanna protest "normalizing" Spicer, then protest him getting a Harvard fellowship, not his ability to have a sense of humor about his tenure. 

Him admitting that the admin is a farce would be fine if it was farcical. It really isn't, and I'm not sure it ever was. I might be on board with something like this from GHWB, but from this asshole who from day one used his platform as a way to spread truth and misinformation while attacking the press directly? Fuck that shit. 

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21 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Um,  Hitler indeed did dream of exactly such a thing, and get it built?  They had a program, from which we happily brought nazi scientists and techs to the US to do it for us instead. 

http://www.atomicheritage.org/history/german-atomic-bomb-project

 

Yes, there's hyperbole involved in that statement. But the sheer amount of nuclear weapons, and their power (hydrogen bombs weren't even on the radar in the 1940es) that the US have in their stockpile would probably go beyond Hitler's wildest dreams. Also, the long-term effects of radiation were still unknown at the time.

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1 minute ago, Kalbear said:

I still have zero faith that Republican senators will care if it hurts their states provided that they can at least say they did something that helps - like the aforementioned Capito deal, or the Alaska deal from McConnell's attempt earlier.

Sure, but the point is it looks like (still need to wait for the scoring) this will hurt Ohio and West Virginia, and as far as I can tell there's nothing Portman and Capito can point to that helps their state (or Alaska for Murkowski, for that matter).

3 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

Heck, Trump at this point is happy to repair the ACA  as long as he can claim that he called it repeal and replace. (Democrats do not appear to be going along with this

Granted, Trump will tout anything he can claim as an accomplishment.  One interesting thing on the committee efforts to repair the ACA is the jurisdictional turf war going on right now between Alexander and Hatch.

8 minutes ago, Kalbear said:

I might be on board with something like this from GHWB, but from this asshole who from day one used his platform as a way to spread truth and misinformation while attacking the press directly? Fuck that shit. 

Yeah I just think this attitude is taking a joke - a joke made at the expense of Spicer himself and the Trump administration - far too seriously.

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8 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

I'll agree with you, this doesn't undo or make up for the tangible harm that he and his ilk have already caused. But that's already done, and nothing can change ge it. Wouldn't you rather he do something to undermine the Trump administration by pointing out how it's absurd falsehoods, than continue propping it up?

Yes, I want him to publicly testify against the admin. Doing McCarthy's skit is not remotely in the same ballpark. 

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26 minutes ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

Yes, there's hyperbole involved in that statement. But the sheer amount of nuclear weapons, and their power (hydrogen bombs weren't even on the radar in the 1940es) that the US have in their stockpile would probably go beyond Hitler's wildest dreams. Also, the long-term effects of radiation were still unknown at the time.

Ok.   Don't want anybody to have that capacity, much less Hitler and Hitler wannabes.

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13 minutes ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

I'll agree with you, this doesn't undo or make up for the tangible harm that he and his ilk have already caused. But that's already done, and nothing can change ge it. Wouldn't you rather he do something to undermine the Trump administration by pointing out how it's absurd falsehoods, than continue propping it up?

To be clear, I'm not so much defending Spicer - as I implied, I'm on board protesting his Harvard fellowship or any academic appointment for that matter - but rather Colbert for having the "audacity" to allow Spicer "in on the joke."

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Just now, Zorral said:

Ok.   Don't want anybody to have that capacity, much less Hitler and Hitler wannabes.

There we definitely agree. It's scary to see those in anybody's hands. Much more so in the hands of unstable buffoons - and it looks liek we got two of that kind around right now. I guess we are living in interesting times right now.

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2 hours ago, Kalbear said:

Is DACA gone?

Is the EPA gutted?

Are local law enforcement issues being swept under the rug?

Are regulations for safety for floods being repealed?

Are regulations against campus rape being repealed?

Is the US doing pay-for-play with foreign nationals on a regular basis?

I get what you're saying, but so far that feuding has not stopped Trump from being as Trumpy as possible, and the resistance doesn't appear to be stopping either Trump or Republicans; what seems to be stopping them is their own damn selves. 

But those are all things the Executive Branch can do by itself. The working relationship between the WH and the Congress has been a joke, and it's in part because the party is super fractured. There are essentially three wings of the Republican Party now (mainstream "moderates", TEA Party folks and Trumpettes) and they haven't been able to work together.Trump has been President now for 8 months and he still hasn't signed any significant legislation. That shouldn't happen if you control both chambers and the WH. And let's not forget, before Trump won people were wondering if the Republican Party could survive because they were so deeply divided, and those fissures are still very real. Winning just smoothed them over for a little while, yet it could end up exacerbating them in the long run. 

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5 hours ago, Manhole Eunuchsbane said:

 I'm the harasser in this case? I posted up a simple summary of the "new" bill (which as near as I can tell is the same shit sandwich, only in a different wrapper) and Winterfox comes in and tries to somehow connect the dots between this issue and my general stance on non-violence. Not sure how that relates to healthcare. 

If I thought you were unequivocally in the wrong I'd have just told you to lay off rather than trying to appeal to your empathy. You aren't the one convinced you're months to years off secret police showing up to take you to a death camp, the emotional distress is just a little bit different and all I was asking was to keep that in mind. I should have known better.

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2 hours ago, aceluby said:

No, it wouldn't be equivalent.  

But yeah, let's just wait until Nazis have an army, take over some countries, and declare war before doing anything.  It's just a little genocide.

How likely is any of that though? Their support is still pretty small (though 9% is 9% too high) and I suspect they've already hit their ceiling. 

Also, I think a lot of people have been rather unfair to ME and how his position is being characterized. All he's saying is preemptive violence over free speech concerns is not the way to go. And I tend to agree.

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Terrifying. He doesn't want to know too much of the details about all the lives he's trying to destroy. He'd rather pass a bill and find out the effects later as gigantic amounts of Americans lose health insurance. All to avoid the horrors of a bipartisan healthcare bill.

Quote

“I just don’t care about the coverage numbers, because their methodology has proven to be wrong,” Cassidy said last week. “And ours, frankly, empirically, is correct.”


The CBO Won’t Score the Final Trumpcare Bill for Weeks

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2017/09/the-cbo-wont-score-the-final-trumpcare-bill-for-weeks.html

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1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

How likely is any of that though? Their support is still pretty small (though 9% is 9% too high) and I suspect they've already hit their ceiling. 

Also, I think a lot of people have been rather unfair to ME and how his position is being characterized. All he's saying is preemptive violence over free speech concerns is not the way to go. And I tend to agree.

no, that's not all he is saying. he has repeatedly equated antifa or anyone willing to use violence against the far right nationalists as 'just as bad as nazis' 

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5 hours ago, theguyfromtheVale said:

And since these voices need to be protected from violence, sometimes violence is necessary for that purpose. That said, I'd prefer as little violence as necessary. I just don't think nonviolence is always an option for people whose life, liberty, and happiness are threatened by the KKK or Neonazis, and I'm not going to lame them for taking the steps necessary.

There is a difference between violence as an immediate, protective reaction to a dangerous situation, and violence as a premeditated political strategy.

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