Nov 2023 Mod notice:
There may be other, more specific, threads about some aspects of US politics, but this one tends to act as a hub for all sorts of related news and information, so it's usually one of the busiest OTC threads.
If you're new to OTC, it's worth reading the Introduction to On-Topic Conversations
and the On-Topic Conversations debate guidelines before posting here.
Rumor-based, fear-mongering and/or inflammatory statements that damage the quality of the thread will be thumped. Off-topic posts will also be thumped. Repeat offenders may be suspended.
If time spent moderating this thread remains a distraction from moderation of the wiki itself, the thread will need to be locked. We want to avoid that, so please follow the forum rules when posting here.
In line with the general forum rules, 'gravedancing' is prohibited here. If you're celebrating someone's death or hoping that they die, your post will get thumped. This rule applies regardless of what the person you're discussing has said or done.
Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
It will be deeply fascinating in 2024 if we have a race between Haley, Ivanka, Rubio and someone like Tucker Carlson or Steve King, I’d expect the Republican Party’s internal power-brokers to fail the same way they did with Rubio in 2016, but who knows.
Throw Kanye West in there, too, to have a black male rapper who is still completely in their camp.
Redmess
Angry and loud doesn't seem to be Ivanka's style anyway, from what I've seen.
But I agree that it seems more likely that Trump pushes one of his children to run instead of him, so he can be pardoned. Perhaps he will push Jared Kushner into the spot. He certainly seems to like Kushner better as a substitute son than his actual sons. And just look at the pile of important jobs he gave the guy.
Optimism is a duty.
Missed a few pages, but this statement - There is kind of a sentiment of "American-made products are better because they're American-made" going around, so it's not as if the two are completely separate. - isn't the same as what most people are thinking. The impetus of "Buy American" for most people (including my parents) is "This way you're supporting American workers who are likely being treated well, or at least aren't being abused to the point of becoming suicidal like you see from Chinese manufacturers, and are effectively rewarding companies that hire American workers rather than head overseas and leave American workers jobless."
"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
Phyllis Schafly's recent biopic, Mrs. America, really missed the mark for a lot of people as it seemed to completely misunderstand the woman. While it understood that Phyllis was willing to throw feminism under the bus and lie repeatedly to increase her own political statue—it missed she was also an enormous racist like Trump and many of his talking points came from her.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Figure of Hourai
![[up]](https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/smiles/arrow_up.png "[up]"){kind=icon}
That, plus it's "they're not cheap Chinese stuff", where it's more of a focus on not being from China.
Lost in Space
It is reasonable to want one's products to be manufactured without human rights abuses, but that's not how "Buy American" plays for most people.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
Yeah, that show was too kind to Schlafly by half.
Disasturbator
You could say,they white washed her
New theme music also a box
Redmess
Supporting Americans that are likely being treated well? Perhaps you want to visit a meat packing plant or Amazon Enrichment Centre near you?
Optimism is a duty.
Pretentious Git
Does anyone have a link to that study about candidate's voting records being worse indicators than their campaign platforms? I'm trying to find it and google isn't coming through.
What matters in this life is much more than winning for ourselves. What really matters is helping others win, too. - F. Rogers.
I’ve found a couple articles from 538 on it, I think they link to studies within their articles. [1], [2].
The gist is that politicians, even the likes of Trump, will make good-faith attempts to do the major policy ideas that they ran on. Politicians aren’t actually the consummated liars that the public think they are.
Edited by Silasw on Jul 13th 2020 at 11:39:45 AM
The notion that politicians are liars is based in part on a sort of bias steamroller of sorts, I'd imagine. Basically, it's a tendency to view your political opposites as easily-manipulated sheep and the politicians they support as evil masterminds. This also helps excuse a person from actually critically thinking about the opposing ideology, pulling a sort of Debate and Switch in your mind.
For what it's worth, Politicians usually make statements that are too vague or subjective to be straight-up false. A better criticism of Politicians as a general group is that, instead of lying per se, they simply make statements that don't actually have any substance. For example:
"It's been a very rough time this year. However, I still believe the American Dream can be salvaged. I intend to institute policies that will help secure liberty and justice for our nation. Together, we will Build a Better Future Together™. I'm Protagonist 506, and I approve this message"
This statement essentially means nothing.
For what it's worth, you could argue the statement is lying in that it might encourage someone to think I'm saying something of substance. In some cases, a statement like that can even imply something specific and only says nothing if you think about it, which is arguably a type of lie.
A good example might be what I call a "Mat Pat Defense", where a person claims to just be stating a theory some people might believe without declaring it straight up true ("But that's just a theory!"). A more specific example would actually be Ancient Aliens, which actually rarely says outright that "aliens influenced human history", instead preferring to ask a vague question like "Is it possible aliens influenced human history?" before listing a bunch of arguments implying that they did and ending on "we'll let you draw your own conclusions".
"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"
Industrious Incisors
There's also, I've noticed, a history of bad-faith politicians intentionally demonizing themselves so as to also make actual honest politicians look bad, making up their own losses with an "At Least I Admit It" "defense."
SoundCloud
The notion that politicians are liars is based in part on a sort of bias steamroller of sorts, I'd imagine. Basically, it's a tendency to view your political opposites as easily-manipulated sheep and the politicians they support as evil masterminds. This also helps excuse a person from actually critically thinking about the opposing ideology, pulling a sort of Debate and Switch in your mind.
For what it's worth, Politicians usually make statements that are too vague or subjective to be straight-up false. A better criticism of Politicians as a general group is that, instead of lying per se, they simply make statements that don't actually have any substance. For example:
Another serious problem is that the average person doesn't realize how hard it is to pass legislation, Congress in many ways is a bill eating monster.
So if a politician gets elected on the promise of passing x and then fails to pass it from the perspective of the average person it must've happened because they never had any intention of passing it in the first place. But with how Congress works it's more than plausible that the legislator in question put forth a good faith effort to pass it and just failed.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 13th 2020 at 6:02:24 AM
"Sandwiches are probably easier to fix than the actual problems" -Hylarn
Similarly, another issue is that, as it turns out, running a vast and labyrinthine civilization is actually rather complicated and filled with a ton of ethical dilemmas and logistical trade-offs and you can't please everyone. And that's before getting into the actual game of politics itself, where you have to actually struggle to maintain your power to begin with.
"Any campaign world where an orc samurai can leap off a landcruiser to fight a herd of Bulbasaurs will always have my vote of confidence"
Today's What the Fuck Just Happened Today?
https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2020/07/13/day-1271/
Day 1271: "Highest risk."
U.S.: Total confirmed cases: ~3,347,000; deaths: ~136,000
Source: Johns Hopkins University
1/ Trump’s advisers anonymously sent media outlets a “lengthy list” of remarks made by Dr. Anthony Fauci in an effort to discredit him and stop him from making additional statements about the dangers of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic. One White House official said several Trump administration officials are “concerned about the number of times Dr. Fauci has been wrong on things,” citing Fauci’s comments in January that the coronavirus was “not a major threat” and his guidance in March that “people should not be walking around with masks.” The scientific and medical consensus on how to respond to the virus, however, has evolved over time, both in the U.S. and around the world. Many of Fauci’s “wrong” statements highlighted by the White House official were based on the best available data at the time and were widely echoed by Trump, other members of the coronavirus task force, and senior White House officials. Fauci, meanwhile, said that the states recently reopening had driven a spike in cases across the country. “We did not shut down entirely,” Fauci said. “And that’s the reason why — when we went up, we started to come down, and then we plateaued at a level that was really quite high, about 20,000 infections a day. Then, as we started to reopen, we’re seeing the surges that we’re seeing today as we speak.” (NBC News / Washington Post / New York Times / ABC News)
https://abcnews.go.com/US/white-house-seeks-discredit-fauci-memo-leaked-reporters/story?id=71745265
https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/providing-evidence-trump-tweets-message-attacking-cdc-doctors/story?id=71749066
[[quoteblock]]
2/ Internal CDC documents warned that fully reopening K-12 schools and universities would be the “highest risk” for the spread of coronavirus. The 69-page document was circulated within the administration as Trump attacked the CDC guidelines around reopening schools as “too tough” and he, Pence, and Education Secretary Betsy DeVos increased their pressure on schools to fully reopen by the fall. During a White House task force briefing last week, Pence announced that the CDC would issue new guidance on reopening schools next week because “we just don’t want the guidance to be too tough.” CDC Director Dr. Robert Redfield, however, later said that the CDC would not be releasing new guidance nor changing the guidance. (New York Times / CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/11/politics/cdc-documents-warn-high-risk-schools-reopening/index.html
[[quoteblock]]Betsy DeVos refused to say whether schools should follow the CDC guidelines on reopening, saying the guidelines are meant to be “flexible.” DeVos also told “Fox News Sunday” that “If schools aren’t going to reopen and not fulfill that promise, they shouldn’t get the funds,” and that the money should be redirected to families who can use it to find another option for their children. (CNN / Axios / Politico)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/12/politics/betsy-devos-schools-reopening-coronavirus-cnntv/index.html
The Los Angeles and San Diego unified school districts will be remote-only in the fall. The two largest public school districts in California enroll about 825,000 students. (Los Angeles Times / Axios / New York Times)
https://www.axios.com/los-angeles-san-diego-schools-reopen-9c8db4ef-7c3f-41b3-be3d-88859fc37829.html
Attorneys general in 17 states and the District of Columbia sued the Trump administration over its guidance to not allow foreign students to take online-only courses this fall. Harvard and Massachusetts Institute of Technology also filled lawsuits against the guidance last week and nearly 100 members of Congress sent a letter to DHS urging the department to rescind the policy. (CNN / New York Times)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/13/politics/trump-administration-visa-rules-lawsuit/index.html
3/ Two top health officials in the Trump administration said they “expect deaths to go up” in the U.S. as coronavirus cases continue to skyrocket in parts of the country. Admiral Brett Giroir, an assistant secretary with the Health and Human Services department, and surgeon general Dr. Jerome Adams both emphasized their concerns about the surging outbreaks, many of which are occurring in areas where people haven’t followed the recommendations from the CDC on how to limit the spread. “We’re all very concerned about the rise in cases, no doubt about that,” said Adm. Giroir, who has been in charge of the Trump administration’s testing response. “We do expect deaths to go up. If you have more cases, more hospitalizations, we do expect to see that over the next two or three weeks before this turns around.” (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/12/health/coronavirus-trump-deaths.html
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/coronavirus/article244173462.html
California Gov. Gavin Newsom ordered indoor operations for restaurants, wineries, bars, movie theaters, and more to close immediately. 30 counties – which represent about 80% of Californians – will also be required to close fitness centers, places of worship, offices for noncritical sectors, personal care services, hair salons, barbershops, and malls. (CNBC / Politico / Axios)
Trump wore a mask for the first time in public. [Editor’s note: I can’t believe this is “news” but here we are.] (CBS News / CNN / Associated Press)
4/ Trump commuted Roger Stone’s jail sentence, who was convicted in 2019 of seven felonies for lying to Congress, witness tampering, and obstructing the House investigation into whether Trump’s campaign colluded with Russia to win the 2016 election. Stone was scheduled to begin his 40-month prison sentence on Tuesday. The White House denounced the “overzealous prosecutors” who convicted Stone on “process-based charges” as a result of the “witch hunts” as part of the “Russia hoax” investigation. The letter does not argue that Stone is innocent, only that he should not have been investigated in the first place. Attorney General William Barr recommended against granting Stone clemency. (Washington Post / New York Times / NBC News / Associated Press / Politico / BBC / CNN)
https://apnews.com/4d9cba90d023cde628040b1ca0eb89fd
https://www.politico.com/news/2020/07/11/mueller-op-ed-stone-russia-357260
5/ The White House granted Trump a second 45-day extension to file his personal financial disclosure forms. The forms, which were originally due on May 15, are supposed to detail Trump’s income, debt, stock holdings, and outstanding loans for 2019, but Trump got an extension until the end of June. On June 29, Scott Gast, deputy counsel to the president, granted Trump a second extension, until Aug. 13. Federal law allows only two such extensions. (Washington Post)
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/13/us/trump-gun-silencer-exports.html
China announced retaliatory sanctions against U.S. officials in response to U.S. sanctions over Beijing’s treatment of Uyghurs and other Turkic minorities in China’s Xinjiang Province. Among the U.S. officials and organizations named in the sanctions are Sens. Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, Rep. Chris Smith, Ambassador at Large for International Religious Freedom Sam Brownback, and the Congressional-Executive Commission on China. A spokesperson for China announced the sanctions at a press conference on Monday, calling on the U.S. to “stop interfering in China’s international affairs.” The U.S. sanctions against Chinese officials include the freezing of all US assets and a block preventing US nationals from conducting business with them. “We urge the US to immediately withdraw its wrong decision and stop interfering in China’s internal affairs or undermining China’s interests,” the spokesperson said. (CNN / The Guardian / Politico)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/13/asia/china-us-xinjiang-sanctions-intl-hnk/index.html
Trump reportedly considered “selling” or “divesting” Puerto Rico in 2017 after the island was devastated by Hurricane Maria. According to Elaine Duke, who was serving as DHS’ acting secretary when the hurricane hit the island, Trump’s “initial ideas were more of as a businessman” and that he asked “Can we outsource the electricity? Can we can we sell the island? You know, or divest of that asset?” (New York Times / CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/12/politics/trump-puerto-rico-hurricane-maria/index.html
Trump criticized a privately built border wall by his supporters in South Texas, saying it was “only done to make me look bad.” A segment of the wall along the Texas-Mexico border was showing dangerous “signs of erosion“ only months after being completed. (Associated Press / Politico)
https://apnews.com/a3f8fe11e88898cd4fa96ea50038e57d
Trump claimed that “nobody ever heard” that Abraham Lincoln was a member of the Republican Party before Trump became president. “Like people don’t remember, nobody ever heard of it until I came along, nobody remembered it for a long time, or they didn’t use it at least, I use it all the time: Abraham Lincoln was a Republican,” Trump said. He added: “You know you say that and people say, ‘I didn’t know that,’ but he was Republican, so we’re doing a great job.” (Twitter / The Independent)
A couple days after his head writer was revealed to be ridiculously racist, Tucker Carlson is going on a "pre-planned" vacation for a few days. This is the same thing that happened to every other host on the network that landed in hot water.
Tucker Carlson is one of the biggest racists on television.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
If there's any kind of justice, he'll be canned from Fox News.
"In a move surprising absolutely no one"
In other words, he's not going anywhere.
It's hardly a new development, of course.
Nor is Neff the only bigot Carlson has employed. In 2017, the Southern Poverty Law Center argued that “the Daily Caller has a white nationalist problem.” It reported that the website had published Jason Kessler, whose contributions to the Caller were removed after he organized the infamous “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville where neo-Nazi violence led to the murder of an anti-racist activist. During the time the Caller was publishing Kessler, the site’s deputy editor was Scott Greer, who was extensively photographed keeping company with such far-right groups as the Wolves of Vinland.
The Daily Caller initially rejected criticism of Greer, but ended up severing ties with him when it turned out that he had written under a pseudonym for Radix Journal, a white nationalist publication founded by neo-Nazi Richard Spencer. According to a report in The Atlantic, “Greer expressed racist antiblack views and anti-Semitism in the Radix articles he wrote under the Michael Mc Gregor byline, and disparaged other groups including feminists, immigrants, Christian Zionists, and the pro-life movement.”
Aside from Neff, Kessler, and Greer, at least eight other writers with white nationalist ties have written for The Daily Caller, according to a detailed survey by Media Matters. They include Jonah Bennet, who participated in a white nationalist group chat.
Having one racist in your publication might be an accident, but having a dozen (if we include Carlson himself) suggests a more sinister pattern. There is, in fact, a racist social network that has a beachhead in Carlson’s media empire.
Edited by Eschaton on Jul 13th 2020 at 9:35:56 AM
Lost in Space
OMG what, a Fox News host with a racist writing staff? I'm shocked, shocked I tell you. Someone fetch my smelling salts.
"It's Occam's Shuriken! If the answer is elusive, never rule out ninjas!"
I'm also suddenly reminded of how much Trump admired Phyllis Schafly. Y'know, the apparent real life inspiration for Serena Lovejoy. Also the mother of Andrew Schafly, the creator of Conservapedia (which I guess explains some things).
Edited by M84 on Jul 13th 2020 at 5:45:16 PM
Disgusted, but not surprised