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the_steve posted:Well for starters, he's old as balls and probably has the sort of McDonalds and Hot Pocket diet that would make any goon proud. Even with access to the best medical care on the planet like he has, he's not going to live forever. Yeah, barging in to the two houses of congress and doing mass violence/murder wouldn't change anything. things would just chug along as usual, they'd just respawn after the they are gone. Are you serious? (USER WAS PUT ON PROBATION FOR THIS POST)
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Jul 14, 2023 02:14
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FlamingLiberal posted:It really helps when you just go away for years and people have enough space to forget about all of the terrible poo poo you've done That combined with every valid but boring criticism of Obama being salted heavily with "even worse than Bush!" in ways that made people wonder "huh, am I exaggerating how mad I was at that dude?" At least in the circles I keep that was way more visible than him talking with Ellen or whatever.
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Jul 14, 2023 02:23
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Mellow Seas posted:Please don’t write idiotic things and pretend I believe them. You should read up on when she ran some aids charities into the ground and how hostile of a boss she was.
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Jul 14, 2023 02:24
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Willa Rogers posted:I still don't quite understand how quickly GWB's rep was rehabilitated, given the invective with which he was regarded by Democrats for a decade & beyond. The aforementioned staying out of politics since the end of his Presidency, and being followed by Trump as a GOP Pres both did a lot. There was also the fact that he and Obama worked together very effectively on the transition - better than any transition before or since, as far as I'm aware. It was something that Bush and his administration were particular about, and was widely recognized at the time and since. Even for the folks who hated Bush for any number of reasons found that part respectable.
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Jul 14, 2023 02:32
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Celexi posted:Yeah, barging in to the two houses of congress and doing mass violence/murder wouldn't change anything. things would just chug along as usual, they'd just respawn after the they are gone. Are you serious? Are you? Try addressing the point I actually made. How would any level of violence from a bunch of literal civilians and a handful of cops have overturned the election in a real and binding way?
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Jul 14, 2023 02:36
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the_steve posted:Are you? Try addressing the point I actually made. How would any level of violence from a bunch of literal civilians and a handful of cops have overturned the election in a real and binding way? Well to begin with, there would be no one to certify the election, also no one to vote as alternative to certifying the electoral college votes. here'd be a complete power vacuum that trump would exploit and rule as " emergency unity prez for life". There are quite a lot of other things that would happen too, there are many coups to read from that would have been similar if trump's one succeeded.
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Jul 14, 2023 02:42
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BiggerBoat posted:I've been thinking about this SCOTUS decision about certain businesses being allowed to deny service and, at the risk of a probe, I got to thinking about it and want to play devil's advocate here for a moment. For me, discriminating against someone's beliefs is fine but discriminating against their identity, is not. You don't choose to be gay so therefore it is wrong to refuse service on that basis. Similarly, discrimination against white people should not be allowed either. But discrimination against Christians or vegetarians is fine. I think there are likely some grey areas but this is my starting point.
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Jul 14, 2023 02:43
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BiggerBoat posted:I've been thinking about this SCOTUS decision about certain businesses being allowed to deny service and, at the risk of a probe, I got to thinking about it and want to play devil's advocate here for a moment. When it comes to just constitutional and federal law, you can deny service for pretty much whatever reason you want, outside of certain specific cases that have specific laws covering them (like the Fair Housing Act). Private businesses aren't constrained by the First Amendment in the first place, it only constrains what the government can do. The reason that wedding website designer had anything to worry about in the first place was because Colorado passed a law called the Colorado Anti-Discrimination Act, which makes it illegal to deny service to "an individual or a group, because of disability, race, creed, color, sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, gender expression, marital status, national origin, or ancestry", and it's that law that the Supreme Court took aim at. You'll have to check yourself as I don't know where you live, but I don't think any state has a law saying it's illegal to deny service to conservative organizations.
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Jul 14, 2023 02:46
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the_steve posted:Are you? Try addressing the point I actually made. How would any level of violence from a bunch of literal civilians and a handful of cops have overturned the election in a real and binding way? The entire point of a coup is to use force to sidestep pesky issues of legality, and/or to create enough confusion that enough of a veil of legitimacy exists that extreme actions can be justified. A mob breaking into Congress and killing/intimidating enough Congresspeople to prevent the election from being certified isn't going to overturn the election on its own, but it would create an atmosphere of chaos and confusion that Trump certainly would have tried to have taken advantage of to retain power. Would he have been successful? Probably not, but there are plenty of perfectly plausible scenarios where force is required to prevent Trump from remaining in office.
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Jul 14, 2023 03:06
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A Trump coup was never going to work largely because the military was on the anti Trump side, which is... not guaranteed to be the case if Trump gets put in charge of it again.
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Jul 14, 2023 03:20
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James Garfield posted:A Trump coup was never going to work largely because the military was on the anti Trump side, which is... not guaranteed to be the case if Trump gets put in charge of it again. That's why tuberville is keeping military slots open. If Trump wins, they'll stuff the military leadership with fascists who want to invade Mexico.
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Jul 14, 2023 03:24
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The US Military is one of the most privileged and well funded in the world. I don't think Trump has anything to offer that would cause them to actually back him in a coup and you're absolutely not taking America in a coup without the military. Though the Trump plan was never a coup but closer to the Brooks Brothers Riot and following the same plan that had worked for his conspirators in the past. Use violence to disrupt the legal process and be handed power legally.
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Jul 14, 2023 03:31
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Willa Rogers posted:I still don't quite understand how quickly GWB's rep was rehabilitated, given the invective with which he was regarded by Democrats for a decade & beyond. It wasn't. There was one poll in 2018 that had him at 50% approval among Democrats, but it has been around 25% since 2020. You also have to separate out personal approval with job approval. Bush always had a much higher personal approval than job approval. https://edition.cnn.com/2018/01/22/politics/george-w-bush-favorable-poll/index.html He was just rated the 39th worst President of all time according to Democrats in 2022. George H.W. Bush has seen a resurgence in popularity among both Republicans and Democrats, though.  Reagan, FDR, and Obama are still far and away the former Presidents who people most approve of their time in office specifically. 
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Jul 14, 2023 03:41
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Meatball posted:That's why tuberville is keeping military slots open. If Trump wins, they'll stuff the military leadership with fascists who want to invade Mexico. I was an officer in the Army, and the few times Trump ever came up at work among fellow officers it was always something negative. It's still a group that leans conservative but they're definitely not Trump supporters by and large, especially the younger ones. Being an officer requires a college education and they probably have friends among the groups that the right is relentlessly attacking these days, likely even fellow service members belonging to those groups. I have many complaints about my fellow officers but being Trumpy isn't one of them. Edit: there's also the fact that officers are one of those groups of overeducated professionals that the right loves to attack. Mustang fucked around with this message at 04:00 on Jul 14, 2023 |
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Jul 14, 2023 03:57
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BiggerBoat posted:I've been thinking about this SCOTUS decision about certain businesses being allowed to deny service and, at the risk of a probe, I got to thinking about it and want to play devil's advocate here for a moment. I think the decision was wrong because it's overly broad in what it considers freedom of expression but the argument I think you're being is sound. It comes down to if providing your services to a protected group would cause you to do or express something against your religion. I think the court is overly broad here because I don't think creating wedding websites for gay couples is violating religious beliefs unless there is consistency with any other religions outside of your faith and not just gender. A lot of the decision hinged on the fact that she claimed (remember there was no actual commission by a gay couple) that she made the websites by interviewing the couples and telling their story in their words which makes it her "speech". This is a huge stretch to then carve out protections from offering services to protected groups. For a comparison to more sane courts, the cake case in 2018 was a narrow ruling that decided that the baker was not required to create a cake for a gay wedding and they primarily made that ruling because the state had obviously been biased against his religious beliefs. That same baker had a second case during that time in a lower court that finally resolved this year where it was ruled that it was discriminatory when he refused a "gender reveal" cake for a transgender woman. The cake wasn't requiring him to say anything, he obviously just refused because they were trans.
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Jul 14, 2023 04:02
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That's dire. Trump is only an immediate threat, but he's absolutely a symptom of systemic problems. This isnt working, and it doesn't seem likely to from my perspective. The trajectory of Americans political impulses and awareness in the face of climate change only further highlights this. It would be bad if Trump won, but beating trump or even beating Republicans is so far from a win condition its easy to be dismissive of the "threat". That said, I'm a tall straight white dude and the amount it diminishes me to vote for the other losing option (dems) isn't really worth not stopping things from getting worse. Trump or R rule is worse for a lot of people... everybody really, but just for now. It seems at this rate none of this will matter much anymore sometime soon, perhaps within my lifetime. If the people I vote for don't have an answer for that, it's hard to feel my vote matters much. The deep dive into mechanisms of why we are hosed or who's at fault are illuminating but don't change my opinion on the outcome. People obsessing with trump (that I've spoken to) are missing the big picture. Edit* fixed a typo, but hell rereading this, I'm saying politics isn't offering acceptable options. I don't have an alternative, there may not be one. But as much as "the fight is never over" is true, I no longer feel like we're fighting the actual fight. BRJurgis fucked around with this message at 04:12 on Jul 14, 2023 |
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Jul 14, 2023 04:03
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Leon Trotsky 2012 posted:It wasn't. There was one poll in 2018 that had him at 50% approval among Democrats, but it has been around 25% since 2020. That link had him at 61 percent as of 2018, almost twice as when he left office, and attributes the increase to Democrats & independents. quote:George W. Bush has turned his unpopularity upside down. Which is what I pointed out: Bush went from pariah to precious in a decade, although I wouldn't have guessed it was due to his standing among Democrats quadrupling, lol.
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Jul 14, 2023 04:04
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Willa Rogers posted:That link had him at 61 percent as of 2018, almost twice as when he left office, and attributes the increase to Democrats & independents. Yeah, that was one poll from 5 years ago that was much higher than other polls. And personal approval and job approval are different. Bush's personal approval was always higher than his job approval. His job approval is still rated very low by Democrats and Republicans. Only 1% of Americans rated him the best president (compared to 10% for Trump, 19% for Obama, and 23% for Reagan) and half of Americans rated his presidency as a failure.
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Jul 14, 2023 04:12
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Willa Rogers posted:I still don't quite understand how quickly GWB's rep was rehabilitated, given the invective with which he was regarded by Democrats for a decade & beyond. There are a frustrating amount of people online who buy into this idea that he was just an aw-shucks and geeze idiot who got hoodwinked into being the puppet for the shadowy evil forces behind the iraq war, and that he had no agency or part in everything that went down during his presidency. You get this a lot when he occasionally jokes about the old memes from the era involving him, or people bring out the images of him painting again. There's this insistence that he's just a good old boy who didn't know better and was used as a tool by people who wanted to stay in the shadows. Most of the people I've met IRL who believe this were in grade school when 9/11 happened so that might colour some things.
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Jul 14, 2023 05:20
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Basically any republican who can project an image other than insecure bully or proud klansman gets a favorable view from mainstream democrats, longingly hoping republicans will treat guys like John Kerry and Joe Biden with the same reverence that the mainstream democrats have for Reagan and McCain.
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Jul 14, 2023 05:37
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BiggerBoat posted:So, turning this argument on its head, when am I, as a creator, allowed to say "no, I don't want your business?" and I wonder where that line is drawn? I'm not a business owner but I do OK illustrating and doing graphics or print work for some clients I like. Suppose an anti gay, gun nut, nazi adjacent group or something like that saw my work and wanted me to drum up some logos, signs or pamphlets for them and I refused the work? No because political affiliation isn`t a protected class, and falls under the general rule that you can refuse service to people whose vibe you don't like. While possibly rude, refusing service to a Republican, a radicool punk who doesn't play by anyone's rules, or a brony doesn't contribute to historic discrimination and barriers to being able to live a regular life the way discrimination against someone in a protected class does. Protected classes are defined pretty explicitly in state and federal law. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protected_group#United_States quote:The following characteristics are "protected" by United States federal anti-discrimination law: burnishedfume fucked around with this message at 07:16 on Jul 14, 2023 |
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Jul 14, 2023 06:36
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Blind Pineapple posted:Basically any republican who can project an image other than insecure bully or proud klansman gets a favorable view from mainstream democrats, longingly hoping republicans will treat guys like John Kerry and Joe Biden with the same reverence that the mainstream democrats have for Reagan and McCain. Plus GW's own public facing persona played into that really well long term. The guy's an ultra rich elite suit of course but that reality vanished so fast in people's minds it was barely there. After all he was the down to earth guy you could have a beer with. A lot of people really bought into that he was just a good guy that wanted to keep us safe even not long after his last term. So I'm not surprised he couod get rehabilitated to about that level.
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Jul 14, 2023 06:39
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burnishedfume posted:No because political affiliation isn`t a protected class, and falls under the general rule that you can refuse service to people whose vibe you don't like. While possibly rude, refusing service to a Republican, a radicool punk who doesn't play by anyone's rules, or a bony doesn't contribute to historic discrimination and barriers to being able to live a regular life the way discrimination against someone in a protected class does. Protected classes are defined pretty explicitly in state and federal law. Seeing genetic information on there is kinda wild. We're like, 300+ more years ahead of the United Federation of Planets on that one.
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Jul 14, 2023 06:52
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Professor Beetus posted:Seeing genetic information on there is kinda wild. We're like, 300+ more years ahead of the United Federation of Planets on that one. Yeah but they had genetically modified super soldiers by the 90s where we just have social media. We may get our own bell riots and the unification of Ireland in 2024, which would match up nicely.
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Jul 14, 2023 07:00
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Killer robot posted:That combined with every valid but boring criticism of Obama being salted heavily with "even worse than Bush!" in ways that made people wonder "huh, am I exaggerating how mad I was at that dude?" At least in the circles I keep that was way more visible than him talking with Ellen or whatever. Also way too many people care about tone and not content, sighing in relief at quiet polite fascism and crying at a big mean old man yelling.
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Jul 14, 2023 07:16
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Gumball Gumption posted:The US Military is one of the most privileged and well funded in the world. I don't think Trump has anything to offer that would cause them to actually back him in a coup and you're absolutely not taking America in a coup without the military. As it stands now, I’d agree. But other Michael Flynns exist and I don’t really want to live in a world where Trump decides to spend four years elevating them to key positions.
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Jul 14, 2023 11:23
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Professor Beetus posted:Seeing genetic information on there is kinda wild. We're like, 300+ more years ahead of the United Federation of Planets on that one. Our gerontocracy may be too ossified to do anything to actually help real, living people, but they’ve seen their syndicated reruns and aren’t gonna let the Eugenics Wars start on their watch.
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Jul 14, 2023 12:20
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burnishedfume posted:No because political affiliation isn`t a protected class, and falls under the general rule that you can refuse service to people whose vibe you don't like. While possibly rude, refusing service to a Republican, a radicool punk who doesn't play by anyone's rules, or a brony doesn't contribute to historic discrimination and barriers to being able to live a regular life the way discrimination against someone in a protected class does. Protected classes are defined pretty explicitly in state and federal law. Well put. Thanks Unrelated, but in New That Should Surprise Nobody, cops are racist fascists https://news.yahoo.com/body-cam-catches-glimpse-inside-155904435.html quote:The inside of the Seattle Police Department’s East Precinct has been exposed for its disgraceful interior. I don’t mean that as in unclean (which it certainly could be). According to The Seattle Times, we’re talking “Trump 2020” flags and a mock tombstone of a Black man who was killed by the police. They're going with the "I don't know how all that meth got in my car" defense quote:The department said in a statement most of the things displayed in the room have since been removed. However, they “didn’t know how” the tombstone ended up on the shelf but don’t have a reason to believe it was placed there with any “pejorative intent.” If not pejorative, then what?
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Jul 14, 2023 12:47
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It's time for the big annual defense bill, and you won't believe it but the Republicans are fuckin' around. They've stuck a bunch of stupid culture war poo poo in the bill that's all gotta get untangled. It's so stupid and malicious that it apparently might not even pass the House, let alone the Senate.NYT posted:The fate of the annual defense bill was in doubt on Friday, after Republicans loaded the legislation with a raft of conservative social policy restrictions limiting access to abortions, gender transition procedures and diversity training for military personnel, alienating Democrats whose votes G.O.P. leaders had seen as crucial to passing the legislation. Bonus: quote:The votes came amid a heated floor debate in which Republicans and Democrats feuded over issues of race, sex and gender. Representative Eli Crane, Republican of Arizona, at one point made a reference to “colored people” while defending his amendment to keep diversity training from becoming a condition for obtaining or keeping Defense Department jobs. Representative Joyce Beatty of Ohio, a Democrat who is Black, demanded that his comments be stricken from the record, and Mr. Crane later said in a statement that he “misspoke.” Wikipedia posted:A member of the Republican Party, Crane served in the United States Navy SEALs and co-founded Bottle Breacher, a company that manufactures bottle openers made of 50-caliber shell casings. 
Mellow Seas fucked around with this message at 14:03 on Jul 14, 2023 |
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Jul 14, 2023 13:58
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I’m sorry, but if you are using ‘colored people’ while speaking, you have 100% been using it for some time. Nobody’s brain just pulls that out
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Jul 14, 2023 14:03
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I don't even think it was any percent a mistake, I think he was doing it to be a white nationalist edgelord, who probably couldn't wait to go on Boningo or something and say "well they say 'people of color' all the time, what's the difference?  "I'm actually going to guess that "colored people" is not Rep. Crane's favorite way to refer to black people in friendly company. It's much too nice.
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Jul 14, 2023 14:04
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Did using the phrase get people talking about him? Mission accomplished from his point of view.
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Jul 14, 2023 14:57
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He's suckering them into his argument since now he can spin it into how he cares about the military and defending America and the only thing Democrats care about in the defense bill is words
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Jul 14, 2023 15:07
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BiggerBoat posted:I've been thinking about this SCOTUS decision about certain businesses being allowed to deny service and, at the risk of a probe, I got to thinking about it and want to play devil's advocate here for a moment. Political beliefs are not a protected class. The negative aspect of the ruling was that the status of LGBTQ+ folks isn't formally determined to be a protected class by the Constitution in actual writing, but through precedent and laws provided by Congress and enforced by the executive branch. The ruling erodes that precedent by asserting religious freedom supersedes the idea that maybe, just maybe, sexuality is a protected class under the Constitution, in spite of it being established as such from prior case law and written law. If the written law stating sexuality is a protected class is ruled in a future case to not be constitutional due to religious establishment, we're really hosed, and that's where the above ruling is attempting to establish case law to do exactly that. If you're open to the public, you ought to serve all comers. That's an important precedent, but not as important as the one suggesting you should serve all protected classes. The ruling suggests, well if you strongly believe a (precedent and law-based) protected class ought to pound sand, you should be permitted to because the government cannot impose secularism on your capitalism. I could be wrong, though. I'm not a legal mind. I'm just a guy who reads this explanation from the room. We need the equal rights amendment to be enshrined into the Constitution.
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Jul 14, 2023 15:25
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The Senate had mandatory hearings and passed a law requiring the declassification of historical UFO documentation in 2022. Several videos were released and the government revealed that it had about 900 records of contact with unidentified flying objects since the 1940's. About 2/3 of them were explainable or debunked, but there were about 300 instances where they were not able to definitely prove what the object was. However, they also have 0 incidents where they were confident that it could have been a confirmed visitation by aliens. The information that has already been released was mostly historical information up through 2014. Schumer wants to create a JFK assassination-style commission of people from outside of the government to review the remaining recent UFO documentation and declassify/make public the results. This bill would require more recent video/documentation to be released and require them to provide review access to all the old archives to check if anything was missing. Seems like it probably won't end up revealing too much. We know that they did not actually find an alien body in the 1950's, but maybe they did in the last 10 years? Still, probably a good idea in principle to have an outside panel periodically reviewing and releasing information as it comes in instead of doing it in 50-year batches. Maybe there wasn't any confirmed UFO activity from 1940 to 2014, but there was a ton of it from 2015 to 2023 and Obama, Trump, and Biden have just been really tight-lipped about it. If passed, all documentation from every government department would have to be turned over to this review board within 300 days. The board would then be granted the power to declassify any classified information, release all of it the information (with an exception that would allow them to redact the names of specific people or a description of tactics used to gather intelligence on other countries), and produce an overall summary report to go with the documents. Some people are supporting it because they think it will help reduce conspiracy theories if there really is nothing there, but those people seem hopelessly naïve because there will never be an end to alien conspiracies. We can't get 100% agreement on whether the earth is round in 2023, so there's no way we are getting consensus on whether aliens have visited earth. One portion of the law also gives the government the authority to confiscate any alien spaceships that are currently in private or corporate possession: quote:it also gives the federal government the power to claim any crashed spaceships in private or corporate hands, however unlikely that such things exist. Superman's baby ship can now be legally confiscated by the federal government if it is ever discovered when the legislation passes. It's not clear where Kryptonite falls on that spectrum and if LexCorp would have to surrender their Kryptonite stores or just actual spaceships. https://twitter.com/SenSchumer/status/1679658426165600256 quote:Bipartisan Measure Aims to Force Release of U.F.O. Records Leon Trotsky 2012 fucked around with this message at 15:34 on Jul 14, 2023 |
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Jul 14, 2023 15:27
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A Bad King posted:Political beliefs are not a protected class. Compromise: You're allowed to refuse service to whoever you want, but then you're not allowed to apply for any sort of government aid if your business starts to tank. Kind of like how you have to prove that you're job hunting while on welfare, refusing someone's business proves that you didn't want to make money.
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Jul 14, 2023 15:33
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the_steve posted:Compromise: You're allowed to refuse service to whoever you want, but then you're not allowed to apply for any sort of government aid if your business starts to tank. I'd rather have the right to not get discriminated against
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Jul 14, 2023 15:36
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Gumball Gumption posted:He's suckering them into his argument since now he can spin it into how he cares about the military and defending America and the only thing Democrats care about in the defense bill is words I think even people who are iffy on trans rights would possibly be swayed by Sec. Austin and a zillion generals coming out and saying, "yes, we're doing this because it's the best way to build a military, not to fill some social agenda, we are a professional killing organization and morality is not our first concern." (Of course, most people are never going to get past the headline anyway. If most people even hear about any of this, which will probably depend on how far it gets pushed, and whether the operation of the Pentagon is in doubt.) The abortion thing is just a total loser for them. As for DEI/CRT, I wonder how much the "simply making white people think about the existence of black people before an election makes them vote more conservative" studies from 10-20 years ago hold up, with the way the electorate has changed. It probably still applies but I bet the effect is diminished.
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Jul 14, 2023 15:47
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An effect of the SCOTUS's business discrimination decision is even greater pressure for people to sort themselves into states/cities/regions on ideological lines. Around where I live, if somebody was refusing service to gay people and it got out, that place would be out of business within weeks, just from people voting with their feet. But somewhere else, hell, a place might get more business for doing that. It stacks nicely with the efforts of pols like Abbott and DeSantis to make their states miserable for anybody who isn't right wing, encouraging conservative immigration and liberal emigration, and will probably keep states like FL, TX and NC red for longer than they would have been otherwise.
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Jul 14, 2023 15:50
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burnishedfume posted:I'd rather have the right to not get discriminated against Me too.
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