US Politics: Biden vs. Ron DeCardassian in the Delta quadrant

[Ormond]

I was just surprised no one else had started a new thread yet. If you hate my title, suggest something else. l

By the way, how likely do the Californians on this thread think it is that Newsom will be recalled? Fivethirtyeight seems to show him only about 1.2% ahead in the polling average. 

[DMC]

Leave it to Trumpists to take a gimme politically - attacking Biden on Afghanistan - and turn it into an issue that makes them look like the assholes - attacking Afghan refugees:

Quote

Over the past week, most GOP lawmakers have lambasted Biden for abandoning interpreters and Afghan civilians who put their lives at risk to help U.S. troops — and are now trapped as armed militias block their escape.

But a not-insignificant chunk of the party is using the Afghanistan disaster as fodder for their campaign against immigration. The unsubstantiated charge: that Biden intentionally fumbled the withdrawal in order to flood the U.S. with Afghans.

MAGA personality CHARLIE KIRK went there earlier this week, claiming “Biden wants a couple hundred thousand more ILHAN OMARs to come into America to change the body politic permanently.” Then it was TUCKER CARLSON suggesting that “first we invade, and then we are invaded,” while STEPHEN MILLER tweeted that it’s “clear that Biden & his radical deputies will use their catastrophic debacle in Afghanistan as a pretext for doing to America what ANGELA MERKEL did to Germany & Europe.”

 

[BlackLightning]

@Varysblackfyre321 This is a response to our convo back in the last thread

I'm not saying that COVID isn't a problem. I'm just saying that the immediate concerns of the Afghans and the Americans are much more pressing than concerns about catching COVID.

 

[Ser Scot A Ellison]

Man parked in a Truck next to the Library of Congress claims to have a bomb and “wants to talk to Biden”…

https://www.cnn.com/2021/08/19/politics/us-capitol-suspected-explosives/index.html

[Fez]

There's an ongoing active bomb threat outside the Library of Congress today (which is about a block from the Capital Building, right next door to the Supreme Court, and catty-cornered one of the capital office buildings.

It's a guy in a truck; police have been negotiating with him for at least 2 hours now. I haven't heard if there's any word on his motivation

ETA: 

[Zorral]

Updated 5 minutes ago:

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2021/08/19/suspicious-vehicle-library-of-congress/

Man claims to be a revolutionary.

This is the third evacuation since Jan 6.

[Leofric]

1 hour ago, Ormond said:

I was just surprised no one else had started a new thread yet. If you hate my title, suggest something else. l

By the way, how likely do the Californians on this thread think it is that Newsom will be recalled? Fivethirtyeight seems to show him only about 1.2% ahead in the polling average. 

I'm in California and don't know how it will turn out.  I thought the recall of Gray Davis was bullshit, but he got yanked and replaced with Arnold, and Newsom has done less than Davis to upset people.    Every registered voter in California is receiving the ballot in the mail, and it is basically 2 questions, should Gavin Newsom be recalled, yes or no, and if Newsom is recalled then which of these 50 unknown candidates should be the next governor.    So, potentially you could have very high turnout as people just need to check two boxes and drop it in the mail.  I think Newsom stays in office, but it'll actually come down to the level of apathy, how many people care enough to make even that small effort. 

If Newsom does get voted out, we'll probably end up with a Republican Governor as the Democrats strategy is basically telling everyone to leave the second question blank and not endorsing any Democrat candidate, relying on Newsom to keep his job.. 

[Mindwalker]

Bomb threat guy has surrendered and is in custody.

[Zorral]

Good on the police for their success in talking him down instead of doing something else.

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

23 minutes ago, Zorral said:

Good on the police for their success in talking him down instead of doing something else.

 

Also, GTBW.....

[Mindwalker]

Yeah, the taliban are much nicer now. This is how they behave in front of cameras. I'm sure it'll be fine.

 

[Zorral]

1 hour ago, Tywin et al. said:

Also, GTBW.....

You are so right.  Also to be a Carolinian!  Of course these are the sorts who generally try to blow up D.C., so no-brainer, amirite?

 

[Mindwalker]

GTBW= "got to be white"??? (That was my first thought when I heard he had been allowed to surrender with no bloodshed, and that he had "personal issues".)

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

25 minutes ago, Mindwalker said:

GTBW= "got to be white"??? (That was my first thought when I heard he had been allowed to surrender with no bloodshed, and that he had "personal issues".)

Good or got, and yeah, it’s used in situations like this where we can guess the outcome would have been dramatically different if the individual or group of people were minorities.

[Zorral]

"THE WEEK ANOTHER MASSIVE DELUSION WAS EXPOSED"

Why, yes, yes it was exposed.  People/media cannot handle the display that kicks holes in the comforting USA mythologies, including bringing back all those memories of the previous failures in the very same effort -- not to mention the amount of public monies just poured down toilet of every graft, grift and private corp contracts.

https://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2021/08/the-week-another-massive-delusion-was-exposed

Quote

 

I know nothing about Afghanistan, but this is a blog sir:

(1) I don’t understand why people are treating the instantaneous collapse of the Afghani government and army as some sort of argument against Biden’s decision to abide by Trump’s negotiated agreement. Isn’t it just the opposite? If the whole enterprise has been revealed to be just another ideological Potemkin Village, maintained for 20 years now by the MIC and its countless rent seekers, isn’t that the most compelling possible reason for getting out immediately?

(2) It really is astounding how all the people who were totally wrong about everything keep getting invited on to the TV to tell us how we should all think about what’s happening now. This is the Blob, and you can’t reason with it, you can’t bargain with it, you can only surf over to ESPN and refuse to engage, even by proxy.

(3) One tiny silver lining here is the stark reminder to everyone of how terrible George W. Bush was, after several years of absurd nostalgia based on nothing but the fact that he isn’t a complete sociopath, unlike his immediate GOP successor to the office.

(4) One thing that progressives need to push back against hard is the right wing attempt to hijack this whole disaster into another episode of Dirty Foreigners Are Trying To Sneak Into America to Kill White People. This is especially true because Biden has been weak on immigration issues so far — an area where he apparently believes it’s possible to triangulate in some way that appeases reactionaries but is less brutal than Stephen Miller’s fascist fantasies.

 

 

[Martell Spy]

The dark irony of who TV news talks to about Afghanistan
Cable news is dominated by the same Afghanistan hawks who created this mess.

https://www.vox.com/2021/8/19/22629559/afghanistan-hawks-fox-news-biden-blame

Quote

 

Nowhere in that segment did either person explicitly acknowledge they’d worked in the very administration that started the war, though a chyron did identify Thiessen as a “FMR GW BUSH SPEECHWRITER.”

But Fox News hasn’t been alone in giving people a platform to opine on US failures in Afghanistan who could benefit from some introspection. A similar dynamic played out on MSNBC on Sunday night, when guest anchor Anand Giridharadas gave host and former George W. Bush administration communications director Nicolle Wallace the opportunity to blame “long-hardwired historical reasons” for the ultimate failure of the US effort in Afghanistan.

 

 

[Ran]

2 hours ago, Martell Spy said:

The dark irony of who TV news talks to about Afghanistan
Cable news is dominated by the same Afghanistan hawks who created this mess.

https://www.vox.com/2021/8/19/22629559/afghanistan-hawks-fox-news-biden-blame

 

Judd Leggum has another piece where he writes about a communication director who says he has tried to offer guests to the news who are in favor of the withdrawal, or provided them as sources to reporters, and it's crickets -- the media is largely uninterested in their narrative being challenged, and the guests/sources go unused.

[teej6]

4 hours ago, Ran said:

Judd Leggum has another piece where he writes about a communication director who says he has tried to offer guests to the news who are in favor of the withdrawal, or provided them as sources to reporters, and it's crickets -- the media is largely uninterested in their narrative being challenged, and the guests/sources go unused.

Although I’m not a fan of Friedman, this time he’s making sense: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/08/19/opinion/afghanistan-us-taliban.html

[Larry of the Lawn]

7 hours ago, Ran said:

Judd Leggum has another piece where he writes about a communication director who says he has tried to offer guests to the news who are in favor of the withdrawal, or provided them as sources to reporters, and it's crickets -- the media is largely uninterested in their narrative being challenged, and the guests/sources go unused.

It is a eyebrow-raising that the media, so quick to carry water for Biden for everything, has been so critical of the withdrawal.  

 

[Mr. Chatywin et al.]

8 minutes ago, larrytheimp said:

It is a eyebrow-raising that the media, so quick to carry water for Biden for everything, has been so critical of the withdrawal.  

 

Yeah, no, that's not been the case at all. The man may have gotten a pass for wearing a tan suit, but otherwise he's been criticized a lot once the honeymoon period ended.