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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM

DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#272901: Feb 26th 2019 at 3:04:52 PM

In public, for all to see. How stupid are these people?

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#272902: Feb 26th 2019 at 3:07:36 PM

Not stupid- arrogant. He (rightly) believes he probably won’t face consequences.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#272903: Feb 26th 2019 at 3:10:45 PM

At this point it wouldn't surprise me if they openly threatened Cohen during questioning. Hopefully the Democratic Chair maintains discipline.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#272904: Feb 26th 2019 at 3:12:12 PM

Not stupid- arrogant. He (rightly) believes he probably won’t face consequences.

Sufficient arrogance is indistinguishable from stupidity, that's the kind of behavior that risks going beyond even the generous latitude given to Conservative men.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#272905: Feb 26th 2019 at 3:12:49 PM

Mark Harris the blatant election fraud guy still hasn’t been charged with anything.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#272906: Feb 26th 2019 at 3:19:15 PM

Jacob Wohl, an alt-right Twitter troll who tried to slander and take down Mueller (which was basically using a spitball to fight a battleship), has been banned after he openly bragging to the media about his intent to violate the site's rules. Specifically, he planned to create fake liberal/left-leaning accounts and spread misinformation and lies.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2019/02/26/jacob-wohl-spread-lies-mueller-rbg-twitter-just-banned-him/2995037002/

Edited by Rationalinsanity on Feb 26th 2019 at 7:20:42 AM

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#272907: Feb 26th 2019 at 3:20:07 PM

https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2019/02/26/day-768/

    Day 768: Lawless 

1/ House Democrats introduced a resolution to block and overturn Trump's unilateral national emergency declaration to get the border wall money that Congress denied him. "The President's act is lawless," Nancy Pelosi said. "It does violence to our Constitution and therefore to our democracy. His declaration strikes at the heart of our Founders' concept of America, which demands separation of powers." The House is scheduled to vote today around 5 p.m. or 5:30 p.m. ET. The resolution is expected to pass the House, which would then start an 18-day clock for the Senate to bring it to the floor for a vote where it's also expected to pass. Four Republican votes are needed to ensure passage if all Senate Democrats vote for the disapproval resolution, and three Republican senators — Sens. Susan Collins, Lisa Murkowski and Thom Tillis — have already signaled they will support the measure. Congress has never tried to cancel a national emergency declared by a president, and Trump has vowed to veto any measure that blocks funding for his border wall. (CNN / ABC News / Washington Post / Reuters / Politico / Los Angeles Times)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-congress-idUSKCN1QF0FX

2/ Paul Manafort's attorneys asked for leniency as he faces the possibility of spending the rest of his life in prison. In a court filing, Manafort's attorneys described the 69-year-old as a man who has been "personally, professionally, and financially" broken by Robert Mueller's investigation, and as someone who deserves a sentence "significantly" below the statutory maximum of 10 years in prison after pleading guilty to conspiracy charges. Manafort's lawyers also wrote that because "this case is not about murder, drug cartels, organized crime, the Madoff Ponzi scheme or the collapse of Enron," the former Trump campaign chairman shouldn't be sentenced too harshly. Two federal judges will sentence Manafort on two separate occasions over the next month for criminal charges that include tax and bank fraud, witness tampering, and working as an unregistered lobbyist for a foreign government. (Politico / NPR / The Guardian / Salon)

https://www.npr.org/2019/02/26/698027383/manafort-seeks-leniency-in-sentencing

Manafort gave alleged Russian spy Konstantin Kilimnik 75 pages of recent, "very detailed" campaign polling data on August 2, 2016, which "would have been relevant to a meeting they were having within the [Trump] campaign," redacted court filings by Manafort's lawyers suggest. In an email, Manafort ordered Rick Gates to print out the data so he could share it with Kilimnik. Gates previously testified that Manafort walked Kilimnik through the data at the August 2 meeting. (Emptywheel / Daily Beast)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/paul-manafort-gave-konstantin-kilimnik-75-pages-of-polling-data-docs-suggest

3/ The House Judiciary Committee believes it has evidence that Trump asked then-Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker if an ally could take over the investigation of Michael Cohen and the Trump Organization in the Southern District of New York. The committee is looking into whether Whitaker may have perjured himself when he testified to Congress that he never made "any promises or commitments concerning the special counsel's investigation or any other investigation" to Trump, who wanted Manhattan U.S. attorney Geoffrey Berman to take charge of the investigations. Berman – a former Rudy Giuliani law partner who donated to the Trump campaign in 2016 and was interviewed for the U.S. attorney job by Trump – recused himself from involvement in the matter last year. (Wall Street Journal)

https://www.wsj.com/articles/house-investigators-probe-trump-contact-with-matthew-whitaker-11551144842

4/ A federal appeals court rejected claims that Mueller's appointment was unconstitutional. Andrew Miller, a Roger Stone associate, will now have to testify to a grand jury in Mueller's investigation or go to jail after the appeals court said that Mueller was legally appointed by Rod Rosenstein as special counsel in May 2017. (Politico / CNN)

https://www.cnn.com/2019/02/26/politics/appeals-court-mueller-miller/index.html

A House Democrat filed legislation that would require Mueller's Russia report to be made public and give Congress access to the investigation's underlying evidence. (Reuters)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-report-idUSKCN1QF280

5/ Cohen is expected to publicly accuse and present documents that implicate Trump of "criminal conduct" while in office during public testimony before the House Oversight Committee tomorrow. Cohen will reportedly provide lawmakers with information about Trump's financial statements, including documentation of his reimbursement for the $130,000 payment to Stormy Daniels. Cohen plans to share who signed the $35,000 monthly checks he received as reimbursement for his hush-money payments to Daniels. Cohen is also expected to detail how long Trump remained involved in discussions regarding a plan to build a Trump Tower in Moscow, as well as to detail his "behind-the-scenes" experience of working for Trump for over a decade. Cohen testified behind closed doors before the Senate Intelligence Committee today, where he apologized for the lies he told during his 2017 testimony. (CNN / Axios / Daily Beast / NBC News / Politico / New York Times / Wall Street Journal / Reuters)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-cohen-idUSKCN1QF12R

A Trump ally and sitting U.S. congressman threatened Cohen about exposing his "girlfriends" on the eve of his public House Oversight Committee testimony. "Do your wife and father-in-law know about your girlfriends," Rep. Matt Gaetz tweeted. "Maybe tonight would be a good time for that chat." Gaetz said he was "challenging the veracity and character of a witness," and not trying to intimidate a witness. He added: "This is what it looks like to compete in the marketplace of ideas." (Daily Beast / Axios / VICE News)

https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-ally-rep-matt-gaetz-insists-hes-not-threatening-michael-cohen-by-suggesting-his-wife-will-leave-him

Cohen has been disbarred in New York. Cohen's guilty pleas on charges of tax evasion, excessive campaign contributions, and lying to Congress ensured he would be disbarred. (ABC News)

https://abcnews.go.com/Politics/michael-cohen-president-trumps-personal-attorney-long-time/story?id=61335129

    Notables 
A House committee voted to subpoena Trump administration officials over family separations at the southern border. The resolution will force Trump officials to turn over documents linked to the separation of thousands of migrant children and parents. (Associated Press / Politico)

https://apnews.com/0b012aaaa6454a10a585eb4a848c8541

Thousands of unaccompanied migrant kids suffered sexual abuse while in custody of the U.S. government over the past 4 years. From October 2014 to July 2018, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Refugee Resettlement received 4,556 complaints, and the Department of Justice received 1,303 complaints, including 178 allegations of sexual abuse by adult staff. (Axios / CNN)

https://www.axios.com/immigration-unaccompanied-minors-sexual-assault-3222e230-29e1-430f-a361-d959c88c5d8c.html

Trump announced that American citizen Danny Burch has been freed after spending 18 months in captivity in Yemen. The State Department suggested that Burch was freed as a result of a rescue operation in concert with the United Arab Emirates. Burch lived in Yemen for years working for an oil company and was kidnapped in Sept. 2017 while taking his sons to a local sports club. (NBC News)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-says-danny-burch-american-held-captive-yemen-has-been-n976036

A federal judge approved a move by the Trump administration to ban "bump stocks" for firearms, which allow semi-automatic weapons to be converted to automatic weapons. Opponents say the government does not have the legal authority to enforce the ban. The new rule is set to take effect on Mar. 26, when bump stock owners will be required to turn in or destroy their bump stock attachments. Trump promised to ban bump stocks in the wake of a mass shooting at a music festival in Las Vegas that left 58 people dead in Oct. 2017. (Reuters)

https://www.aol.com/article/news/2019/02/26/judge-gives-green-light-to-donald-trumps-ban-on-gun-bump-stocks/23678081/

U.S. Cyber Command "basically took the IRA offline" during the 2018 midterms. The Internet Research Agency, a Russian troll factory in St. Petersburg and underwritten by an oligarch close to Putin, was part of the cyber campaign to "influence" the 2016 election and undermine faith in U.S. democracy. (Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/us-cyber-command-operation-disrupted-internet-access-of-russian-troll-factory-on-day-of-2018-midterms/2019/02/26/1827fc9e-36d6-11e9-af5b-b51b7ff322e9_story.html

Oruka Since: Dec, 2018
#272908: Feb 26th 2019 at 3:20:32 PM

LGBT-phobic pattern of enforcement

So, cops, as a pattern, act like bigots. What is the systemic reason for their power intoxication manifesting like that, instead of, say, shooting swastika-tattooed men on sight?

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#272909: Feb 26th 2019 at 3:20:47 PM

Not stupid- arrogant. He (rightly) believes he probably won’t face consequences.

I get the impression that Donald becoming president has emboldened them in this regard. "If the president can act like a stupid thug, why shouldn't I be able to?".

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#272910: Feb 26th 2019 at 3:24:44 PM

Mark Harris the blatant election fraud guy still hasn’t been charged with anything.

Sure, and even if he isn't charged with anything he's still declined to run again. Which is undoubtedly a consequence of his actions.

My point is I'm sure this guy feels like he's immune to consequences but that doesn't mean he is, sure he's almost certainly more insulated to them then most of us would like but that's not the same thing as being immune.

So, cops, as a pattern, act like bigots. What is the systemic reason for their power intoxication manifesting like that, instead of, say, shooting swastika-tattooed men on sight?

Because right-wingers tend to be inclined to join the police, many police departments have toxic cultures, and those swastika-tattooed men have a specific term for infiltrating law enforcement.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#272911: Feb 26th 2019 at 3:28:11 PM

There’s also a bit of an instinctive trend- are you a bully who likes power trips and scaring other people? Then you may decide to become a cop because it lets you do that.

Larkmarn Since: Nov, 2010 Relationship Status: Hello, I love you
#272912: Feb 26th 2019 at 3:29:06 PM

I mean, Trump bragged on air to successfully tampering with a witness. It isn't arrogant to think you can get away with it.

Found a Youtube Channel with political stances you want to share? Hop on over to this page and add them.
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#272913: Feb 26th 2019 at 3:44:26 PM

In addition, we live in a society where white supremacy is the norm. It's not terribly surprising to me that police would disproportionately be more suspicious of and harass black and latinx people, because even before becoming policemen, they have been taught that they are less trustworthy and more dangerous. Like I said earlier, the horrible state of policing is a symptom of a larger problem that goes beyond them.

As a result, even the average person is often more willing to give the nazis or white supremacists space ("free speech", "marketplace of ideas", etc), or equate them with movements like BLM despite how ridiculous that is.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Feb 26th 2019 at 7:47:13 AM

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#272914: Feb 26th 2019 at 4:10:53 PM

Not stupid- arrogant. He (rightly) believes he probably won’t face consequences.
You say that as if arrogance-driven stupidity isn't a thing.

[1]

He's actually a left-winger. A straight-up socio-anarchist at times, in fact, with the added bonus of having some better insight in the mindset of southern US country people than most left-wingers. He did a pretty good series on potentially sensible gun legislation. Also the way police training in the US declined in recent decades, resulting in people getting killed senselessly. And, as banal as the inciting incident was, I enjoyed his take on the whole Gillette riot.

I don't quite agree with him on everything (the whole "anarchism" thing just doesn't scale up beyond small communities all that well, if you ask me), but he's not calling for molotov cocktails as the primary means of political discourse, so he's cool in my book.

Thanks for the answer. smile

[2] When you have well-established mechanisms for allowing someone to attend to family business, not using them is essentially pure spite. You get a pointless feeling of moral vindication, and then in the long term you've decided to foster a more hostile environment (including WITHIN your own party), and given someone an excuse to not play by the same rules when you actually can't make the vote.

Since the breakdown of this sort of pairing mechanism in the UK House of Commons has lead to people who should be in hospital being dragged through the chamber, I wouldn't encourage it.

Yeah, no. Fuck that noise. Anyone who honestly believes that attending one's daughter's wedding is a valid enough justification to abstain from deciding whether or not a suspected rapist should be put on the highest court of the land without doing anything to properly verify the rape accusations that had been thrown at him to uphold this tradition is morally bankrupt. And no, "should be in hospital" is not a valid excuse either, not even for a life-or-death reason.

Funny thing is, he knows that's what people expected of a rural Southerner, and he's exactly the opposite. I don't want to tell you, though, because discovering his content piece by piece was a fascinating and rather rewarding experience. There's some positions he takes that I am strongly skeptical of, but overall he brings a fresh perspective and makes some great points. He makes abundant use of sarcasm and satire, true, but he also makes it very clear what he's doing if you pay the slightest attention.

Here's wholehearted recommendation: give him a shot. If you're disappointed, I'll take full responsibility.

Please, why would abundant use of sarcasm and satire turn me off? I'd actually welcome it when it comes to discussing politics, because boy does that topic have a powerful tendency to ruin your mood.

[[/quoteblock]]Partly because the Taliban still has a great deal of local support, and partly because similarly to Vietnam and Korea, we can't take them out without also going to war with the outside government supporting them - Pakistan.[[/quoteblock]] This leaves me wondering why Dubya exempted Pakistan from the "with us or against us" policy that he followed throughout his presidency's part of the War on Terror.

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
Imca (Veteran)
#272915: Feb 26th 2019 at 4:11:44 PM

Plenty of sex workers would find that condescending as hell and say they’d rather get $50 an hour for sex on their own schedule and terms than $7.25 an hour stocking shelves. I’d link an article by a sex worker, but the tumblr purge deleted her page and all her posts.

This, so much fucking this.

I would argue that being for criminalizing sex work is very much anti-woman.... Its our body, we should be fully in control of what we want to do with it, and if that is prostitution? Then so be it.

Just make sure there are good health regulations, and strict enforcement for clients who don't understand no means no.

MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#272916: Feb 26th 2019 at 4:15:57 PM

I would argue that being for criminalizing sex work is very much anti-woman.... Its our body, we should be fully in control of what we want to do with it, and if that is prostitution? Then so be it.
That, or cleaving unto the view that the very idea of sex work, regardless of whether a man or a woman is engaging in it, is wrong... which is typically the purview of religions that restrict sex to marriage.

Guess which demographic is rather dominant in the "anti-sex work" camp that isn't in it for "anti-woman" reasons, as you put it.

Edited by MarqFJA on Feb 26th 2019 at 3:17:02 PM

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
TheAirman Brightness from The vicinity of an area adjacent to a location Since: Feb, 2011 Relationship Status: Historians will say we were good friends.
Brightness
#272917: Feb 26th 2019 at 4:29:51 PM

[up]I might be misreading your post, but in my observations (as a male raised in a religious environment) religions tend to be pretty damn anti-woman.

Edited by TheAirman on Feb 26th 2019 at 6:30:47 AM

PSN ID: FateSeraph | Switch friendcode: SW-0145-8835-0610 Congratulations! She/They
MarqFJA The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer from Deserts of the Middle East (Before Recorded History) Relationship Status: Anime is my true love
The Cosmopolitan Fictioneer
#272918: Feb 26th 2019 at 4:31:53 PM

True, but "tend to be" is not synonymous with "always are". You can be rather "sex-egalitarian" and still hold what many in the Western world would call "puritanical" views on sex, where even kissing outside of marriage is stigmatized. Technically speaking, such views can be harsh against both sexes more or less equally.

Edited by MarqFJA on Feb 26th 2019 at 3:33:17 PM

Fiat iustitia, et pereat mundus.
nombretomado (Season 1) Relationship Status: [TOP SECRET]
#272919: Feb 26th 2019 at 4:37:25 PM

True, but I would argue that sex in a negative light is correlated strongly with the female in most conservative religions.

From personal experience, individuals may be equally reprimanded or directed, but as blocs the female congregants get the shorter end of the stick.

ETA: but a further conversation on that probably belongs in a different thread, since it goes to religion and sex, not necessarily direct American politics.

Edited by nombretomado on Feb 26th 2019 at 4:41:01 AM

ILikeRobots Aspirant Creativity Wizard from the worlds of my imagination Since: Aug, 2016 Relationship Status: You cannot grasp the true form
Aspirant Creativity Wizard
#272920: Feb 26th 2019 at 4:41:32 PM

[up] x2 Yeah, I'm tossing my lot in with the whole "In practice it tends to be women who are stigmatized the most" thing. Virginity and abstaining from sex before marriage is huge in Christianity, for example, technically for both sexes, but you don't hear about men being "[insert misogynistic slur here]" for having pre-marital sex the way women are. Women deal with misogyny and slut-shaming as a result of those values much more than men do.

Adventurers: homeless people who steal from tombs and kill things.
Ramidel Since: Jan, 2001
#272921: Feb 26th 2019 at 4:44:24 PM

Also, people who are actually equally against both sides of sex work can be used as useful idiots for the ones who are using it as a tool for oppressing women.

Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#272923: Feb 26th 2019 at 4:50:58 PM

He's going to declare another emergency about them blocking his first emergency I bet

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#272924: Feb 26th 2019 at 4:54:05 PM

As one of my teachers put it, "Feminism is divided against a very united misogyny."

But yes, one of the things that will happen as more equality happens is how that manifests will be different as what people define as the good life will vary from person to person.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#272925: Feb 26th 2019 at 4:54:47 PM

With police and racism there's a few elements to it.

The simplest element is just that society itself is racist, which means racists are eventually going to end up joining the police (even if the police are trying to keep them out), and that the system in general is going to be stacked against ethnic minorities. Also, it really doesn't take a lot to cause big problems in policing.

Another issue is also that there isn't much federal regulation, so local police can vary in quality. One police department can be really nice to ethnic minorities while another is openly cruel. This should probably be fixed.

Also, I think police tend to get the impression that ethnic minorities they deal with will claim to be victims of police racism over anything. This creates a pretty unhealthy mindset. I've seen it happen a million times, people see a few false accusations of bigotry then become completely blind to the existence of bigotry.

Leviticus 19:34

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