U.S. Politics: Covfefe Boys

[maarsen]

3 hours ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

I consume a lot of news, probably too much, and no not just from liberal sources, and this was a total non-story compared to the Manafort trial and Cohen’s impending plea bargain, as well as several other things. It was barely covered, didn’t show up in any major papers as far as I can tell nor much in the local coverage and I live in the Midwest. There are tons of missing persons stories and they don’t get any coverage really. This one only popped yesterday because the alleged murderer is an undocumented Latino. If he had just been some white American, no one outside of her social circle would have cared. And it’s only getting disproportionate coverage now because the right needs to throw up a news story to distract Trump supporters from the fact that it’s looking more and more like he’s the most corrupt politician in modern memory, and this one works perfectly because anti-immigration sentiments and racial resentment are two of the most common attributes of Trump supporters.

Here in Canada we are having  an inquiry into up to 4000 murdered and missing indigenous women. Given the population differential, I imagine the US has similar numbers in regards to their population. Since the 60s, the plight of these women was ignored, by the media and the government. The new Liberal government started the inquiry. If 40, 000 cute white women disappeared or were murdered in the last few decades in the US I am sure there would be hell to pay. So far I see no media  coverage of the number of missing and murdered indigenous women, or even of women of colour.

Complaining about one case is more than disingenuous. 

[Darth Richard II]

Yeah I lost track of what is actually going on and who is yelling at who over what, but that Tibbets case has been a pretty big news story in non political news areas since she went missing. (and of course NOW it's political, but I digress). If you were unaware of that case til recently I dunno what news feeds/sites you go to but I'd kind of like to know cause it was one of those damn oh no white girl missing stories that kept popping up everywhere.

[Bonnot OG]

14 minutes ago, James Arryn said:

Sure they make shit up. Let them, and then challenge them with facts. Responding in kind just gives them something real to punch back at. Look at the discussion here...pages of silence and the occasional ideological assertion because there’s not much they can really say to defend Trump here. Then you get a bit loose with your assertions and now for several pages they’ve got something to talk about. 

Look, it’s a basic rule of combat: when your enemy is screwing up, don’t interrupt them. 

As for my naivety, I wonder what you mean. If you think I’m saying that everyone will admit that any large enough group of people will contain some criminals, I’d say it depends on the context. Specifically will the bigots trying to ride this current event for all they can get, of course not. But my point is that that’s still the truth.

That’s what you should fight with. If it becomes actually substantiated that the government lied, by all means go there. But otherwise you just gave them another focal point for their sense of grievance, and on behalf of the side of the argument we share, I’m saying that just muddies the waters and makes false equivalences easier for them.

They don't care about facts. Challenging them with facts does nothing. They cry fake news and say it's made up etc.

Nah, when I said you're naive I was saying it in response to this "I think the point is more that any large group of people is going to contain some who do terrible things. I sincerely doubt anyone actually believes otherwise."   Some people do not believe that and believe that some demographics are just inherently violent with only a few good ones laced in there. 

[Bonnot OG]

I see Doug Jones is a spineless useless pile of shit. With friends like that, who needs an enemy like Roy Moore?

[James Arryn]

4 minutes ago, Bonnot OG said:

They don't care about facts. Challenging them with facts does nothing. They cry fake news and say it's made up etc.

Nah, when I said you're naive I was saying it in response to this "I think the point is more that any large group of people is going to contain some who do terrible things. I sincerely doubt anyone actually believes otherwise."   Some people do not believe that and believe that some demographics are just inherently violent with only a few good ones laced in there. 

No, you are misunderstanding my point, and inverting it. My point is not that everyone believes most people are good, but rather that everyone knows that no group is entirely good. Even racist KKK types will admit that in a basket full of Aryans, you’ll still get some bad apples. 

As for the ‘facts’, I’m losing interest in this, but I’ll just put it this way: as someone who despises Trump as much as you do, the kind of thing you did here makes it just that little bit harder to keep on point. Not sure if you’ve noticed, but Trump and his supporters love detours. Yes, I get the irony. 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

21 minutes ago, maarsen said:

Here in Canada we are having  an inquiry into up to 4000 murdered and missing indigenous women. Given the population differential, I imagine the US has similar numbers in regards to their population. Since the 60s, the plight of these women was ignored, by the media and the government. The new Liberal government started the inquiry. If 40, 000 cute white women disappeared or were murdered in the last few decades in the US I am sure there would be hell to pay. So far I see no media  coverage of the number of missing and murdered indigenous women, or even of women of colour.

Complaining about one case is more than disingenuous. 

I just did a quick Google search and the numbers are all over the place. The low end estimate seems to be somewhere between 60k-90k, and the high end is over half a million people. The couple places that had demographic breakdowns showed that minorities represent a disproportional amount of the unsolved cases. The numbers are surprising, but the racial disparity is not. 

[Bonnot OG]

Yup. Chris Watts killed his wife and his two kids yet none of the same sort of political outcry for the victims or to stop white men from murdering people. That's because it doesn't fit the racist agenda of keeping the country mostly white.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

2 hours ago, Mexal said:

If you consider abortion baby murder then you will never vote democrat so just enjoy your narcissistic, kleptocratic, wanna be authoritarian with a 1920s economic policy and a laundry list of criminals around him because it's absolutely clear that you believe that woman's lack of rights to do what they will with their own body far outweighs the current actions and scandals of our President and that's just plain fucked up.

The thing I can never get past with the crowd that is fervently anti-choice is do they understand two things, (i) abortions will always exist and (ii) that their policy preferences will lead to a spike in unwanted pregnancies, especially among younger people? Furthermore, do they understand how much damage they do to women, particularly young women, and the poor? Their policies, at the end of the day, will produce extremely cruel results all to, as you said, deny women autonomy over their own bodies. 

[Bonnot OG]

An AP news room just got a death threat.

[Martell Spy]

10 minutes ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

The thing I can never get past with the crowd that is fervently anti-choice is do they understand two things, (i) abortions will always exist and (ii) that their policy preferences will lead to a spike in unwanted pregnancies, especially among younger people? Furthermore, do they understand how much damage they do to women, particularly young women, and the poor? Their policies, at the end of the day, will produce extremely cruel results all to, as you said, deny women autonomy over their own bodies. 

I would say they understand and that is a bonus to them. Just as they are strangely excited at sick people losing access to healthcare. It is hard to demonize actual demons.

[Martell Spy]

Family of Mollie Tibbetts Condemns Racist Fear-Mongering About Her Alleged Killer

https://www.thecut.com/2018/08/mollie-tibbettss-family-condemns-racist-fear-mongering-against-alleged-killer.html

Quote

 

But some of Tibbetts’s family members have already come forward to decry the xenophobia. According to local Iowa station KWWL, aunt Billie Jo Calderwood posted the following public statement to her Facebook:

Please remember, Evil comes in EVERY color. Our family has been blessed to be surrounded by love, friendship and support throughout this entire ordeal by friends from all different nations and races. From the bottom of our hearts, thank you.

She also shared the following post from a woman named Kasie Schultz Taylor:

What happened to Mollie was an awful, heinous act. But please do not compound the atrocity of what happened to her by adding racism and hate to the equation. Everyone joined together supporting her family, providing food & drink to search parties & agents, hung posters, searched fields, worked TOGETHER to make #FindMollieTibbetts #findingmollietibbetts #bringmolliehome go viral! Her story was shared around the world! Do not turn #molliesmovement into something ugly. Anyone that knew Mollie knows she wouldn’t want that. Respect each other, support each other but most importantly BE KIND!

 

 

[Martell Spy]

DNC Reports Cyberattack on Its Voter Database to FBI

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/dnc-reports-cyberattack-on-its-voter-database-to-fbi.html

Quote

 

The Democratic National Committee just came down with a bad case of déjà vu on Tuesday, when unknown hackers tried — and, apparently, failed — to gain access to the DNC’s voter database, CNN reports.

Early Tuesday morning, a cloud computing provider and security research firm notified the DNC that someone had created a fake log-in page for Votebuilder, which hosts the party’s voter information. The ostensible gambit was to trick Democratic officials into entering their log-ins and passwords, and then use said log-in information to access the party’s proprietary data. The attack appeared to be sophisticated, as the fraudulent log-in page was nearly indistinguishable from the actual one.

 

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

1 hour ago, Darth Richard II said:

Yeah I lost track of what is actually going on and who is yelling at who over what, but that Tibbets case has been a pretty big news story in non political news areas since she went missing. (and of course NOW it's political, but I digress). If you were unaware of that case til recently I dunno what news feeds/sites you go to but I'd kind of like to know cause it was one of those damn oh no white girl missing stories that kept popping up everywhere.

Count me as the one that said it wasn't a major national story. I read several online newspapers every day/week, and while they largely deal with national coverage (NYT, WaPo,WSJ and The Guardian), I do also read our local paper which is nationally recognized (Star Trib). I don't recall ever seeing a story about her there. The only time I can recall hearing about her was on the B or C block of the local evening news, and you hear about stories like that all the time. 

47 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

I would say they understand and that is a bonus to them. Just as they are strangely excited at sick people losing access to healthcare. It is hard to demonize actual demons.

Some do, some don't, and the ones that do really need to do some serious soul searching. That said, I do encounter a lot of conservatives who don't put two and two together and realize that abstinence only sex ed and reducing the availability of birth control will lead to an increase in abortions.

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

34 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

DNC Reports Cyberattack on Its Voter Database to FBI

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2018/08/dnc-reports-cyberattack-on-its-voter-database-to-fbi.html

 

We shouldn't have mocked Family Guy over the grave importance of Cloud Insurance.

[Martell Spy]

Why is Chief Justice Roberts acting like a racist?

Quote

If Section 5 were still in force, county officials could not attempt to sneak these plans through with a handful of notices and public meetings. They would have had to justify to the Department of Justice or a federal court that the poll closures would not negatively affect black citizens’ right to vote. 

The South Will Disenfranchise Again
Five years later, the consequences of the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act are painfully clear.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/randolph-county-georgia-2018-election-how-the-supreme-courts-gutting-of-the-voting-rights-act-allows-states-to-disenfranchise-black-voters.html

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

3 minutes ago, Martell Spy said:

Why is Chief Justice Roberts acting like a racist?

The South Will Disenfranchise Again
Five years later, the consequences of the Supreme Court’s gutting of the Voting Rights Act are painfully clear.

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/08/randolph-county-georgia-2018-election-how-the-supreme-courts-gutting-of-the-voting-rights-act-allows-states-to-disenfranchise-black-voters.html

Nuh, uh. Dinesh D'Sousa says it's the Democrats who are the racists. Mm hm.

[Deadlines? What Deadlines?]

This is from his rally in Charleston last night. 

WHAT THE FUCK IS HE TALKING ABOUT?!?

Gotta run.  I have a chicken gestating in the oven.

[HoodedCrow]

No they are using a white womans murder to distract from 

Trumps high crimes and misdemeanors. May they rot.

[Darth Richard II]

1 hour ago, SpaceForce Tywin et al. said:

Count me as the one that said it wasn't a major national story. I read several online newspapers every day/week, and while they largely deal with national coverage (NYT, WaPo,WSJ and The Guardian), I do also read our local paper which is nationally recognized (Star Trib). I don't recall ever seeing a story about her there. The only time I can recall hearing about her was on the B or C block of the local evening news, and you hear about stories like that all the time. 

Some do, some don't, and the ones that do really need to do some serious soul searching. That said, I do encounter a lot of conservatives who don't put two and two together and realize that abstinence only sex ed and reducing the availability of birth control will lead to an increase in abortions.

Honestly not sure how you managed to read those sites and not see the Tibbets story.

[Rippounet]

It's really not surprising the Mollie Tibbetts is getting so much attention.

Breitbart has been publishing this kind of story every few months at least.

Here's a few:

Quote

 

"9 facts about illegal alien crime the media covers up" in July 2015...
https://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2015/07/10/rape-deniers-9-facts-about-illegal-alien-crime-the-media-covers-up/

Remembering Grant Ronnebeck, victim of illegal alien crime in June 2016...
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/06/10/remembering-grant-ronnebeck-a-victim-of-a-mexican-cartel-and-illegal-alien-crime/

(Two) Illegal aliens arrested for murder in March 2017
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/03/24/illegal-aliens-deported-arrested-murder/

Illegal alien wanted for murder in July 2017...
https://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/07/19/illegal-alien-wanted-murder-guatemala-arrested/

2000+ DACA récipients criminal in September 2017...
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2017/09/05/2139-daca-recipients-convicted-or-accused-of-crimes-against-americans/

MS-13 gang members wanted for murder in October 2017...
https://www.breitbart.com/texas/2017/10/12/five-illegal-alien-ms-13-members-charged-maryland-womans-murder/

Murder of an Arizona girl by an "illegal alien" in March 2018...
https://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/03/22/illegal-alien-arrested-in-connection-with-murder-of-arizona-teenage-girl/

 

The despicable campaign has been going on for a while now. Mollie Tibbetts is the ideal victim, and the fact that her case had already received a measure of media attention before it was known to be a murder by an undocumented immigrant makes it ideal for electoral purposes. I've counted more than two dozen articles about her on Breitbart in the last few days.

Of course, it will not come as a surprise that the crime rate for undocumented immigrants seems to actually be lower than that of American citizens. There is little specific data and few studies on the issue, but it makes sense that these are people who will mostly want to keep out of trouble. The right-wing media however, will use the most horrific cases available to give its public the impression that the US is under constant attack.