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SlothfulCobra posted:He was raised to religiously destroy every document
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Apr 21, 2020 23:53
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It's easy to forget because it feels like Trump's been president 600 years, but there was a news item very early on back when there were still dipshits thinking that Trump would become more presidential and defer to the experts that the security council would literally have to shorten their reports to half a page and put his name in every sentence or he'd get bored and stop reading it.
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Apr 22, 2020 00:40
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Lurdiak posted:It's easy to forget because it feels like Trump's been president 600 years, but there was a news item very early on back when there were still dipshits thinking that Trump would become more presidential and defer to the experts that the security council would literally have to shorten their reports to half a page and put his name in every sentence or he'd get bored and stop reading it. I feel like even people who always disliked him still underestimated how lovely of a person he is because they simply could not imagine a person being so terrible in so many different ways. Like of course he must keep up with the news, how could he not? He must have read something in his life, right? The bar cannot possibly be this low, right? I think they still want to cling to the belief of real life being at least the vaguest sort of meritocracy where sure, they acknowledge the huge leg up that inherited wealth gives you, but you still have to meet some kind of minimum standard to lead a successful career even with that advantage. They don't want to acknowledge that failure is literally impossible for the rich and Donald Trump is the hardest example to ignore.
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Apr 22, 2020 00:48
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If we remember nothing else from Trump's presidency it should be this: an unwritten rule is not a rule.
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Apr 22, 2020 01:06
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His career is full of massive failures, but he does have some significant skills in crafting an image to trick people into investing money that he could embezzle (which he was assisted by reality TV producers who edited him to look competent). Also a whole lot of just straight-up crimes, many of which may have been ideas given to him by his also crooked accountants and actual mobsters which he has been known to consort with. His bankrupcies were the result of his various failures, but each time right before he declared, he did a flurry of deficit spending to get things without paying them, and I think I remember something about him not paying the lawyers that he hired to help him in a case where he was being sued by his previous lawyers for not paying them. You can get away with a lot of poo poo if you're born wealthy, but few have the absolute amoral fortitude to do so much so wrong for so long over and over again, although god only knows how many of the wealthy will try being just as bold. After all, it's not like the IRS has the resources to fight wealthy tax-dodgers. (or a more recent source)
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Apr 22, 2020 01:07
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He is the platonic ideal of the sleazy used car salesman
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Apr 22, 2020 01:59
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Pretty much. I know we live in the hell timeline, but the clip of him talking about hydroxychloroquine saying "just take it. take it! what've you got to lose? i'd take it, just take it, you need it" is some genuinely horrifying stuff. It's not often you see him in full snake-oil salesman mode, and doing it surrounded by all the presidential regalia is serious glitch-in-the-matrix stuff. I know I should be numb to the circus after 3+ years of this garbage, but that clip really just made me stop and think.
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Apr 22, 2020 03:11
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Lurdiak posted:If we remember nothing else from Trump's presidency it should be this: an unwritten rule is not a rule. Neither is a written rule with no clear enforcement mechanism.
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Apr 22, 2020 08:48
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webmeister posted:Pretty much. I know we live in the hell timeline, but the clip of him talking about hydroxychloroquine saying "just take it. take it! what've you got to lose? i'd take it, just take it, you need it" is some genuinely horrifying stuff. It's not often you see him in full snake-oil salesman mode, and doing it surrounded by all the presidential regalia is serious glitch-in-the-matrix stuff. Yeah, its not like there's any side effects from taking it. Oh wait, there is. It doesn't take a genius to know that you shouldn't be taking medicine without a good medical reason and "oh well it might do something, maybe, some orange bloke said try it" isn't a good one.
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Apr 22, 2020 12:05
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The Cheshire Cat posted:Yeah this is why I'm concerned about the increasing number of prominent young conservative pundits and their following (like your Ben Shapiro types). The thing about the guys talking about trickle down economics in the 80s - they all knew it was bullshit. It was the lie that got them the thing they wanted, which was more money. They were lovely people but they would also know not to push the grift to the point of like, starting a nuclear war or something. The new generation of conservatives never got that memo. They were raised in an environment where all the grift was presented to them as just the basic truth as how the world works, and trained to ignore any evidence to the contrary. They will just keep doubling down because they are not in on the scam. They are true believers. Your James O'Keefes and Ben Shapiros are in a weird spot where they're true believers but also it's a grift. Like if O'Keefes poo poo was so true he wouldn't have to deceptively edit it or lie about how he dressed so he's gotta have some awareness about that. Shapiro wouldn't be selling brain pills and gold to his audience if he had any respect for their intelligence. There's a great takedown of O'Keefe that had its first part put up on youtube the other day and I was actually surprised to find out he's been a true believer since a young age. The Cheshire Cat posted:I feel like even people who always disliked him still underestimated how lovely of a person he is because they simply could not imagine a person being so terrible in so many different ways. Like of course he must keep up with the news, how could he not? He must have read something in his life, right? The bar cannot possibly be this low, right? Yeah I figured it'd be an embarrassing nightmare but there's really no way to brace yourself for how he's actually been. Groovelord Neato fucked around with this message at 12:42 on Apr 22, 2020 |
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Apr 22, 2020 12:39
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The Cheshire Cat posted:I feel like even people who always disliked him still underestimated how lovely of a person he is because they simply could not imagine a person being so terrible in so many different ways. Like of course he must keep up with the news, how could he not? He must have read something in his life, right? The bar cannot possibly be this low, right? I remember the first couple days after the election I was saying this kind of thing. My cousin works in Ann Arbor and he said there were people literally crying about him and planning a protest, and asking him honestly "do you think the protest will work?" like sure, he spent hundreds of millions of dollars and won the election, but since some hippies in Ann Arbor marched down the street of course he'll let Clinton take it instead. And we laughed about it, because what's done is done, and we should at least give him a chance, maybe the gravity of his situation will sober him up a little bit and he won't be a ridiculous clown. I think the very next day the media called him out for discussing matters of national security around the table at a diner.
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Apr 22, 2020 16:22
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Theoretically, the electoral college, that archaic body of nobodies, could've declined to do the thing, but they didn't. The protests were mainly to register the masses of discontent with the system, and theoretically to inspire politicians to oppose the maniac, which sadly they've been abysmal at. The democrats' dedication to not raising a fuss and stopping "populist" movements in their camp for daring to appeal to people didn't help things at all. Protests can be productive, but they require the establishment to not be staffed entirely by sociopaths so that they can be somehow persuaded by the public rather than turtling up. Bertha the Toaster posted:Yeah, its not like there's any side effects from taking it. Oh wait, there is. It doesn't take a genius to know that you shouldn't be taking medicine without a good medical reason and "oh well it might do something, maybe, some orange bloke said try it" isn't a good one. The biggest side effect is people dying because they need the drug and can't get it and people dying because they don't need the drug and take it anyways. There are elements of suffering aside from death that are worth avoiding, but death is what tends to grab people's attention.
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Apr 22, 2020 19:08
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SlothfulCobra posted:Theoretically, the electoral college, that archaic body of nobodies, could've declined to do the thing, but they didn't. The protests were mainly to register the masses of discontent with the system, and theoretically to inspire politicians to oppose the maniac, which sadly they've been abysmal at. The democrats' dedication to not raising a fuss and stopping "populist" movements in their camp for daring to appeal to people didn't help things at all. Yeah this is why the big phrase among the left over the past few years has been "general strike". Protests only work if you have political leadership that's at least willing to listen to public opinion and it's very clear that on either side of the aisle they are much more interested in what lobbyists think than mass movements. For most of the Trump admin the idea of actually pulling off a general strike was just kind of a nice fantasy of worker solidarity but the covid-19 lockdown has made a lot of people realize how much simply not going to work is able to make these people flip the gently caress out and it actually seems much more realistic than it did a year ago.
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Apr 22, 2020 22:08
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SlothfulCobra posted:It's one of those situations where there's all sorts of laws and rules, but they all require somebody to move to enforce them, and it's not entirely clear whose duty that would be. If somebody just decides to entirely ignore the laws and rules, it takes effort to bring them back into line. It's not like anyone arrested Ted Cruise for illegally seeking the nomination for which he was not eligible. ted cruz is eligible by any reading of the constitution that isn't far right nutters retroactively justifying why their insane conspiracy theories would disqualify Obama
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Apr 23, 2020 03:58
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Orange Devil posted:Neither is a written rule with no clear enforcement mechanism. Yea, if Trump's term has taught me anything as someone not living in the US, it's that the various other bodies of the US government have almost no real power if the president wants to just straight up ignore them. The House of Representatives have "compelled" Trump and various people who served under him do to things numerous times, and none of it has meant poo poo because Trump just doesn't care, and so long as some portion of the public is on his side, he doesn't have to care and it doesn't matter, because the House can't do squat to actually enforce their decisions.
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Apr 25, 2020 20:23
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tsob posted:Yea, if Trump's term has taught me anything as someone not living in the US, it's that the various other bodies of the US government have almost no real power if the president wants to just straight up ignore them. The House of Representatives have "compelled" Trump and various people who served under him do to things numerous times, and none of it has meant poo poo because Trump just doesn't care, and so long as some portion of the public is on his side, he doesn't have to care and it doesn't matter, because the House can't do squat to actually enforce their decisions. Well, they can, they just don't want to. With Trump the problem is that the Senate is the governing body that actually has the power to remove the president, and they have absolutely no interest in doing so because as far as they're concerned he's doing just fine. So the house can make demands, but without the senate to back them up those demands are meaningless.
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Apr 25, 2020 20:38
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It's fairly rare for the house and senate to be split like they are now, which makes the legislative branch weaker. It's the result of the republicans making strongholds out of the less densely populated states while the democrats continued to fail horribly at holding any ground on their own. The judicial system has blocked the executive branch a bunch of times, but the republicans stacked the supreme court with rapists that the democrats failed to meaningfully challenge. Within the executive branch, there's a lot of bureaucracy that still often frustrates the President's executive orders and policies, which is part of the reason why the administration over the course of the term pulled out a lot of tricks to force an exodus of employees and officials. This of course also has the side effect of reducing the amount of legitimate methods to implement policies that basically requires the executive branch to avoid established chains of command and buck procedure to get anything done.
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Apr 25, 2020 22:07
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The Cheshire Cat posted:Well, they can, they just don't want to. With Trump the problem is that the Senate is the governing body that actually has the power to remove the president, and they have absolutely no interest in doing so because as far as they're concerned he's doing just fine. So the house can make demands, but without the senate to back them up those demands are meaningless. "They can, so long as this other government body does it for them or at least supports them" is not the same as "they can". If the House needs to Senate to actually do anything, then the House is pretty toothless. I'm not even just talking about removing Trump, I'm talking about times they have compelled people to testify and Trump has just gone "executive privilege" or something, and they have refused to testify with no notable repercussions. poo poo, even the fact they impeached Trump ultimately means nothing. It's just stapling a bad word next to his name in the history books essentially.
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Apr 25, 2020 22:22
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America is de facto a dictatorship and it's weird how little media play that gets.
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Apr 25, 2020 22:32
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The media is mostly fine with it
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Apr 25, 2020 22:33
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SlothfulCobra posted:The judicial system has blocked the executive branch a bunch of times, but the republicans stacked the supreme court with rapists that the democrats failed to meaningfully challenge. Shoulda told the dems that Kavanaugh supported Medicare for All
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Apr 25, 2020 22:41
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No new show last night? I didn't remember John saying they'd be off.
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Apr 27, 2020 11:39
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Nope, the only time I ever go on Twitter is if LWT hasn't been on and to check if I'm being stupid.
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Apr 27, 2020 12:09
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Aw drat. Oh well, thanks!
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Apr 27, 2020 13:00
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Some of you might be interested in The Last Post, a daily satirical news podcast only tangentially related to John Oliver from being spawned off of The Bugle, a podcast that he used to be on. Its main gimmick is being from an alternate dimension where there's much of the same news, but also a few weird unexpected things like Bob, the sentient trash island who is still holding on in the democratic primaries, the arrival of the confederated octopus tribes of New New Zealand, the underground race of Picts in Britain that came to the surface when they heard that all Eurpoeans were going to go back to the continent, and rebellions at the prison colony on the moon. The main host is Alice Fraser, but each episode she has a guest host, like the fitness guru Nish Kumar, world famous celebrity Andy Zaltzman, tech billionaire under house arrest Josh Gondelman, Major General Commandante of the People's Republic Of The People United Nato Green, or even former child actor Gareth Reynolds. No John Olivers necessarily involved.
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Apr 27, 2020 15:23
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Groovelord Neato posted:America is de facto a dictatorship and it's weird how little media play that gets. Since the executive branch got basically most of the power in the 20th century the US elects a monarch every 4 years.
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Apr 28, 2020 21:26
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SlothfulCobra posted:Some of you might be interested in The Last Post, a daily satirical news podcast only tangentially related to John Oliver from being spawned off of The Bugle, a podcast that he used to be on. The prison colony is on Mars... 
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Apr 29, 2020 05:34
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This cat bit's great. Though I don't remember anything about Wendy Williams?
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May 4, 2020 08:09
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There was a segment about her last week. Remember, the talk show host who's streaming from home and gives zero fucks?
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May 4, 2020 08:28
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I thought there wasn't an episode last week?
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May 4, 2020 08:30
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Sorry, the week before last. Whenever they last did an episode.
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May 4, 2020 08:31
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Skippy McPants posted:Sorry, the week before last. Whenever they last did an episode. That was mid April which feels like it was 6 months ago
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May 4, 2020 19:55
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Well I for one am extremely disappointed by this blatant display of anti-dog agenda. gently caress you John, hopefully Alf comes back and eats your 28 cats.
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May 5, 2020 01:15
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Pfff you saw the huskies, John knows who appreciates him 
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May 5, 2020 05:23
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Hawkperson posted:Pfff you saw the huskies, John knows who appreciates him I don't think he reads this thread
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May 5, 2020 05:56
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SlothfulCobra posted:Some of you might be interested in The Last Post, a daily satirical news podcast only tangentially related to John Oliver from being spawned off of The Bugle, a podcast that he used to be on. "fitness guru nish kumar"?
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May 5, 2020 10:38
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Milo and POTUS posted:I don't think he reads this thread just what john oliver would say 
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May 8, 2020 06:06
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Watermelon Daiquiri posted:"fitness guru nish kumar"? You heard me. Alternate dimension. Kinda fits well with the old Nude with Nish bit from the Bugle.
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May 10, 2020 16:56
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having a real hard time watching this show anymore
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May 11, 2020 05:33
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Where's my Marlon Bundo stamp
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May 11, 2020 06:43
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