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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.

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

NickTheSwing Since: Aug, 2009
#334501: Oct 20th 2020 at 8:12:31 PM

I think a good idea is emphasizing free speech, but not consequence-free speech.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#334502: Oct 20th 2020 at 8:12:33 PM

https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/immigration/lawyers-say-they-can-t-find-parents-545-migrant-children-n1244066

So, about 600 children can't be reunited with their parents because they were deported and have no forwarding address.

The rules of this forum prevent me from saying what should be done to ICE and Trump.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#334503: Oct 20th 2020 at 8:19:46 PM

[up]

And in more domestic fuckery, according to the Grand Jury member for the Breonna Taylor case, that the "wanton endangerment" charges were the only ones they were presented with - the Kentucky AG never presented more serious charges, nor explained the standards for them.

"Being one of the jurors on the Breonna Taylor case was a learning experience. The three weeks of service leading up to that presentation showed how the grand jury normally operates. The Breonna Taylor case was quite different. After hearing the Attorney General Daniel Cameron's press conference, and with my duty as a grand juror being over, my duty as a citizen compelled action," the statement said. "The grand jury did not have homicide offenses explained to them. The grand jury never heard anything about those laws. Self defense or justification was never explained either."

They said "questions were asked about additional charges," but the grand jury was told there would be none because the prosecutors didn't feel they could make them stick.

"The grand jury didn't agree that certain actions were justified, nor did it decide the indictment should be the only charges in the Breonna Taylor case," the statement said. "The grand jury was not given the opportunity to deliberate on those charges and deliberated only on what was presented to them. I cannot speak for other jurors but I can help the truth be told."

[down]

The shitty part is that it's not all that surprising - trial juries have proven rather reluctant to dole out harsh penalties to officers except in the most grievous and overt of circumstances, and Attorneys General need to maintain a good working relationship with officers (who gather the evidence they use in prosecuting cases), so they won't go full-bore on an officer for fear of repercussions.

Edited by ironballs16 on Oct 20th 2020 at 12:02:18 PM

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
NickTheSwing Since: Aug, 2009
#334504: Oct 20th 2020 at 8:24:40 PM

[up] It's times like this that make me wonder if the police think their job is to just murder, terrorize, rape and abuse everyone "Not Republican" as Lindsey Graham would euphemize it.

SatoshiBakura (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#334505: Oct 20th 2020 at 9:03:21 PM

Can "I would not marinate a congresswoman." be a meme?

Memers Since: Aug, 2013
#334506: Oct 20th 2020 at 9:05:08 PM

400K viewers. Not bad. She can brag about that to Trump. ;)
Topped out at 439k, third best in Twitch’s history for a single channel. Adding the other 9 streamers in the game it was over 600k viewers.

‘Orange is sus, vote him out’ was the expected meme and it didn’t let us down.

There will probably be a lot of stories about the behind the scenes tomorrow, it was implied to be one hell of a scramble. Chatbots and auto mod vs the First Amendment debates done with only 24 hours notice... yikes.

Edited by Memers on Oct 20th 2020 at 9:29:01 AM

tclittle Professional Forum Ninja from Somewhere Down in Texas Since: Apr, 2010
Ayasugi Since: Oct, 2010
#334508: Oct 20th 2020 at 9:56:53 PM

[up][up] Should I feel sorry for whatever poor schmuck got stuck with the Orange avatar?

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#334509: Oct 20th 2020 at 11:14:23 PM

  • AOC in Orange Avatar kills them all*

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Wispy Since: Feb, 2017
#334510: Oct 21st 2020 at 1:06:14 AM

Orange is pretty sus right now tho

RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#334511: Oct 21st 2020 at 2:51:06 AM

There are two things I can take away from this:

  1. Eric Trump expects nobody to find transparently manipulated photos or assumes it won't matter.
  2. Nobody taught him how to use commas correctly. It's "great, courageous Americans", not "great, courageous, Americans".

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#334512: Oct 21st 2020 at 3:14:52 AM

Scrolling down, I noted one tweet from the Lincoln Project:

"Trump has paid more taxes to China than the United States."

Gotta admit, that made me chuckle a bit.

I also liked the tweets near the top from Biden:

"For once, Donald Trump is correct: I will listen to scientists."

&

"Listening to scientists is not a bad thing.

I can’t believe that has to be said."

Edited by M84 on Oct 21st 2020 at 6:16:49 PM

Disgusted, but not surprised
Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#334513: Oct 21st 2020 at 7:14:44 AM

Ilhan Omar also played in the Alexandra Ocasio Cortez Among Us stream, by the way.

They were terrible.

Edited by Aszur on Oct 21st 2020 at 8:14:57 AM

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
RainehDaze Nero Fangirl (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
Nero Fangirl
#334514: Oct 21st 2020 at 9:33:17 AM

538 has released an interactive forecast. It basically shows what their model predicts if relevant states fall one way or the other.

Steven (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
#334515: Oct 21st 2020 at 10:24:44 AM

Dropped off my absentee ballot today. It was easier than I thought.

Remember, these idiots drive, fuck, and vote. Not always in that order.
DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#334516: Oct 21st 2020 at 10:27:37 AM

Rudy Giuliani faces questions after compromising scene in new Borat film

     Rudy Giuliani faces questions after compromising scene in new Borat film 
Trump’s personal attorney has indiscreet encounter with actor playing Borat’s daughter in hotel room during pandemic

• This article contains spoilers about Borat Subsequent Moviefilm

The reputation of Rudy Giuliani could be set for a further blow with the release of highly embarrassing footage in Sacha Baron Cohen’s follow-up to Borat.

In the film, released on Friday, the former New York mayor and current personal attorney to Donald Trump is seen reaching into his trousers and apparently touching his genitals while reclining on a bed in the presence of the actor playing Borat’s daughter, who is posing as a TV journalist.

Following an obsequious interview for a fake conservative news programme, the pair retreat at her suggestion for a drink to the bedroom of a hotel suite, which is rigged with concealed cameras.

After she removes his microphone, Giuliani, 76, can be seen lying back on the bed, fiddling with his untucked shirt and reaching into his trousers. They are then interrupted by Borat who runs in and says: “She’s 15. She’s too old for you.”

Representatives for Giuliani have not replied to the Guardian’s requests for comment.

Word of the incident first emerged on 7 July, when Giuliani called New York police to report the intrusion of an unusually-dressed man.

“This guy comes running in, wearing a crazy, what I would say was a pink transgender outfit,” Giuliani told the New York Post. “It was a pink bikini, with lace, underneath a translucent mesh top, it looked absurd. He had the beard, bare legs, and wasn’t what I would call distractingly attractive.

“This person comes in yelling and screaming, and I thought this must be a scam or a shakedown, so I reported it to the police. He then ran away,” Giuliani said. The police found no crime had been committed.

Giuliani continued: “I only later realised it must have been Sacha Baron Cohen. I thought about all the people he previously fooled and I felt good about myself because he didn’t get me.”

Viewers may be less convinced that Baron Cohen, reprising his role as the bumbling reporter Borat Sagdiyev, and Maria Bakalova, who plays his daughter, Tutar, had no success.

In the film Borat is dispatched by the Kazakh government back to the US to present a bribe to an ally of Donald Trump in order to ingratiate his country with the administration. After the monkey earmarked for the gift is indisposed, Borat’s supposedly underage offspring becomes the replacement present.

Even before he reaches into his trousers, Giuliani does not appear to acquit himself especially impressively during the encounter. Flattered and flirtatious, he drinks scotch, coughs, fails to socially distance and claims Trump’s speedy actions in the spring saved a million Americans from dying of Covid. He also agrees – in theory at least – to eat a bat with his interviewer.

Giuliani has become a key figure in the late stages of the US presidential election after obtaining a laptop hard drive purportedly belonging to Hunter Biden and left at a repair shop in Delaware.

His efforts to unearth political dirt on Trump’s rival for the White House mean that the film’s mortifying footage can be seen as an attempt to undermine Giuliani’s credibility. The film, released on Amazon Prime less than a fortnight before the election, ends with an instruction for viewers to vote.

Although unfortunate, the circumstances of the setup appear consensual, with Giuliani led to believe he was being courted. Bakalova, 24, is highly plausible in the sting, despite also having to pretend, for the benefit of viewers, to be a feral child posing as a far-right journalist.

As with the first film, which made $262m on release in 2006 and won a Golden Globe for Baron Cohen, the most troubling scenes are those which reveal deep-seated prejudice among the American people.

Baron Cohen’s real-life broadsides against platforms he feels enable antisemitism are echoed in the film, in which Borat learns through Facebook that the Holocaust “was nothing but a fairytale”.

He is corrected following a conversation with two elderly Jewish women, one of whom, Judith Dim Evans, died after filming, aged 88. Last week her estate filed a suit against the film-makers, claiming that she was “horrified and upset” upon learning “the movie was actually a comedy intended to mock the Holocaust and Jewish culture”.

However, Deadline suggests the film-makers did appraise Dim Evans of the film’s true targets after her scenes were shot, and that there is footage of this. They are also said to be hopeful her family may reconsider once they have seen the film, which ends with a dedication to Dim Evans and the link to a website set up in her honour.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Oct 21st 2020 at 7:28:03 PM

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#334517: Oct 21st 2020 at 10:30:25 AM

...Welp, I could have lived the rest of my life without thinking of Rudy touching his genitals.

Disgusted, but not surprised
Steven (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
#334519: Oct 21st 2020 at 10:37:43 AM

.......

Remember, these idiots drive, fuck, and vote. Not always in that order.
DrunkenNordmann from Exile Since: May, 2015
#334520: Oct 21st 2020 at 10:42:39 AM

Also, who the heck still falls for Borat in 2020?

You'd think people had caught on by now.

We learn from history that we do not learn from history
Lightysnake Since: May, 2010
#334521: Oct 21st 2020 at 10:43:21 AM

Faces quest-

....did Sacha Barron Cohen just possibly destroy Rudy Giuliani!? What is happening this year!?

Aszur A nice butterfly from Pagliacci's Since: Apr, 2014 Relationship Status: Don't hug me; I'm scared
A nice butterfly
#334522: Oct 21st 2020 at 10:48:40 AM

No one is destroying Rudy Giuliani but Rudy Giuliani.

It has always been the prerogative of children and half-wits to point out that the emperor has no clothes
Redmess Redmess from Netherlands Since: Feb, 2014
Redmess
#334523: Oct 21st 2020 at 10:49:46 AM

Man, this presidency really is like a reality show soap opera.

I don't know what goes through this guy's head that he thinks such a role was a good idea. Or perhaps the Russians have something big on him. "You vill cooperate with sleazy movie, or ve vill reveal your deepest sekrits."

Edited by Redmess on Oct 21st 2020 at 7:51:36 PM

Hope shines brightest in the darkest times
TitanJump Since: Sep, 2013 Relationship Status: Singularity
#334524: Oct 21st 2020 at 10:50:07 AM

[up] x 3

"The chaotic eldritch forces that has spurred this insane chain of events these last four years is accelerating its pace, spinning faster and faster out of control to maintain its momentum, until it either explodes, implodes, or departs to the dark depths of eldritch-space where it originated, taking the life force of all its victims with it as fuel for the journey."

Whatever happens these next two weeks, will determine the outcome of this Chaos...

Edited by TitanJump on Oct 21st 2020 at 7:50:20 PM

Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#334525: Oct 21st 2020 at 10:50:34 AM

I personally think what's left of Rudy's reputation will survive this. The only people who still take him seriously will see this as a "Hollywood Liberal Plot".

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.

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