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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
''Nederlandse volks-unie''
, an openly neo-nazi party that was allowed to operate after the ban due to some dumb loophole. They've never managed to take a seat anywhere, so they mostly serve as shadow backers of Forum voor Democratie.
Well, yet another reason to dislike "Forum voor Democratie", then.
But yeah, voting for that sort of party is not exactly a good look.
As for US prisons, those are effectively slave labour camps, what with prisoners basically being forced into indentured servitude. It's way beyond just punishment by imprisonment at this point.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesTrump Hails Robert E. Lee In Minnesota, State That Lost Thousands To Confederate Troops
Trump, apparently unaware of the state’s sacrifice in the Civil War, hailed Lee during a speech in Bemidji on Friday as a “great general” who “won many, many battles in a row.”
Some 2,500 Minnesota soldiers lost their lives to battles and disease as they fought against slavery and to protect the Union.
“Had [Lee] won, we would be two countries,” state Sen. Jerry Newton, a veteran who served in the Vietnam War and in the Middle East, told the Minneapolis Star Tribune on Saturday. “That’s just unconscionable for me, for him to make those statements.”
Trump’s praise for Lee “hurt for those of us who have served and who have lost friends in the service,” Newton added.
The state senator’s great-grandfather fought for the Union against treasonous Confederate troops before moving to Minnesota, where he settled down using land grants offered to Civil War veterans.
Trump claimed at his rally that he would protect monuments to Lee. There are none in Minnesota. But a historical museum does display a Confederate flag that state troops captured from the enemy.
Ken Martin, chairman of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party, said in a statement that “the blood, sweat, and sacrifice of Minnesota’s brave soldiers helped turn the tide at Gettysburg ... We will not allow Donald Trump to divide us and insult our state’s proud legacy.”
Minnesota soldiers played a key role on the bloody fields of Gettysburg.
Minnesota Gov. Alexander Ramsey was the first to offer troops to President Abraham Lincoln after the Confederacy’s assault on Fort Sumter in Charleston, which launched the Civil War in 1861. Some 1,000 men from the new state were initially deployed to battle Southern troops. By war’s end, close to 24,000 Minnesota soldiers had served.
An outnumbered unit of about 262 Minnesotans charged at close to 1,200 Confederate troops at Gettysburg in the summer of 1863. The attack was aimed at buying the Union time to move reinforcements into the area.
“It’s essentially suicidal to do that, and still Minnesota troops did that,” Randal Dietrich, director of the Minnesota Military Museum, told The Star Tribune. “I would argue Minnesotans ... arguably saved the battle of Gettysburg. Their gallantry on that day is extraordinary.”
Hillary Clinton won Minnesota’s 10 electoral college votes in the last presidential election.
Twitter critics speculated that Trump forgot he was in a former Union state as he tried to woo voters by praising Lee.
Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Sep 22nd 2020 at 2:21:26 PM
We learn from history that we do not learn from historyAs if he'd care.
My musician pageMeanwhile, in some US tech news:
]]quoteblock]]The EU wants to arm itself with new powers to take on big technology companies, including the ability to force them to break up or sell some of their European operations if their market dominance is deemed to threaten the interests of customers and smaller rivals.[[/quoteblock]]
Looks like the US will be getting a taste of their own medicine pretty soon.
The transaction, as we currently understand it, has Byte Dance spinning off Tik Tok operations in the United States and most other nations to a new company, Tik Tok Global.
Oracle will hold a 12.5 percent stake in Tik Tok Global at its inception and will also serve as the cloud hosting provider for the new entity. Walmart will hold another 7.5 percent stake. The remaining 80 percent will be held by Byte Dance. The new company also plans to launch an initial public offering of stock before the end of 2021. That much, we know for certain.
So apparently there is no ban and now there is no sale either. See the article for details, it answers a lot of questions about this crazy situation.
It's pretty clear though that Trump just wants Tik Tok out of business or bought up by someone. This is basic revanchism at the highest level.
Edited by Redmess on Sep 22nd 2020 at 3:14:15 PM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesYeah, it's pretty much been mentioned. The practical effect of term limits is to change nothing except where institutional knowledge is accumulated.
And then people go "oh we removed term limits that should reduce corruption/increase accountability/make people need to care about their constituents!" which are all assertions based on nothing.
This really cannot be emphasized enough, term limits do not work. They just don't.
The Political Science profession has decades of data on them and universally the only thing they accomplish is make legislatures less competent, less responsive, and more corrupt. They are superficially attractive but as actual policies term limits are abyssmal.
Edit:
For those who want to read more about it, these articles
should be
informative
.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Sep 22nd 2020 at 6:27:50 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangI doubt it. Anyone who this move appeals to would already be locked in on their vote for him.
My musician pageIt just amazes me how people treat experience like it's a negative thing. Like imagine if Doctors could only keep their medical license for 10 years then they're barred from the profession, or if Pilots can only fly up to X amount of miles before they have to pick a new career, or lawyers have a cap on the total number of clients they can represent in their lifetime.
Plus it's always struck me as counter to democracy where it should be the voter's decision about whether or not someone is elected into office.
EDIT: Doubtful on the 3rd justice improving the odds in his favour. Anyone who was going to vote for Trump last week is still going to vote for him this week, and I doubt anyone who wasn't going to last week suddenly decided "oh, I better vote for him now."
Edited by Shaoken on Sep 22nd 2020 at 11:34:35 PM
I saw one thing suggest the opposite, suggesting early on
that Trump would hold off on nominating a justice because he would think getting a third Justice would be the end of his usefulness, while getting it post-election would serve him better.
Things didn't turn out that way, but I'm not sure how much it'll help him get re-election.
Edited by sgamer82 on Sep 22nd 2020 at 6:35:58 AM
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As far as I can tell, even the five conservatives already on the bench would laugh the case out of court. One sycophant won’t make a difference.
Edited by ShinyCottonCandy on Sep 22nd 2020 at 9:35:21 AM
My musician pageAh, depends on the justice nominated and the circumstances. If some hypothetical circumstance came up where Trump would lose the election unless this new Justice voted the right way then I'd say he's toast. After all that Justice would already have a lifetime appointment in the court, why throw away their legitimacy backing a lost cause?
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I don't believe so. There's a report of a speech where he basically said "republican senators please have a conscience and don't confirm anyone"
, which whether he believes it sincerely or not is a dumb statement. I don't really think there is a way to de-escalate things.
Edited by Draghinazzo on Sep 22nd 2020 at 9:37:34 AM
Yeah, I don't think even conservative justices are going to be up for that. They may be deeply conservative, but they aren't going to upturn democracy either.
Don't forget these people value their independence as elected justice-for-life, and they're not afraid to use it once they got that that seat.
I mean, what is Trump going to do if they don't cooperate, fire them?
Edited by Redmess on Sep 22nd 2020 at 3:40:43 PM
Hope shines brightest in the darkest timesNone at all. These justices are ultimately not beholden to Trump, or to either party, for that matter.
This is the big flaw in Trump's thinking about the SC. He seems to think that getting someone into power automatically means they owe him a favour. But of course no justice worth their salt, of either party, is going to entertain such a thing.
Hope shines brightest in the darkest times

It's because many of them are black. They'd give Epstein and Dalmer back their votes just fine.
Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.