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TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#273451: Mar 6th 2019 at 10:42:43 AM

God, I hope not. If she's not actually on the ballot, any attempt at writing her in is just a wasted vote that could have gone to an actual Democratic candidate with a chance of winning.

I love Clinton to death, but let's not shackle ourselves to an inevitable Trump re-election by pretending she's running if she actually isn't.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Mar 6th 2019 at 11:43:37 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
RainingMetal (Handed A Sword) Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
Parable Since: Aug, 2009
#273453: Mar 6th 2019 at 11:26:23 AM

In light of the fact that Fox News is so obviously in bed with Trump and so any pretense of fairness would be nonexistent, the DNC has announced that they won't let the network broadcast any of the Democratic primary debates.

Edited by Parable on Mar 6th 2019 at 11:26:41 AM

PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#273454: Mar 6th 2019 at 12:26:17 PM

Are they crying "FREE SPEECH!1!!!11!!!" yet?

i'm tired, my friend
Soban Since: Aug, 2009 Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
#273455: Mar 6th 2019 at 12:31:16 PM

Meh, I'm huge on free speech. However, if they don't want Fox to broadcast what they say, that's their right.

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#273456: Mar 6th 2019 at 12:36:14 PM

Trump is (again) stating that the Democrats cannot legitimately win the 2020 election, raising the issue of him refusing to concede (and the hilarious image of him being dragged out of the White House by the Secret Service). This wouldn't change the election results obviously, but would likely do further harm to US democratic institutions and people's trust in them.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/06/politics/donald-trump-2020-election-illegitimate/index.html

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#273457: Mar 6th 2019 at 12:37:52 PM

When the projection is juuuust right

i'm tired, my friend
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#273458: Mar 6th 2019 at 1:21:00 PM

Meh, I'm huge on free speech. However, if they don't want Fox to broadcast what they say, that's their right.

Indeed, free speech has nothing to do with this.

  1. The DNC isn't the government. Therefore free speech rights don't apply.
  2. Fox can still say what it wants.
  3. Fox simply isn't being brought in to broadcast it.

Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#273459: Mar 6th 2019 at 1:24:29 PM

99% of the time people invoking free speech in this way are actually saying "i want to be able to do and say whatever I want, without any criticisms or consequences" and also "People are obligated to give me a platform and listen to what I have to say", the former being immature at best and the latter a delusion.

Edited by Draghinazzo on Mar 6th 2019 at 5:25:45 AM

PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#273460: Mar 6th 2019 at 1:25:35 PM

[up][up]That won't stop the right from complaining about it.

Edited by PhysicalStamina on Mar 6th 2019 at 4:25:46 AM

i'm tired, my friend
CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#273461: Mar 6th 2019 at 1:26:15 PM

People who often claim free speech are the most interested in suppressing the speech of others.

Free speech for them, silence for others.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#273462: Mar 6th 2019 at 1:30:56 PM

IIRC Drunken Nordmann mentioned some time ago in another thread that Goebbels himself once remarked "How foolish of them to give us the right of speech, for we will not return the courtesy" or something along those lines.

ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#273463: Mar 6th 2019 at 1:43:16 PM

Unfortunately, that DNC move will inevitably spawn the "Both sides!" bullshit, and this time in regards to Trump's litany of "the press can't be trusted!"

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#273464: Mar 6th 2019 at 2:02:13 PM

[up][up]

"When our enemies say: But we did allow you to freely voice your opinions — yes, you allowed us, but that isn't a reason for us to return the favour. That you let us do as such just proves how stupid you are!"

The translation is by me, as back then I couldn't find a pre-existing English translation.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Mar 6th 2019 at 11:04:45 AM

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#273465: Mar 6th 2019 at 2:28:44 PM

I've come to realize the "both sides" nonsense stems from the general public holding the left's behavior under a tight scrutiny that the right is simply not subjected to. Whenever someone on the left gets a bit snarky on Twitter, they're treated to tut-tutting, finger waving, and tone policing, while the right can dox, murder, and harass people for pointing out a sexist/racist/etc. moment in a TV show or video game and people will just shrug and go, "Eh, what are you gonna do?" They're always badgering us about civility and professionalism or whatever, but they never do the same to the right.

i'm tired, my friend
BearyScary Since: Sep, 2010 Relationship Status: You spin me right round, baby
Draghinazzo (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: I get a feeling so complicated...
#273467: Mar 6th 2019 at 2:44:44 PM

[up][up]To an extent, the average person is liable to hold a certain right-wing bias because the right for a long time represented the status quo, and people are afraid of things that are too different and make them feel guilty (as many of the left's criticisms do). That's why you have people (typically whites) raising a much bigger fuss about certain left-wing talking points, whereas white supremacists get met with a "yeah of course they're bad and shouldn't be in power, but free speech you know?".

PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#273468: Mar 6th 2019 at 2:50:12 PM

[up]Pretty much. At the end of the day, people just wanna feel good. Or at least avoid feeling bad.

i'm tired, my friend
wisewillow She/her Since: May, 2011
She/her
#273469: Mar 6th 2019 at 3:14:18 PM

Admitting that the world is on fire is really hard, because it means admitting that you didn’t notice before, and therefore you did nothing to help stop the problem, and therefore you are either stupid, ignorant, or a jerk.

People would rather claim that problems aren’t so bad than reckon with that realization.

Robrecht Your friendly neighbourhood Regent from The Netherlands Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: They can't hide forever. We've got satellites.
Your friendly neighbourhood Regent
#273470: Mar 6th 2019 at 3:16:47 PM

[up][up][up] The Right always represents the Status Quo, a movement's position towards the Status Quo (and the balance of power therein) is what the Right-Left scale denotes.

The general 'Right-Left' linear progression is:

Far Right: Wants to return to a (mythical) past Status Quo when things were great.
Right: Wants to maintain the Status Quo (in the form of the current balance of power).
Centrist: (in theory) Wants the good parts of the current Status Quo to remain while replacing the bad parts with better things. (in practice) Wants to allow progress only so long as it doesn't interfere with their own position of power in the current Status Quo.
Left: Wants to change the balance of power from the current Status Quo to one where power is more equally distributed.
Far Left: Wants to violently and immediately dismantle the current Status Quo and put in place a (mythical) better, more equal one.

Edited by Robrecht on Mar 6th 2019 at 12:19:06 PM

Angry gets shit done.
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#273471: Mar 6th 2019 at 3:18:28 PM

That's not what right wing and left wing denote at all.

Robrecht Your friendly neighbourhood Regent from The Netherlands Since: Jan, 2001 Relationship Status: They can't hide forever. We've got satellites.
Your friendly neighbourhood Regent
#273472: Mar 6th 2019 at 3:19:40 PM

[up]Well, go ahead then, explain.

Angry gets shit done.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#273473: Mar 6th 2019 at 3:21:16 PM

https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2019/03/06/day-776/

    Day 776: Unusual 

1/ Trump pressured John Kelly and White House counsel Don Mc Gahn to give Ivanka a security clearance against their recommendations. While Trump does have the legal authority to grant clearances to anyone he wants, those decisions are typically left to the White House personnel security office, which raised concerns. Trump wanted Kelly and Mc Gahn to make the final decision so it wouldn't look like he had a hand in the process. After both of them refused, Trump granted the clearance anyway. (CNN)

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/05/politics/ivanka-trump-security-clearance-pressure/index.html

📌 Day 770: Trump ordered John Kelly to grant Jared Kushner a top-secret security clearance last year and overrule concerns by intelligence officials and Donald Mc Gahn, the White House's top lawyer. Both Kelly and Mc Gahn wrote contemporaneous internal memos outlining Trump's "order" to give Kushner the clearance. In January, Trump said he had no role in Kushner receiving his clearance. (New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/28/us/politics/jared-kushner-security-clearance.html

2/ On 11 different occasions while in office time Trump issued personal checks to Michael Cohen meant as reimbursement for the hush money payments Cohen made to Stormy Daniels during the 2016 election. The dates on the checks show Trump was simultaneously managing affairs of state while also repaying his former personal attorney for keeping Trump's personal secrets hidden from the public. Of the eight checks now available, seven were for $35,000 and another was for $70,000. Six were signed by Trump and the other two were signed by Trump Jr. and Allen Weisselberg, the the Trump Organization's chief financial officer. (New York Times)

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/03/05/us/politics/trump-michael-cohen-checks.html

📌 Day 769: During public testimony before the House Oversight Committee, Michael Cohen accused Trump of "criminal conduct" while in office, including the fact that Trump knew ahead of time about Wiki Leaks' plan to release DNC emails that were intended to damage Hillary Clinton's 2016 presidential campaign. Cohen testified that Trump "asked me to pay off an adult film star with whom he had an affair" with $130,000 of his own money weeks before the 2016 election "to avoid any money being traced back to him that could negatively impact his campaign." Cohen also described his relationship with Trump: "He is a racist. He is a conman. He is a cheat." (New York Times / Washington Post / Reuters / Vox / Wall Street Journal / Politico)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-cohen-idUSKCN1QG0IZ

Michael Cohen provided documents to the House Intelligence Committee showing edits to the 2017 false written statement he delivered to Congress about the Trump Organization's continued pursuit of the Trump Tower Moscow project during the 2016 campaign. It was Cohen's fourth appearance before Congress since last week. (CNN / ABC News / Washington Post)

https://www.cnn.com/2019/03/06/politics/michael-cohen-testimony-congress/index.html

3/ Trump intends to nominate Jessie Liu to be the associate attorney general. Liu is the current U.S. attorney for the District of Columbia, which has taken the lead on handling Mueller's criminal case against Roger Stone, and convened a grand jury to investigate whether former FBI Deputy Director Andrew Mc Cabe should face criminal charges for lying to investigators about his interactions with reporters. By moving Liu out of that job, Trump can now nominate somebody to oversee some of the prosecutions brought by Mueller. Liu also served on Trump's transition transition team at the Justice Department. She acknowledged that her 2017 in-person interview with Trump before he nominated her to be U.S. attorney was "unusual," since U.S. attorneys don't normally meet with the president as part of the interview process. (Wall Street Journal / Reuters / Politico / Washington Post / NBC News)

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-justice-liu/trump-to-nominate-federal-prosecutor-jessie-liu-for-no-3-justice-department-post-idUSKCN1QM2RH

The Senate confirmed a judge to a lifetime appointment who once interned at the Alliance Defending Freedom, which is designated as an anti-LGBTQ hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center. (Washington Post)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/dc-md-va/2019/03/06/senate-just-confirmed-judge-who-interned-an-anti-lgbtq-group-shell-serve-life/

The Senate confirmed a judge who supported a lawsuit challenging the Affordable Care Act. (Politico)

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/06/senate-confirms-judicial-nominee-opposed-obamacare-1207807

Mitch Mc Connell is again preparing to use the "nuclear option" to change Senate rules and allow a simple majority to confirm conservative judges to lifetime appointments. The Senate is on track to confirm Trump's 34th Circuit Court judge. (Politico)

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/06/trump-mcconnell-judges-1205722

The Mueller report no one's talking about: Justice Department rules require an accounting of any time supervisors told the special counsel "no" during his work. (Politico)

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/03/06/mueller-report-special-counsel-1206147

4/ The U.S. trade deficit on goods ballooned to $891.3 billion in 2018 – the highest ever – driven in part by Trump's $1.5 trillion tax cut. Since Trump imposed tariffs on steel, aluminum and other Chinese goods, the trade deficit grew by 12.5% from 2017, or nearly $70 billion dollars. Trump's trade war with China and others has cost the U.S. at least $19.2 billion, with Americans paying at least $12.3 billion to the U.S. government in tariffs while losing $6.9 billion in income due to trade-war-related market disruptions. (New York Times / Washington Post / Quartz)

https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump-promised-to-shrink-the-trade-deficit-instead-it-exploded/2019/03/05/35d3b1e0-3f8f-11e9-a0d3-1210e58a94cf_story.html

poll/ 40% of Florida voters believed Trump should be reelected, while 53% are opposed to a second term. Trump has a 43% approval rating in Florida with 52% viewing him unfavorably — and 46% very unfavorably. (Bendixen and Amandi International / Politico)

https://www.politico.com/f/?id=00000169-505f-dc75-affd-dfffe1070000

    Notables 
New commercial imagery and analysis reveal that North Korea has started a "rapid rebuilding" of its long-range ballistic missile site at the Sohae Launch Facility. The site is North Korea's only operational space launch facility, and uses similar technology to what is used to launch intercontinental ballistic missiles. The renewed activity was observed just two days after the latest summit in Hanoi, Vietnam between Trump and Kim Jong-Un, and "may indicate North Korean plans to demonstrate resolve in the face of U.S. rejection of North Korea's demands at the summit to lift five U.N. Security Council sanctions enacted in 2016-2017," according to a project sponsored by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. (NBC News / New York Times)

https://www.nbcnews.com/news/north-korea/north-korea-rebuilding-long-range-rocket-site-photos-show-n979721

Trump canceled the requirement that U.S. intelligence officials publicly report the numbers of people killed in drone strikes and other attacks on terrorist targets outside of war zones. The Obama-era rule was part of an accountability effort to minimize civilian deaths from drone strikes. (Bloomberg / NBC News)

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/donald-trump/trump-cancels-obama-policy-reporting-drone-strike-deaths-n980156

ICE has been keeping tabs on a series of left-leaning and "anti-Trump protests" in New York City. The agency tracked protests that promoted immigrants' rights and those that opposed Trump's deportation policies, plus one protest against the NRA and one that was organized by a sitting member of Congress. (The Nation)

https://www.thenation.com/article/ice-immigration-protest-spreadsheet-tracking/

The Democratic National Committee will not allow Fox News to broadcast any of its 2020 presidential primary debates. DNC Chairman Tom Perez cited the New Yorker story this week that detailed how Fox has promoted Trump's agenda, suggesting that the network had become a "propaganda" vehicle for Trump. (NPR / Washington Post)

https://www.npr.org/2019/03/06/700807729/dnc-bars-fox-news-from-hosting-2020-primary-debates

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#273474: Mar 6th 2019 at 3:33:17 PM

[up][up] Hierarchy as opposed to egalitarianism is one. Unless you add in economics, in which case it's a sliding scale of free market to communism.

Trying to map it as "reactionary" to "radical change" causes issues with trying to identify anything that might normally be considered a left-wing position as right-wing once it's actually in place.

Protagonist506 from Oregon Since: Dec, 2013 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
#273475: Mar 6th 2019 at 3:38:12 PM

@Robretch: Those are what the terms meant when they were created, during the French Revolution (and specifically refer to the status quo before the revolution). However, those definitions of "left" and "right" are not particularly useful in the general sense. Basically, for that to work you need to have a specific era that's being progressed beyond or harkened back to, and different societies go back and forth on paradigms quite often, and many political ideologies are actually rather ancient.

Edited by Protagonist506 on Mar 6th 2019 at 3:38:41 AM

Leviticus 19:34

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