VitalSigns posted:

Awh, don't worry buddy, my cynicism about politics is well isolated from my personal life, I'm having a lovely week

Solkanar512 posted:

That's not what he's loving saying, quit being so loving dense. His point is at trying to understand why a cop suddenly decides it's a good idea to unload over a dozen bullets into someone who's clearly not a threat.

Mr Interweb posted:

Also, I think I officially have had enough of Sam Harris:


http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/sam-harris-id-vote-for-dangerously-deluded-religious-imbecile-ben-carson-over-noam-chomsky/

Shifty Pony posted:

ID is not required to fly and TSA agents are supposed to let you through if you have some other means to verify your identity. It is right there on their website.

Of course the TSA routinely straight up lies about how procedures are used at checkpoints even when presented with overwhelming evidence that they are lying. An absolute clusterfuck of an incompetent agency that needs to be almost totally disbanded (and not replaced by private screeners either).

quote:

Identification
Adult passengers 18 and over must show valid identification at the airport checkpoint in order to travel.

...

A weapon permit is not an acceptable form of identification.

Toph Bei Fong posted:

CroatianAlzheimers posted:

That sounds like the West Side for sure. I'm in Detroit, so as far as I'm concerned, everything west of, say, Chelsea may as well be Indiana.

Coelacanthian posted:

Whatever. Grand Rapids is by and large pretty progressive despite the VanAndel / DeVos influence. The problem, as with pretty much anywhere, is when you get outside of major population centers. Between GR and Lansing is a wasteland, as are all the goofy little communities around GR like Hudsonville, Zeeland (kill me), and Holland. Not like the East side is immune from it. Sorry for the Michi-chat, just repping for my West Michigan progressives.

mcmagic posted:

He really is the worst. Dawkins too.

Luigi Thirty posted:

http://www.rawstory.com/2015/11/revealed-accused-minneapolis-shooters-fascinated-with-guns-militia-groups-and-the-confederacy/

In a shocker, investigation shows that the three guys arrested who shot at the crowd in Minneapolis are the same guys from the /pol/ video. They're gun nuts, Confederate weeaboos, and 3 Percenters.

quote:

Police questioned a fourth person, a 32-year-old Hispanic man and aspiring model who goes by the name “Saiga Marine” online, but he was released after investigators determined he had not been at the protests at the time of the shootings.

Ron Jeremy posted:

But why male models?

blackmongoose posted:

The whole incident was actually a viral marketing stunt for the new Zoolander movie

ratbert90 posted:

But why male models?

Teddybear posted:

In many states-- not all, I think, but many-- a charge of first-degree murder also includes inherent in it the lower charges. It may not necessarily include manslaughter, and I don't know how Illinois law works.

Criminal law is my weakest area, though, so what do I know?

ayn rand hand job posted:

quote:

In the event you arrive at the airport without proper ID, because it is lost or at home, you may still be allowed to fly. TSA officers will request you present two other forms of ID bearing your name. One of the items must bear your name and other identifying information such as photo, address, phone number, social security number or date of birth.

There is no standard list of what alternate forms of ID are acceptable. Examples include: temporary paper driver's licenses, non-driver IDs, social security cards, birth certificates, marriage licenses and credit cards.

JT Jag posted:

Agnosticism is the morally correct position, imo

Maybe the big bang was caused by some greater being, maybe not, whatever, I keep an open mind about it

JT Jag posted:

Agnosticism is the morally correct position, imo

Maybe the big bang was caused by some greater being, maybe not, whatever, I keep an open mind about it

mcmagic posted:

Am I really a dumb rear end for thinking that cops don't go to work wanting to kill a guy for no reason? Even if they don't have any humanity, why would they want to go through the paperwork? I'm just trying to get into the mind of a cop who just comes out guns blazing and shooting a kid who doesn't appear threatening at all. The best I can come up with is some sort of mental illness or PTSD?

JT Jag posted:

Agnosticism is the morally correct position, imo

Maybe the big bang was caused by some greater being, maybe not, whatever, I keep an open mind about it

gradenko_2000 posted:

Were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?

computer parts posted:

South Park Spiritualism.

Buffer posted:

Hey, whatever happened with that whole US special forces airstrike MSF hospital thing?

Buffer posted:

Hey, whatever happened with that whole US special forces airstrike MSF hospital thing?

Torpor posted:

I can see the officer not getting convicted in this case; I mean I can see him getting convicted also, but if he walks I would not be surprised given the facts at issue there.

Mr Interweb posted:

So I saw something interesting about Turkey:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Member_states_of_NATO

Apparently they have the second highest numbers of active (and inactive) troops only behind the U.S.? Really? More than the UK or France? What's up with that?

Ballz posted:

Gonna be very curious to see how the right rationalizes the Chicago shooting after that video's released. Jesus Christ...

Combed Thunderclap posted:

Not sure if this has already been posted but fun new facts from the Chicago shooting case were just broadcast on NPR:
- one of the witnesses of the shooting was apparently taken to a holding cell and told she didn't see anything
- the cop who went into the nearby Burger King to erase the surveillance video of the shooting...didn't erase the surveillance video of him erasing the surveillance video

Hahahaaaaaaaa.

Vice posted:

In case there had been any doubt, the past 72 hours have solidified that facts are not a priority in the current Republican presidential primary race. Despite making a stream of proven false statements in recent days, "outsider" candidates Donald Trump and Ben Carson are still at the front of the GOP pack — suggesting the candidates' disavowal of facts could actually be helping more than hurting them in this race.

Trump insisted for the fourth day in a row, at a campaign rally in South Carolina yesterday, that Muslims really did cheer and celebrate in the streets of New Jersey after the September 11, 2001 attacks. When ABC's George Stephanopoulos questioned Trump about his claims over the weekend, citing numerous reports from police and officials who were there said that this simply did not happen, the reality television star doubled down, insisting that, "It did happen. I saw it."

The same Sunday, he tweeted a graphic with false crime statistics saying that 81 percent of white people murdered this year died at the hands of African-Americans. According to the FBI, 82 percent of white homicides were perpetrated by other white people in 2014, not the other way around. The statistics that Trump tweeted were attributed to something called the Crime Statistics Bureau, which does not exist, and the graphic was actually traced back to a white supremacist Twitter account.

Trump's fondness for historical fiction began long before this past weekend. The New York Times reported yesterday how shortly after Trump bought a Virginia golf course in 2009, he ceremoniously dedicated a spot on the golf range to a Civil War battle that never took place. The plaque dedicated to the "River of Blood" is still there, between the 14th and 15th holes.

But none of these false statements seem to matter much to voters. According to the most recent CBS poll, Trump continues to lead in both of the key battleground states of Iowa and New Hampshire. When voters were asked what the their favorite thing about him was, the majority said it was that "he says things others are afraid to say."

Ben Domenech, a Republican commentator and columnist, says that the desire for an outsider candidate,manifested by an all-time low trust in government, has allowed for candidates like Trump and Carson to get away with saying whatever they want "as long as they're viewed as somebody who is also calling BS on the current system."

The only other candidate who seems to be saying whatever they want as much as Donald Trump is Ben Carson. The former neurosurgeon mistakenly claimed on Sunday that Thomas Jefferson helped "craft" the Constitution. Jefferson was not on this side of the Atlantic when the Constitution was written, something that Carson himself acknowledged in his own book on constitutional theory, A More Perfect Union. Another of his tomes, the autobiography Gifted Hands, has also endured multiple false fact accusations.

Then on Monday, Carson agreed with Trump and said he saw a video showing crowds of Muslims cheering in New Jersey after September 11 attacks. Hours later, his campaign issued a statement saying that Carson was actually mistaken and "he wasn't really thinking about New Jersey."

"It's not quite clear that reality matters to the electorate right now," said David Brooks, a conservative political commentator for the New York Times, on Meet the Press in September, discussing Republican candidate Carly Fiorina's sudden surge in popularity. "There are some people who are great campaigners and some people that are good in reality, and so far the good in reality people aren't doing so good in the polls."

Fiorina rose to the top of the polls after her debate performances in which she insisted she had seen a video showing Planned Parenthood doctors conducting an abortion of a live fetus in order to harvest its organs. Despite it later becoming abundantly clear that no such video existed and Fiorina was clearly lying, she was still able to hold on to her lead for several more weeks.

Of course, this is not the first election in which politicians have taken liberty with the truth — let's not forget that during the 2012 election Michele Bachmann said that the HPV vaccine caused mental retardation, despite there being zero scientific evidence to support that claim — but Domenech thinks this primary race has given the notion of "fact-checking" a whole new meaning.

"There's a difference between [2012] and the comments you see now," said Domenech, "Where there's a lack of seriousness and lack of engagement in policy." Much of the sparring between candidates in 2012 was over difference of opinions but still, relatively, grounded in facts, he added.

In other words, the leading presidential candidates in 2012 said plenty of controversial and untrue things — but no one tweeted fictional crime statistics from a Neo-Nazi Twitter account, invented fictional Civil War battles or compared women who have abortions to slaveowners.

Evil Fluffy posted:

"He is black had a weapon" is all they need for their audience.

Captain_Maclaine posted:

The cop's lawyer is, unsurprisingly, already flogging the "he legitimately feared for his life" line, which will likely have the expected traction with the depressingly large number of people who consider fear the natural and reasonable reaction of being near/hearing about people of color.

SquadronROE posted:

Get ready for the usual voices to start screaming about this.

http://thinkprogress.org/world/2015/11/25/3725790/senator-says-white-men-more-of-a-threat-than-syrian-refugees/

Boon posted:

I've picked up on a trend in this election cycle that hadn't really been present, to the extend it is today, in previous elections. I initially chalked it up to just not remembering the full extent of previous primary cycles, but Vice has my back:
https://news.vice.com/article/its-increasingly-clear-facts-dont-matter-in-the-republican-presidential-primary?utm_source=vicenewsfb


I was just thinking last night how the last two election cycles have seen the GOP "get serious" and conduct some "soul searching" which only ended up resulting in a doubling down. If Trump or Cruz end up taking the nomination, or Trump runs third party and attracts a significant piece of the electorate, I think we may actually see the GOP go through an actual reformation. The GOP has been on the bandwagon of government doesn't work for so long that their electorate is fully in agreement despite all evidence to the contrary and yet, ironically, their leadership knows intrinsically that they need to operate within the framework of a functional government but are caught between doing this and advocating against doing this due to the state of their electorate. I think it's very possible that if this cycle doesn't pan out that we may actually get to see a shift in the establishment GOP towards the center with a platform that not only embraces functional government, but casts aside the economic policies that are currently championed for those that will actually benefit the middle class.

Or at least I'm hopeful

Captain_Maclaine posted:

The cop's lawyer is, unsurprisingly, already flogging the "he legitimately feared for his life" line, which will likely have the expected traction with the depressingly large number of people who consider fear the natural and reasonable reaction of being near/hearing about people of color.

Dapper_Swindler posted:

they realized that "soul searching" is hard and it would be easier to just double down and hope for the best. and now the establisment is relizing that they hosed up big time.

seriously, that's what they are going with. He shot him 13 times after shooting and incapacitating him, plus he has a ton of other sociopath like complaints on his record.

mcmagic posted:

Am I really a dumb rear end for thinking that cops don't go to work wanting to kill a guy for no reason? Even if they don't have any humanity, why would they want to go through the paperwork? I'm just trying to get into the mind of a cop who just comes out guns blazing and shooting a kid who doesn't appear threatening at all. The best I can come up with is some sort of mental illness or PTSD?

Sir Tonk posted:

The right has been obsessed with white knighting Chicago black on black violence for how long now? I swear it gets dropped every single time some pundit wants to handwave some instance of police overreach or poo poo on protestors.

ComradeCosmobot posted:

In which Vox looks for a graceful way to avoid having to say "whoops, we were wrong" come July 2016.

Dapper_Swindler posted:

they realized that "soul searching" is hard and it would be easier to just double down and hope for the best. and now the establisment is relizing that they hosed up big time.

mcmagic posted:

Am I really a dumb rear end for thinking that cops don't go to work wanting to kill a guy for no reason? Even if they don't have any humanity, why would they want to go through the paperwork? I'm just trying to get into the mind of a cop who just comes out guns blazing and shooting a kid who doesn't appear threatening at all. The best I can come up with is some sort of mental illness or PTSD?

Shifty Pony posted:

By itself no, but the TN HCP has name, address, and photo which is more than enough information to be used in combination with something else under the following provisions:


There is no reason she shouldn't have been able to board the flight unless she was refusing to give any other info besides the HCP.