U.S. Politics: And a Happy "Shithole" Year

[Jace, Extat]

5 minutes ago, dmc515 said:

I'm of the hope if we stop feeding them, they'll go away.

Yeah, I really laid off posting in here out of a desire to do as you say but others keep insisting. With the emergence of the female of their twisted union I felt the question simply needed to be asked.

[LongRider]

23 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

We need to address this, as it appears they've multiplied. Although I have wondered if the one with the stupid name is just an alt of the one with the idiotic name.

Oh noes!  That means the plural of sea lions is sock puppets!  We're doomed I tells ya, doomed.   

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, Nasty LongRider said:

  Trump doesn't give a shit about governing, he's being governed by the smarmy GOP because they have figured out that what Trump wants is money, fame and approval.  So they pat him on his big stupid head saying 'good boy', 'you such a genius' and 'he said whaa?  No he ditnt!'   sickening.

Yup. It became quite clear before Trump got elected he never had much of a policy agenda of his own, in my opinion, and that he would largely rely on the GOP policy making establishment, while being a twittering racist and ignorant buffoon.

[LongRider]

17 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

No, no, Graham is just mistaken, the prez said shithouse, not shithole.

Makes all the difference in the world!

 

he's said the shit house
he's mighty whitie, letting it all hang out
he's in the shit house
the man brain's fracked and that's a fact
he ain't holding nuthin' back!

 

ow, he said the shit house
not put together, we all knows
this is how his lyin' goes

 

he said the shit house
it full to brim with more like him
he can't lose with those lies he choose
ow, they got his back the deck is stacked
he ain't holding nuthin' back!

[GAROVORKIN]

20 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

Yup. It became quite clear before Trump got elected he never had much of a policy agenda of his own, in my opinion, and that he would largely rely on the GOP policy making establishment, while being a twittering racist and ignorant buffoon.

There is one thing to keep in mind about Donald Trump, he is not a politician. His  prior profession was  the rough and tumble and rude world  of business . Different world different rules and different behavior .    A  politician good , bad and indifferent  keeps his dirty  laundry and true face  behind  a mask of Mask  of plastic  civility which  in theory  is designed to keep the voters  and the press at bay .  Having this mask  doesn't mean the professional  politician is any any better then Trump. It just makes  them look better .

[Jace, Extat]

2 minutes ago, GAROVORKIN said:

There is one thing to keep in mind about Donald Trump, he is not a politician. His  prior profession was  the rough and tumble and rude world  of business . Different world different rules and different behavior .    A  politician good , bad and indifferent  keeps his dirty  laundry and true face  behind  a mask of Mask  of plastic  civility which  keep the vote and the press at bay .  Having this mask  doesn't mean the professional  politician is any any better then Trump. It just makes  them look better .

I'm gonna try. Really try one time.

CNN just went to a commercial. If you can get to that channel before their next segment I'd like to speak to you afterwards.

 

eta: After the segment, of course. That's the whole point. Just in case it sounded like I was demanding you tune in to CNN as the precondition.

[GAROVORKIN]

3 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

I'm gonna try. Really try one time.

CNN just went to a commercial. If you can get to that channel before their next segment I'd like to speak to you afterwards.

 

eta: After the segment, of course. That's the whole point. Just in case it sounded like I was demanding you tune in to CNN as the precondition.

No thanks Ill stick with news print.  .

[DMC]

38 minutes ago, Pony Queen Jace said:

Yeah, I really laid off posting in here out of a desire to do as you say but others keep insisting. With the emergence of the female of their twisted union I felt the question simply needed to be asked.

Well, let me just say I hope you stick around!

[OldGimletEye]

23 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

There is one thing to keep in mind about Donald Trump, he is not a politician. His  prior profession was  the rough and tumble and rude world  of business . Different world different rules and different behavior .    A  politician good , bad and indifferent  keeps his dirty  laundry and true face  behind  a mask of Mask  of plastic  civility which  in theory  is designed to keep the voters  and the press at bay .  Having this mask  doesn't mean the professional  politician is any any better then Trump. It just makes  them look better .

Except Trump relied heavily on his alleged “business experience” to make the case he should be president.

And the “business man” as president is some kind of crap that Republicans keep falling for over, and over, and over again. And on economic matters I’ve repeatedly pointed out that businessman often aren’t that good and say or do dumb shit.

And if he is just a business guy, that is no excuse to be so ignorant of policy matters. In fact his whole shtick was he’d be better than your usual politician because of his so called “business experience”. Because of his business experience he was going to drain the swamp. Remember?

And the fact is that he wasn’t that good of business man. He basically was a guy that sat on his ass and collected licensing fees while people used his name to hawk bad Vodka, steaks or whatever. And according to one of his accountants, it wasn’t Trump that asked penetrating questions about taxes and his business but actually it was Ivana Trump.

[DMC]

41 minutes ago, Nasty LongRider said:

So they pat him on his big stupid head saying 'good boy', 'you such a genius' and 'he said whaa?  No he ditnt!'   sickening.

He's a stable genius.  And the least racist person ever.  Because, because!

32 minutes ago, OldGimletEye said:

It became quite clear before Trump got elected he never had much of a policy agenda of his own, in my opinion, and that he would largely rely on the GOP policy making establishment, while being a twittering racist and ignorant buffoon.

Yeah, this was very predictable.  Now?  His legislative agenda is done until the midterms.  And if the GOP loses a chamber, it's done for good.  Expect MCs to start abandoning him wholesale if his approvals revert back to the mid 30s.

[Jace, Extat]

1 minute ago, GAROVORKIN said:

No thanks Ill stick with news print.  .

Because I recognize the moment, I'll try anyway.

CNN is right now interviewing a woman who's husband (age 40) was deported today because he's one year too old to qualify as a dreamer. He was brought to this country at 10 years old. He has two children with his wife, all three of whom were born in this country. He has no criminal record and reportedly pays his taxes.

And CNN reporters saw this man, who has never been accused of knowingly committing a crime, holding his family in the airport as they sobbed. You can look up the video, I'm sure. Dozens of people stopped their hectic Airport activities to watch a man ripped from his home. From his family. And sent to a country he hasn't seen in 30 years.

If you can read that, or even better look at it, and not know that something is seriously wrong with the way parts of this country want to handle immigration then it means you're ugly. Not outside, not where everyone can see. But on the inside. In the place where it matters, you have less than the rest of us.

I'm not telling you that to be offensive or to hurt you, in fact please understand that I mean it. I truly mean it. If you can hear a story like that while defending the actions of people who are ok with this treatment of human beings and not feel an urge to help. To really help. Not obfuscate or play games. IF you feel like that, then please see somebody. You can get better, I am a very strong advocate of therapy. That doesn't mean you're sick, or that you have a mental disability. But therapy is an exercise in looking inward, and I urge you to do so.

I mean it, I can't stress that enough. If there's something that is making you feel this way, it can be fixed. I promise, all you have to do want to get better.

[Dr. Pepper]

9 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

I drove from one of the healthiest counties in the country to the least-healthy, both in the same state. Here’s what I learned about work, well-being, and happiness.

https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2015/01/life-in-the-sickest-town-in-america/384718/

This was an engrossing read.  There's a lot in here that makes me so incredulous that people would want the heyday of coal to return.  It's backbreaking, soul crushing work, the sort of industry that ends lives early.  Why the fuck would anyone want that?  I suppose the article somewhat answers it by saying that it's better than surviving on disability.  Maybe?  I don't know.

 

[OldGimletEye]

On 1/15/2018 at 10:01 PM, Dr. Pepper said:

This was an engrossing read.  There's a lot in here that makes me so incredulous that people would want the heyday of coal to return.  It's backbreaking, soul crushing work, the sort of industry that ends lives early.  Why the fuck would anyone want that?  I suppose the article somewhat answers it by saying that it's better than surviving on disability.  Maybe?  I don't know.

I think life down there has always been hard and poverty common, ever since the first mostly Scots Irish or Scots moved there, not trusting the elites on the coast or the lowlands. And over several centuries, certain kinds of expectations form, like say having a coal mining job is the best you can do.

One might ask, why don't the people just move. And many did or have. My own family is from down there, arriving before the Revolutionary War, until my grand father decided he wanted no part of coal mining, like many others. But, often, there was a bit of cultural alienation, as many hillbillys were seen as ignorant, backward, and stupid. Where I was raised at, their is a special name for it. We're called "briars".

Here is a definition of a "briar":

https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Briar

Quote

A Briar is a reference used in southwest Ohio and southeast Indiana to refer to a white person of Kentucky (usually Eastern Kentucky)and sometimes even East Tennessee, Virginia or West Virginia heritage. The term has a certain amount of irony because much of the areas where the term is used are chock-full of Briars. It's the N-word of white folks in parts of the Upper South. If you are a Briar, you may call another Briar a Briar, but if you are not a Briar and call another a Briar, them are fighin' words! "Briar" is especially well known in Dayton Ohio.
Darryll is a real Briar. He lives in Drexel and his ex-wives live in Riverside and Northridge. He has an old El Camino up on blocks outside his house and an ancient upholstered sofa on his front porch. He has three dogs and a chain-link fence around the perimeter of his property and they bark on a regular basis. He has a long extension cord on a portable TV so he can sit on the porch, drink Milwaukee's Best and watch NASCAR. His Momma Darlene lives in East Dayton with her third husband, Larry. Darryll, who is on disability from GM, is living with Kathy Lou, who is divorced from Harold. His ex-wives are Glenda and Brenda. They are twins and Kathy Lou is their cousin. Larry is related to Darryll on Darryll's daddy's side.

Now back in the day, shortly after World War 2, there was quite a bit of discrimination against briars. It isn't so bad now, as there was lots of us briars where I grew up, to the point we even joke about being briars. But, I think for many of those people in Appalachia there is a bit of cultural anxiety of moving to other places.

Being a briar myself it's upsetting to see so many people from Appalachia become Trump supporters. Neither Trump and nor the country club Republican Party crowd gives a flyin' fuck about any of those people. Never will, never have.

And they are certainly feeding them a bunch of bullshit about coal jobs, which are going to get smaller and smaller, and no amount of reversing EPA regulations is going to stop that. Of course, and I hate to say it, but it's true, that racism and cultural grievance plays a big part. And it just goes to show that those sort of things are deadly for many people down there and in other places where they might live.

I just hope one day, they wake up and realize they've been had.

[Week]

4 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

Given how much money has been sent to places in need. Why does poverty persist  in this world ?   

 

3 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

So basically the people running these governments steal the money meant to help its citizens. They spread it around to their cronies or put it on offshore accounts. Or the put it into boondoggle projects that benefit no one but a few on top . Would it be accurate ?

 

 

2 hours ago, GAROVORKIN said:

Jean Claude Duvalier of Haiti stole about 300 million and President Mobutu of Zaire took even more more then that. And there is  Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe  whose polices , corruption and cronyism   wrecked that country economically and politically. 

This line of inane faux-discourse is as ignorant as it is fucking vulgar.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/posteverything/wp/2018/01/12/this-is-how-ignorant-you-have-to-be-to-call-haiti-a-shithole/?

[Fragile Bird]

Canadian PM Trudeau draws the wrath of the US right. Organizations will not be able to apply for summer job grants unless they agree to sign a form attesting that neither their core mission nor the job being funded opposes human rights, which in Canada includes reproductive rights like abortion.

Evangelical summer camps are upset that they won't be able to hire camp counsellors and teach the kids women don't have the right to choose. They are free to continue teaching that, they just won't qualify for summer job grants.

http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2018/01/15/trudeau-draws-wrath-of-u-s-right-wing-with-latest-abortion-comments_a_23334066/?ncid=fcbklnkcahpmg00000001

[lokisnow]

2 hours ago, Dr. Pepper said:

This was an engrossing read.  There's a lot in here that makes me so incredulous that people would want the heyday of coal to return.  It's backbreaking, soul crushing work, the sort of industry that ends lives early.  Why the fuck would anyone want that?  I suppose the article somewhat answers it by saying that it's better than surviving on disability.  Maybe?  I don't know.

 

Have you ever seen the most-liberal and most pro-labor film to ever win best picture, “how green was my Valley”?

the film itself is a complex view of the rapid modernization of the world as distilled through one family of coal miners experiencing the travails of the industrial revolution, through tragedy and triumphs, it touches on the support (and hypocrisies of) family, community, church, class structures, education, sacrifice and the perpetual machinery of poverty and identity. It’s an incisive broad spectrum film that captures a sweep of experiences from the entire family. Ultimately, people stay because who and what they know is who and what they want to be, and they will keep choosing the coal mine until they are forced to no longer have any choice. Ultimately it’s about how community and family shape identity and how shattering it is when those are ripped from you. And in spite of this text I wrote, it’s a warm film infused with vibrancy and life.

 

[DMC]

42 minutes ago, Fragile Bird said:

Canadian PM Trudeau draws the wrath of the US right. Organizations will not be able to apply for summer job grants unless they agree to sign a form attesting that neither their core mission nor the job being funded opposes human rights, which in Canada includes reproductive rights like abortion.

Evangelical summer camps are upset that they won't be able to hire camp counsellors and teach the kids women don't have the right to choose. They are free to continue teaching that, they just won't qualify for summer job grants.

Got no problem with this, but Trudeau's comments on Castro aren't going away.  They were ill advised, amateurish, and something no relevant party in this hemisphere will forget anytime soon.

[GAROVORKIN]

Midterms are coming in a few months.  That should be interesting.

[GAROVORKIN]

6 hours ago, dmc515 said:

Got no problem with this, but Trudeau's comments on Castro aren't going away.  They were ill advised, amateurish, and something no relevant party in this hemisphere will forget anytime soon.

The people in Cuba got free healthcare and Education but at the cost of political rights and freedom .  How is it that Trudeau overlooks  the other not so pleasant realities of the Castro regime? 

[OldGimletEye]

Yea. We got us a brand new conservative conspiracy theory.

http://www.motherjones.com/kevin-drum/2018/01/heres-the-latest-stupid-conservative-conspiracy-theory/

Quote

It’s hard keeping up with conservative conspiracy theories. Did you know that for the past week the usual suspects (Hannity, Drudge, etc.) have been circulating the bombshell news that we now have PROOF the FBI was conspiring against Donald Trump during last year’s campaign? Naturally this involves Peter Strzok and Lisa Page, the two FBI agents who were conducting an affair and have had their entire text message history laid bare to the world. And just as naturally, congressional Republicans are investigating it.