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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
I'm not sure if "find me an apolitical reason to call this career politician, whose life's work is literally politics and whose policies within government are directly inimical to the lives of his constituents and fellow Americans, a murderer", can really be read as good-faith anymore. He's a politician. Everything he does is political.
It's been fun.This is one of the problems I find with a lot of more conservative minded people or former Republicans.
The difficulty believing that so much of the evil in politics is so disproportionate.
It's not just politics in general, it's almost entirely one side.
The general belief is that all politicians are like this or that's just how the system is and always has been and that it really can't be that black and white.
Edited by LeGarcon on Aug 7th 2019 at 12:12:06 PM
Oh really when?![]()
And it has been firmly establish that McConnell's politics are garbage.
https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2019/08/07/day-930/
📌 Day 844: The White House asked Don McGahn to declare that Trump never obstructed justice. Two requests by presidential advisers show how far the White House has gone to try to push back on accusations that the president obstructed justice. McGahn initially entertained the request. "We did not perceive it as any kind of threat or something sinister," McGahn's attorney said in a statement. "It was a request, professionally and cordially made." (New York Times)
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/us/politics/mcgahn-trump-obstruction.html
📌 Day 851: Trump instructed former White House counsel Don McGahn to defy a congressional subpoena and skip a House Judiciary Committee hearing scheduled for Tuesday. The committee subpoenaed McGahn to appear to answer questions about Trump's attempts to obstruct justice during the Russia investigation, but the White House presented McGahn with a 15-page legal opinion from the Justice Department that states, "Congress may not constitutionally compel the president’s senior advisers to testify about their official duties." The current White House counsel sent a letter to the committee explaining that Trump instructed McGahn not to appear due to the "constitutional immunity" outlined in the DOJ legal opinion, "and in order to protect the prerogatives of the office of the presidency." (New York Times / ABC News / Washington Post)
📌 Day 852: Former White House counsel Don McGahn failed to appear at hearing in front of the House Judiciary Committee, following Trump's instructions to ignore the congressional subpoena. "Our subpoenas are not optional," Committee chair Jerry Nadler said after McGahn failed to show up. Nadler also warned that "one way or another," the panel will hear from McGahn, even if that means holding McGahn in contempt of Congress for failing to appear. "This committee," he said, "will have no choice but to enforce the subpoena against him." (Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/6384c08d99de4bfa982cdd5065f63434
📌 Day 872: Jerry Nadler agreed to delay a vote to hold Barr and McGahn in contempt of Congress after reaching the deal with the Department of Justice for evidence from the Mueller report. The House will still proceed with a vote to authorize the House Judiciary Committee to take Barr to federal court to fully enforce its subpoena, but will not formally vote to hold Barr in contempt. "If the Department proceeds in good faith and we are able to obtain everything that we need, then there will be no need to take further steps," Nadler said. "If important information is held back, then we will have no choice but to enforce our subpoena in court and consider other remedies." (ABC News / NBC News / NPR)
2/ Trump visited both Dayton, Ohio and El Paso, Texas, but remained largely out of public view. In Dayton, protesters waved signs and chanted to "Dump Trump" and to "Do Something!" because "Thoughts and prayers don't stop bullets." Before leaving Washington, Trump said he "would like to stay out of the political fray" during the trip, dismissing suggestions that his rhetoric on race and immigration is to blame for a rise in hate-inspired violence, saying: "I think my rhetoric brings people together." Hours earlier, Trump attacked Beto O'Rourke by telling the Democratic presidential candidate to "be quiet," and mocked him for having a "phony name to indicate Hispanic heritage" (a reference to his discredited claim that O'Rourke had changed his first name to appeal to Hispanic voters). Trump also quoted conservative news reporting that "the Dayton, Ohio, shooter had a history of supporting political figures like Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and ANTIFA" – a radical leftist group. After visiting Dayton, Trump attacked Mayor Nan Whaley, calling her a supporter of Bernie Sanders and of antifa and that she "totally misrepresent[ed] what took place inside of the hospital." during his visit. Whaley said she told Trump during his visit that Dayton is "really looking forward to some action" on gun control. Journalists weren't allowed to accompany Trump at hospital in Dayton, but Trump's social media director, Dan Scavino, claimed that Trump was "treated like a Rock Star inside the hospital." (Washington Post / New York Times / ABC News / Bloomberg / BBC)
https://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory/dayton-site-latest-mass-shooting-warily-awaits-trump-64820549
3/ Congressional Republicans are "confident Congress will be able to find common ground" on legislation to help law enforcement take guns from those who pose an imminent danger. The so-called "red flag" laws allow police to temporarily confiscate firearms from a person deemed by a judge as posing a risk of violence. While Republicans in Congress are focused passing "red flag" legislation, Trump claimed – without evidence – that there was a "great appetite" for reforming background checks among lawmakers. Trump also claimed there is no "political appetite" for legislation to ban assault weapons, but suggested he'd bring lawmakers back from their August recess if Republicans and Democrats can "get close" on a gun reform proposal. Meanwhile, more than 200 Democratic lawmakers urged Mitch McConnell to call a vote on House-passed legislation aimed at strengthening background checks for gun purchases. (New York Times / Politico / CNBC / NPR / The Hill)
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/07/donald-trump-background-checks-guns-1450897
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/07/trump-gun-access-restrictions-1449663
Texas passed new firearm laws that will make it easier to have guns on school grounds and loosened restrictions on how many armed school marshals a school district can appoint, allows for licensed handgun owners to legally carry weapons in churches, among others. The laws were passed before attack in El Paso and are set to go into effect on September 1st. (CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/07/us/texas-gun-laws-el-paso-shooting-trnd/
4/ The owner of the online message board 8chan was called to testify before Congress after the website was linked to the terrorist attack in El Paso. The House Homeland Security Committee demanded that 8chan owner Jim Watkins testify about site's efforts to address "the proliferation of extremist content, including white supremacist content." Committee chair Bennie Thompson and the ranking Republican Mike Rogers sent a letter to Watkins, an American citizen living in the Philippines, noting that the El Paso massacre was "at least the third act of supremacist violence linked to your website this year." (Reuters)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-shooting-tech-idUSKCN1UX012
https://www.thedailybeast.com/trump-campaign-ad-features-qanon-signs
The FBI warned that fringe conspiracy theories are a new domestic terrorist threat. The document specifically mentions QAnon, a network that believes in a deep state conspiracy against Trump, and Pizzagate, the theory that a pedophile ring involving Clinton associates was being run out of the basement of a Washington, D.C., pizza restaurant, which doesn't have a basement. (Yahoo News)
https://news.yahoo.com/fbi-documents-conspiracy-theories-terrorism-160000507.html
5/ A U.S. State Department official oversaw a Washington, D.C.-area chapter of a white nationalist organization, hosted white nationalists at his home, and published white nationalist propaganda online. Matthew Gebert works as a foreign affairs officer assigned to the Bureau of Energy Resources. (Southern Poverty Law Center)
https://www.politico.com/story/2019/08/06/joaquin-castro-trump-donors-1450672
Kim Jong Un supervised a live-fire demonstration of newly developed short-range ballistic missiles in an attempt to send a warning to the United States and South Korea. North Korea has conducted four rounds of weapons demonstrations in two weeks, all of which come during a stalemate in nuclear negotiations between Trump and Kim. Trump has repeatedly dismissed the significance of the tests, which experts say has given North Korea more room to develop its capabilities to strike South Korea and the U.S. ahead of negotiations. Meanwhile, the U.S. and its allies have been conducting military drills of their own, and negotiations are set to resume when those drills end later this month. (Associated Press)
https://apnews.com/fe22f1eeefa04514910ab180ea1e0b9a
Trump lied 56 times last week – down from 78 false claims the week prior and 61 false claims the week before that. (CNN)
https://www.cnn.com/2019/08/06/politics/weekly-fact-check-trump-early-august/index.html
Edited by sgamer82 on Aug 7th 2019 at 10:39:29 AM
So, ICE kidnapped 680 undocumented workers in Mississippi, leaving their children behind.
An immigrant rights group
summed it up well:
Trump’s war on immigrants is escalating.
Days after the deadly attack on Latinos in El Paso, hours before ‘offering condolences’ to the people he helped target, Trump gave the OK to carry out the largest single-state raid in our nation’s history. [1/x]
Today, that war shattered nearly 700 families, more than 700 lives.
It’s no coincidence that the raids took place across 7 sites in areas that are hard to reach, where there is little to no infrastructure in place to help deal with the aftermath. [2/x]
Edited by wisewillow on Aug 7th 2019 at 9:20:11 AM
I want to be clear that I'm not defending Mitch, my most likely response is going to be along the lines of "people disagree with that assessment".
>As has been mentioned on OTC before, the first step of maturity is acknowledging that not everything is black and white while the second step of maturity is acknowledging that sometimes they are.
Yes, and I've taken the second step with regards to an issue that the Democrat party holds dear, but I can't discuss why on this forum. Regardless, when you have significant chunks of the population disagreeing about something, there is good reason to think it's not as black and white as it first appears. Also if an issue is complex with many details that are frequently debated also lends it's self towards greyness.
Given the most likely avenue is going to be insurance, I'll note that this poll
states "The majority of Americans, 57%, continue to believe the federal government should be responsible for ensuring that all Americans have health insurance. At the same time, a majority reject a government-run healthcare system, with 40% in favor and 54% preferring a system based on private insurance. These attitudes help underscore the complex challenge facing policymakers attempting to address problems with the nation's health system."
This gives reasons to believe that this issue is a complex one (complexity tends to lend towards being gray) and one on which disagreement is common (large chunks of disagreement also indicating grayness).
~sgamer82 Make the best argument that you can, and let the cards fall where they may. I might not agree that the case is as strong as you say. if you are going to list siding against you on a issue that is more contentious then not, then that's probably not the most effective strategy for changing my mind. As I said, I'm probably still going to be uncomfortable with calling him a murderer even if you successfully make your case.
Edited by Soban on Aug 7th 2019 at 12:31:52 PM
How about ManslaughterMitch then?
You know, not to upset the delicate sensitivities of the Republicans.
"You can reply to this Message!"I think rather than dismissive snipes it'd be more useful laying out a case of why the Evil Turtle is getting that moniker (the Evil part, not the Turtle part - Wikipedia discusses that one) and the Massacre one:
- A healthcare "reform" that has all the appearance of being a massive enrich-the-already-wealthy-and-fleece-everybody-else plot
. ETA: It was also meant to act as a political timebomb
.
- His role as an anti-democracy politician
including the obstructionism during the Obama era. Which among other things prevented anyone from taking useful steps against climate change.
- Opposing to Obama's already controversial trade treaty only because it didn't loosen tobacco rules abroad
, even though cigarette smoking is a major cause of death in many parts of the world.
- Don't have a link to that story - it was linked in this thread some time ago - but apparently Trump at the beginning of his presidency was thinking of reaching out to Democrats at times but was persuaded by Evil Turtle and other Senate Republicans to not do so.
As well as the general impression that Evil Turtle is willing to do anything and step over as many corpses as necessary to get his way, without anything resembling ethics or shame along the way.
Edited by SeptimusHeap on Aug 13th 2019 at 10:52:07 AM
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanThe NRA turns on Trump the second he starts expressing desire for some background check reform. As much as I dislike Trump, I will say that he is not anywhere near the level of pure evil that is the National Rifle Association.
Just Having FunTrump is kinda random and lacking in principles aside from his racism. His openness to deal on background checks is a case of the clock moving into a decent position. Either that, or Trump is moving into election mode and trying to make concessions to conservative Democrats (the guys who really want to be Republicans but can't stand him or McConnell).
Not sure. The NRA is bankrupt, remember? They may have outlived their usefulness. Do you expect Trump to be loyal to people who can't pay?
Edited by Ramidel on Aug 8th 2019 at 1:09:41 AM
The NRA actually turned on Trump earlier, though this isn't something they advertised.
In addition to the fact they made some monumentally stupid decisions like trying to create their own version of Fox News and hiring, again, Oliver North (who promptly began a campaign of embezzlement as well as blackmail that would land anyone else in prison if not for the fact exposing his crimes would make them even more stupid looking) — they also donated massive amounts of resources to getting DT elected. Huge huge chunks of their budget.
All of which Donald did exactly jack shit to show his gratitude for—and which backfired as people let their memberships collapse and stopped donating because guns were now "safe." Basically, they donated Koch levels of money and helped contribute to their impending bankruptcy.
The NRA has already lost their network (which is good but stops a lot of the bleeding) but it's a shadow of its former self and won't be able to do much next election, they've already informed the Republicans.
(How much of this is also the fact that their primary donors—Russia—have also cut them off remains to be seen)
Edited by CharlesPhipps on Aug 8th 2019 at 2:27:41 AM
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.

Edited by sgamer82 on Aug 7th 2019 at 9:58:21 AM