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US Politics: It’s Not A Crime If Your Feelings Got Hurt


Mr. Chatywin et al.

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The New York Times apparently decided that there is at least one issue on which it agrees with the most extreme of the far right, but eventually had to apologize due to the backlash:

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After a barrage of criticism, the New York Times said Sunday it was deeply sorry about publishing an anti-Semitic cartoon depicting Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as a dog on a leash held by a blind President Donald Trump.

It is promising "significant changes" in its decision making process in the wake of the embarrassment.

The cartoon appeared in the opinion section of the international print edition of the paper next to a column by Thomas Friedman about immigration.

The Times apology came Sunday afternoon after it issued an earlier statement saying it was wrong to run a cartoon that contained "anti-Semitic tropes." But that statement did not contain any apology.

The new statement said: "We are deeply sorry for the publication of an anti-Semitic political cartoon last Thursday in the print edition of The New York Times that circulates outside of the United States, and we are committed to making sure nothing like this happens again."

The cartoon is an interesting example of political propaganda last popular in parts of Europe circa the late 1930s. It combines three distinct antisemitic tropes: the Jew is portrayed as a dog, the Jew is leading a politician opposed by the cartoonist and the politician himself is accused of being Jewish (note that Trump is wearing a yarmulke).

I didn't think I'd see such a thing in contemporary mainstream media -- or at least not for another decade or two. The amount of time it took them to apologize is also pretty surprising: the cartoon was first published last Thursday.

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14 hours ago, Triskele said:

 

Sort of on topic I found this post very interesting in terms of looking at 2016 and whether the wrong lessons are being learned.  

 

https://washingtonmonthly.com/2019/04/27/are-democrats-over-learning-the-lessons-of-2016/

 

I have no doubt that it is possible to be "learning the wrong lessons" by focusing on just one or two aspects of the 2016 election, which was so close that any one of 20 factors being different could plausibly have resulted in a different outcome.

But this article seems to think the primary "wrong lesson" is that the Democrats are "overestimating" Trump. If that's a "wrong lesson", it seems like the least damaging one to have "learned."  I surely would rather have the Democrats overestimating Trump than underestimating him.

Plus a good part of his "overestimation" argument seems to rest on the one Reuters poll that showed a big drop in Trump's approval recently. The 538 aggregate this morning has barely budged and Trump's approval is still a good bit above what it was at the start of February. It seems to me that a whole lot of people who make their living writing pieces like the above are swayed way too much by the latest single poll. 

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2 hours ago, Triskele said:

A fascinating piece here on Dems in big business and big tech being afraid enough of Warren / Bernie to debate supporting Trump.  

At the end of the day money often trumps everything else, regardless of ideology. It other news, water is wet, now to Chet to recap the sport ball game from last night.

 

In other ACTUAL news, I now know what knob touching is. Here’s a recap of the time Moby rubbed his penis on Donald Trump’s suit jacked.

 

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9 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

At the end of the day money often trumps everything else, regardless of ideology. It other news, water is wet, now to Chet to recap the sport ball game from last night.

 

I strongly disagree with this. If it were true all the poor whites would be voting for the democrats instead of voting to lower billionaire taxes. Ideology and self interest have a weird relationship it's not an either or thing.

 

Also Mayor Pete might not be as far left on policy as Bernie or Warren but painting him as a neoliberal white supremacist is just nuts. He's to the left of Obama was Obama a neoliberal shill? Also there is more to a candidate then a few litmus test. Mayor Pete is the most radical candidate I've seen when it comes to the US government structure. He's proposed abolishing the electoral college, increasing the supreme court to fifteen justices, and adding new states such as Puerto Rico and DC, I haven't seen him asked about the filibuster yet but those are some pretty radical changes to our government. 

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8 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

The Boeing CEO had a press conference this morning and suggested the Ethiopian crash was caused by pilot error.

Pilot error they caused with their 'software tweak for the hardware problem' which they assured would 'require no retraining' from their 'in house certifications' because the FAA isn't even a ghost of itself anymore because of neo-conservative shillism and captured interests. So Boeing can go fuck themselves like the incestous arm of military-industrial-GOP complex they are. Still murderers and i hope they're only propped up for the next 50 years by the US obsession with military pork. Even if the country turns into a dictatorship and climate change kills 90% of the human race.

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1 hour ago, Triskele said:

I'm sorry to say that I think you're exactly wrong.  There's been plenty of Wall Street money that has found its way to Dem coffers over the year and if Wall Street were to completely abandon the Dems were Warren or Sanders to be the nominee that would be new and noteworthy.  

Be honest now, you weren't sorry to say that at all! :P

To the latter part, they won't completely abandon the party, they'll just give less enthusiastically which shouldn't be shocking at all. What cutthroat capitalist is going to want to prop up a quasi socialist? 

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Beto O'Rourke has come out with the most detailed climate change policy proposal of most of the Tier I and Tier II candidates thus far.

https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2019/04/beto-2020-why-his-climate-change-plan-surprises-experts/588328/

Essentially a grab bag of different approaches, but it at least signals to me he 'gets it' in a way other candidates maybe don't and are just paying lip service.

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So Trump and the kids and 7 companies of theirs are suing Capital One and Deutsche Bank to try to prevent them from responding to a subpoena for records.

A long time ago I gave up saying Trump surprised me. Can a US lawyer comment on how successful this tactic might be?

I read that Deutsche Bank had already started handing over material to the Manhattan South district prosecutors, but presumably they had just started complying.

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Scared of teh Gay! The rethugs are evidently are so frightened by Buttigieg; they've been recruiting young males to accuse him of sexual assault. Fortunately, this hasn't worked out so well -- at least so far:

https://www.thedailybeast.com/far-right-smear-merchants-jacob-wohl-and-jack-burkman-try-to-slime-pete-buttigieg-with-bogus-sex-assault-claim?

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A Republican source told The Daily Beast that lobbyist Jack Burkman and internet troll Jacob Wohl approached him last week to try to convince him to falsely accuse Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend, Indiana, of engaging him sexually while he was too drunk to consent.

The source who spoke to The Daily Beast said Burkman and Wohl made clear that their goal was to kneecap Buttigieg’s momentum in the 2020 presidential race. The man asked to remain anonymous out of a concern that the resulting publicity might imperil his employment, and because he said Wohl and Burkman have a reputation for vindictiveness.

But the source provided The Daily Beast with a surreptitious audio recording of the meeting, which corroborates his account. In it, Wohl appears to refer to Buttigieg as a “terminal threat” to President Donald Trump’s reelection next year.


 

 

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17 hours ago, Triskele said:

Yes.  I like Warren more now.  How interesting that some see her as a more competent and therefore "dangerous" version of Sanders.  

 

ETA:  Here's another response to that piece on the Wall Street Dems, and this one is a fairly righteous screed.  

What I like about her is that she has been one to champion the old Ralph Nader issues. This country has always needed more consumer protection, more consumer activism and I like that she has focused on that area in the past. Im not a fan of the sound of her voice, I like Kamala Harris orator wise, but Warrens area of focus is one that care a little more for. 

I still kind of feel Biden and Bernie had their chance and would rather the torch get passed on here. 

Maybe a Harris/Warren or Warren/Harris ticket? Only drawback to that is nothing gained electoral college wise with a Cali/Mass ticket is there? Thing is im not convinced either Beto O or the former San Antonio Mayor can carry Texas, if either of them could do that id say theyd be a no brainer to have on the ticket, that would guarantee the WH for Dems.

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22 minutes ago, DireWolfSpirit said:

Thing is im not convinced either Beto O or the former San Antonio Mayor can carry Texas, if either of them could do that id say theyd be a no brainer to have on the ticket, that would guarantee the WH for Dems.

It’s obviously way too early, but there’s been some early polling that’s indicating Texas could be in play. I suspect it ultimately won’t be, but it’s trending in the right direction.

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23 hours ago, Fragile Bird said:

The Boeing CEO had a press conference this morning and suggested the Ethiopian crash was caused by pilot error.

That is a disturbing bit of news, almost as if Boeing wants to double down on taking no responsibility.

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3 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It’s obviously way too early, but there’s been some early polling that’s indicating Texas could be in play. I suspect it ultimately won’t be, but it’s trending in the right direction.

Were the Repubs to have to defend the Alamo at all costs they could be weakened at picking up the more traditional swing states, maybe.

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10 minutes ago, Tywin et al. said:

It’s obviously way too early, but there’s been some early polling that’s indicating Texas could be in play. I suspect it ultimately won’t be, but it’s trending in the right direction.

I'll believe it when I see it.  It is somewhere between hard and impossible to imagine a scenario where Texas goes blue and the Democrats haven't already wrapped up the election elsewhere.  That's not a reason not to compete there, because it's always good to compete everywhere with even a ghost of a chance, but we shouldn't be pinning our hopes. 

The electoral map actually looks pretty stable to me.  The only Clinton states that Trump has any hope of picking up are MN, ME and NH.  None are particularly likely to be a tipping point state, since ME and NH are so small and a win in MN means Trump probably won WI and MI, and most likely the election as well.  I suppose I could come up with a crazy scenario where it's 2016 redux except Democrats win PA and FL, but Trump wins NH and MN, but that is pretty out there.

PA, MI, WI, AZ, FL.  That's the states that decide the presidency.  Democrats have to compete other places for the future of the party and for Congress/statewide races, but if all that matters is beating Trump, those are the only places where your vote actually matters.

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