U.S. Politics: One Wave, Two Waves, Red Waves, Blue Waves

[nah]

Okay, just to continue from the last thread, no, @Zorral, I did not say you cannot compare Trump to Hitler, by all means, go ahead. But that doesn't mean I can't point out when I feel the comparison is inappropriate. I mean, you may notice I did compare him to Hitler in that same post. Or rather, I compared one of the nuts he inspired to a rube that was also used by the Nazis to destroy the Reichstag. But no, even while disgusting and evil, and tragic in ultimate consequence, encouraging the kind of terrorist attack that was carried out yesterday isn't the equivalent of wiping out two thirds of Europe's Jews.

[Zorral]

There are people on this forum who have essentially stated in the most garbled possible manner that leftist false flags of antisemitic terrorist, white supremacist language and actions have been planted among antisemitics to fool others into thinking that antisemitics are antisemitic.

How much more cray cray CRAY can you get?

But why in hell am I asking that question because every day shows these ilks more crazy than the day before.

For example the orange nazi is outraged that the hatred and crazy that he encourages in every possible way in order to keep himself front and center for the midterms (he admits this, btw, according to people who are around him) has out-media-centered him now.  IOW having done everything to get people to behave as he wants, they go off and do it, and then the media covers what they've done -- instead of him.

Tell me, just tell me that this isn't an absolutely insane way to run a country?  He's insane himself and is driving more and more people to act out their own insanity.

 

[Ice Queen]

It's been a pretty goddamned horrible day here in Pittsburgh and the right wing nutters can take their lunatic conspiracy theories and shove them. They're fucking insane and should be treated as such.

Bowers didn't think Trump is nationalistic enough and wasn't doing enough to kill more Jews. And then Trump goes to a rally where I have no doubt he'll fan the flames even more.

Enough. It has to stop. 

[DMC]

Tree of Life's rabbi posted this on their website in July:

Quote

Despite continuous calls for sensible gun control and mental health care, our elected leaders in Washington knew that it would fade away in time.  Unless there is a dramatic turnaround in the mid-term elections, I fear that that the status quo will remain unchanged, and school shootings will resume.  I shouldn’t have to include in my daily morning prayers that God should watch over my wife and daughter, both teachers, and keep them safe.  Where are our leaders?

I'm sure he'll be accused of being a crisis actor momentarily.

[Darth Richard II]

I normally don't buy into some of the more hyperbolic we're all fucked stuff here, but

 

We're fucked. Everyone get the fuck out,

[Zorral]

57 minutes ago, DMC said:

Tree of Life's rabbi posted this on their website in July:

I'm sure he'll be accused of being a crisis actor momentarily.

Right here a troll bot described the shooter as very likely a false flag planted by the lefties / Dems to make antisemitics look like antisemitics.  It's utterly insane.  They are all insane.

[Ice Queen]

50 minutes ago, DMC said:

Tree of Life's rabbi posted this on their website in July:

I'm sure he'll be accused of being a crisis actor momentarily.

He probably will be. This will be some kind of liberal conspiracy somehow. What sick people we have in this country.

The synagogue worked with DHS to identify weak spots in security and even changed the doors to make it easier to get out in case of a shooting. It didn't save them.

Four cops, two of them SWAT, were shot. So much for Trump's moronic statement. 

I heard Trump is coming to visit after his. rally  terrorist training camp...I hope Peduto tells him to go to hell.

I apologize if I sound angry. It's been a rotten day and I've had enough of the loony toons. 

[Ice Queen]

4 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Right here a troll bot described the shooter as very likely a false flag planted by the lefties / Dems to make antisemitics look like antisemitics.  It's utterly insane.  They are all insane.

He should say that to our faces. We've spent the day watching 11 people killed with six wounded and an entire community terrorized. Hundreds if not thousands turned out for a vigil earlier this evening.

I doubt he'd have the stones. He'll sit behind his keyboard like the coward he is.

[Darth Richard II]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Right here a troll bot described the shooter as very likely a false flag planted by the lefties / Dems to make antisemitics look like antisemitics.  It's utterly insane.  They are all insane.

Uh, where/when did that happen?

 

Edit: Yeah uh, you get he was being sarcastic right?

[felice]

5 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

But no, even while disgusting and evil, and tragic in ultimate consequence, encouraging the kind of terrorist attack that was carried out yesterday isn't the equivalent of wiping out two thirds of Europe's Jews.

Hitler didn't wipe out two thirds of Europe's Jews and other minorities in his first two years in power, either. The point of the comparison is concern about the direction the US is heading. We've already got children being kidnapped and stuck in camps, and attempted and actual murders of people targeted by Trump; I don't think extreme concern is unwarranted.

[Mudguard]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Right here a troll bot described the shooter as very likely a false flag planted by the lefties / Dems to make antisemitics look like antisemitics.  It's utterly insane.  They are all insane.

Are you referring to James Arryn's post on the last page of the previous thread?  He was being sarcastic, which should be clear if you are at all familiar with his post history.  There were several other posters making similar type posts in the previous thread as a way of mocking the ridiculousness of these false flag conspiracies.   

[James Arryn]

1 hour ago, Zorral said:

Right here a troll bot described the shooter as very likely a false flag planted by the lefties / Dems to make antisemitics look like antisemitics.  It's utterly insane.  They are all insane.

If you’re talking about my post, I was 100% satirizing prior Trump supporters arguments that mutual lack of evidence makes for mutual probability, and in the meanwhile no one should ever assume that looking, walking, quacking and snowflaking like a duck doesn’t make it a duck, because if might be a false fowl op.

Sorry if it freaked you out, I thought it was so obviously sarcastic I didn’t need to clarify, but I suppose that assumed you’d remember my usual tendencies, which is I guess a bit arrogant.

edit: mudguard, DR, Mormont, thanks for having my back guys (not sarcastic.) I guess it’s a pretty sad commentary on where we are that my post could have been actually considered serious, but I should have known better.

[Bonnot OG]

6 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

Okay, just to continue from the last thread, no, @Zorral, I did not say you cannot compare Trump to Hitler, by all means, go ahead. But that doesn't mean I can't point out when I feel the comparison is inappropriate. I mean, you may notice I did compare him to Hitler in that same post. Or rather, I compared one of the nuts he inspired to a rube that was also used by the Nazis to destroy the Reichstag. But no, even while disgusting and evil, and tragic in ultimate consequence, encouraging the kind of terrorist attack that was carried out yesterday isn't the equivalent of wiping out two thirds of Europe's Jews.

Jews who survived the holocaust and lived in Europe during Hitler's rise, as well as historians that study this, see similarities, and it's unnerving to them.

For an entire semister, when I was majoring in history,  I dove deep into the Spanish Civil War, WWII, and the rise of fascism. There are way too many similarities just to ignore it, nor is it innapropriate to say there are similarities. It is more inappropriate to ignore them.

 

[nah]

2 hours ago, felice said:

Hitler didn't wipe out two thirds of Europe's Jews and other minorities in his first two years in power, either. The point of the comparison is concern about the direction the US is heading. We've already got children being kidnapped and stuck in camps, and attempted and actual murders of people targeted by Trump; I don't think extreme concern is unwarranted.

I just think there are many more appropriate examples of banana republic dictators, strong-arm terrorist groups, and institutional crime families that make that same point, without drawing a false equivalency that plays into the neo nazi narrative about Hitler being swept up by his times.

[James Arryn]

I personally think Trump is much more of the Mussolini mold than Hitler’s. And most of the ways the current alt-right resemble the early Nazis also apply to the early fascists. 

[HoodedCrow]

The people that I know that are the most upset about Trump are Germans who have studied WW II very thoughtfully, confronting the questions of how it could happen with a lot of passion, and a few of The Greatest Gen.

I am also horrified and I read a lot of history. Part of me is amazed that anti semitism is a thing, or racism, or homophobia.  Incarceration by ethnicity is so shameful for that matter, or purging votes. Running a platform on things like that is tried and true, I suppose.

 

[Toth]

8 hours ago, Let's Get Kraken said:

I just think there are many more appropriate examples of banana republic dictators, strong-arm terrorist groups, and institutional crime families that make that same point, without drawing a false equivalency that plays into the neo nazi narrative about Hitler being swept up by his times.

Just how exactly is "Hitler being swept up by his times" a neo-nazi narrative? Sorry for my confusion here, but as someone who studied the time extensively as part of his job, I always take it for granted that there are a lot of factors that enabled the nazis in taking over the government and do as they did. I'm talking about the widespread anger about the treaty of Versailles, the economic after-effects of the great recession, the general distrust in democracy, fearmongering against the left, lack of compromise between centrists and leftists, constant politically motivated violence including assassinations, streetfighting and intimidation tactics at the polls etc. etc. All those things that made people vote for a fascist strongman or not vote at all.

Admittedly, I'm also in the "Trump is too stupid to be Hitler" group, but he DOES love to portray himself as a fascist strongman and surrounds himself with people who clearly have nazi sympathies. Case in point, Bannon with his Breitbart always struck myself as dumber, washed-out and petty version of Goebbels, while Stephen Miller's cartoonishly evil kid concentration camps make him look like a Himmler wannabe. So there are some more direct comparisons possible, even though I say the thing that is the most horrifying is the political atmosphere in the US. Because what enabled a moronic narcissist and compulsive lyer clearly could have enabled somebody far worse. The sympathies for the same rhetoric are clearly there. And given the Republican dismantling of democracy and the forcing into line of all branches of government should make you worry about how well the path will be paved for someone who is far, far worse. As long as Trump's MAGA cult will not be dissolved, things will get worse and worse!

Admittedly, your very own comparison with the Reichstagsbrand is something I had to frown on. Thing is, what exactly happened there is not totally clear, but it either boils down to a Nazi false-flag attack to justify the purging of communists and social democrats to get rid of their competition in the upcoming election or a convenient act of vandalism of a lone communist that was used for the same end. With the first one being more likely (especially given how the Nazis loved to play elaborate acts to portray themselves as victims - after all, they even pretended that Poland shot first) and the US right-wingers constantly droning about the MAGA-bomber being a false-flag of the left... aren't you confusing the sides here? I think since this was a riled up right-wing nutjob attempting political assassinations, we can 'just' put that as a major example of political violence brought upon the US by the rhetoric of Fox News, Trump, Breitbart and the likes. And political assassinations such as these were par of course in Weimar's turbulent last years as well...

[Zorral]

12 hours ago, James Arryn said:

If you’re talking about my post, I was 100% satirizing prior Trump supporters arguments that mutual lack of evidence makes for mutual probability, and in the meanwhile no one should ever assume that looking, walking, quacking and snowflaking like a duck doesn’t make it a duck, because if might be a false fowl op.

Sorry if it freaked you out, I thought it was so obviously sarcastic I didn’t need to clarify, but I suppose that assumed you’d remember my usual tendencies, which is I guess a bit arrogant.

edit: mudguard, DR, Mormont, thanks for having my back guys (not sarcastic.) I guess it’s a pretty sad commentary on where we are that my post could have been actually considered serious, but I should have known better.

I'm so sorry.  I didn't get that it was sarcasm.  I didn't catch signals for that.

Maybe my nerves are too raw?

Immediately upon the news breaking of both the bomber and the shooter I have seen this stuff everywhere, not intended in the least as sarcasm.  These people posting, twitting, etc. this stuff really believe their own insanity.

[Martell Spy]

NRCC Defends Anti-Soros Ads Day After Mass Shooting at Pittsburgh Synagogue

https://www.thedailybeast.com/nrcc-defends-anti-soros-ads-day-after-mass-shooting-at-pittsburgh-synagogue?ref=home

Quote

Rep. Steve Stivers (R-OH), the chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee, defended on Sunday the GOP campaign arms ads targeting billionaire George Soros, who is Jewish, in light of the mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh. “Our independent expenditure arm is independent. But that ad is factual. And it also has nothing to do with calling for violence. That ad is a factual ad,” Stivers said on NBC’s Meet the Press, responding to a television advertisement paid by the NRCC that targets a Democratic candidate in Minnesota by tying him to Soros and Wall Street bankers.

 

[Martell Spy]

A Humira Prescription Costs $38,000 A Year Because Our Patent System Is Being Abused

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/opinion-humira-costs-patents_us_5bd0c893e4b0a8f17ef3961f

Quote

 

It’s a deliberate strategy designed to prolong the company’s monopoly, and AbbVie isn’t alone in using it. In a separate report released by I-MAK in August, we found there are an average of 125 patent applications filed and 71 patents granted for each of the 12 highest-grossing drugs in America. In many cases, these “add-on” patents were for minor or obvious modifications — a different dosage form, for example — that don’t meet the standard for breakthrough invention that the patent system was designed to reward. Still, they have often succeeded in prolonging exclusivity well beyond the 20 years of protection intended under U.S. law. For example, the U.S. patent on Humira expired in 2016, but add-on patents and reported settlements made with generic suppliers will keep generic alternatives out of reach of patients until at least 2023.

For Lee in Kentucky, the high cost of Humira in the U.S. means her psoriasis hasn’t been treated in nearly a year. When the sores get really bad, she puts ice packs on her body, sits at her desk and fights back tears.