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Forenperser Foreign Troper from Germany Since: Mar, 2012
Foreign Troper
#344626: Dec 24th 2020 at 7:11:03 AM

Antifa (and BLM) has done some shady stuff. It comes with the territory of not being a unified organization that anybody has control over.

They still don't even come close to the havoc that Trump supporters and the general far-right have wreaked during rallies.

In fact, 93% of the George Floyd protests were peaceful, a report found out https://time.com/5886348/report-peaceful-protests/

The media just disproportionally focused on the riots.

Edited by Forenperser on Dec 24th 2020 at 4:11:12 PM

Certified: 48.0% West Asian, 6.5% South Asian, 15.8% North/West European, 15.7% English, 7.4% Balkan, 6.6% Scandinavian
Memers Since: Aug, 2013
#344627: Dec 24th 2020 at 7:16:09 AM

Damnit, man the one thing from Trump I actually support and its his own party that wrecks it.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#344628: Dec 24th 2020 at 7:16:52 AM

This is still a politically-optimal situation.

Trump's refusing to sign the $600 stimulus because he's holding out for $2,000. Democrats have already jumped onboard for $2,000. It's just Republicans that are trying to block it - and with Mitch in control of the Senate, they can.

Democrats need to be advertising the hell out of this in Georgia, where voters presently are deciding whether the Senate will be Democrat- or Republican-controlled for the next two years. Mitch is preventing Georgia voters from receiving the large stimulus that both the Democrats and even Trump want them to have, and every second of that obstruction needs to be publicized. Georgia Dems need to be shouting from the rooftops that the $2,000 isn't going to come if Republicans keep the Senate.

The Republican Senate is hurting voters at a time when voters have the ability to take the Senate away from Republicans. We must use this.

And we also need to be countering Republican propagandists, who are already hard at work claiming, "Pelosi and Schumer ONLY wanted to give you $600, but Trump heroically stepped in and demanded the $2,000. Can Trump defeat Pelosi and Schumer and get you that $2,000?"

Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 24th 2020 at 7:17:39 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#344629: Dec 24th 2020 at 7:18:24 AM

[up]x3 Yeah the right wing militias and white supremacists are so bad that the FBI has addressed them as the number one threat right now. Unfortunately because of the wide reach of Fox News and the like, that is completely downplayed while Antifa and BLM are boogeyman'd.

Edited by speedyboris on Dec 24th 2020 at 7:18:45 AM

Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#344630: Dec 24th 2020 at 7:36:04 AM

I’m pretty sure Trump did sign the $600 stimulus, as the bill was needed to avoid a government shutdown.

He vetoed a separate military funding bill, but that’s it.

I think the veto threat on the stimulus actually came after he’d already signed the bill.

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
kkhohoho (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#344631: Dec 24th 2020 at 8:27:36 AM

[up]I don't think he has? Every article I'm seeing says he still hasn't signed it.

speedyboris Since: Feb, 2010
#344632: Dec 24th 2020 at 9:17:47 AM

Trump issues 26 new pardons, including for Stone, Manafort and Charles Kushner

Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump on Wednesday evening announced 26 new pardons, including for longtime ally Roger Stone, former campaign chairman Paul Manafort and White House senior adviser Jared Kushner's father, Charles.

The pardons extend Trump's streak of wielding his clemency powers for criminals who are loyalists, well-connected or adjacent to his family. While all presidents issue controversial pardons at the end of their terms, Trump appears to be moving at a faster pace than his predecessors, demonstrating little inhibition at rewarding his friends and allies using one of the most unrestricted powers of his office.

The pardons of Manafort and Stone reward two of the most high-profile and widely condemned former advisers of the President, both of whom were indicted by special counsel Robert Mueller, went to trial and were convicted by juries of multiple crimes.

Manafort, who is serving home confinement, admitted his crimes and initially agreed to cooperate with Mueller then lied to prosecutors, while Stone never cooperated after lying to Congress to protect the President. Manafort spent close to two years in prison for bank and tax fraud, illegal foreign lobbying and witness tampering conspiracies before being released because of the Covid-19 pandemic, while Stone's sentence for obstruction of Congress and threatening a witness was commuted by Trump earlier this year days before he was set to surrender.

Charles Kushner, meanwhile, had been prosecuted by then-US Attorney for New Jersey Chris Christie in the early 2000s for tax evasion, witness tampering and illegal campaign contributions.

He eventually pleaded guilty to 16 counts of tax evasion, one count of retaliating against a federal witness — his brother-in-law — and another count of lying to the Federal Election Commission.

Christie in early 2019 went on to say that Charles Kushner committed "one of the most loathsome, disgusting crimes" he had prosecuted, referring to an elaborate revenge plot that the older Kushner hatched in 2003 in order to target his brother-in-law, William Schulder, a former employee turned witness for federal prosecutors in their case against Kushner.

As a part of the plot, Kushner hired a prostitute to lure Schulder into having sex in a Bridgewater, New Jersey, motel room as a hidden camera rolled. A tape of the encounter was then sent to Kushner's sister and Schulder's wife, Esther. Ultimately, the intimidation stunt failed. The Schulders brought the video to prosecutors, who tracked down the woman and threatened her with arrest. She promptly turned on Kushner.

Also included in Trump's pardon list Wednesday evening is former California GOP Rep. Duncan Hunter's wife, Margaret, just one day after Trump granted Duncan Hunter a full pardon. Margaret Hunter had pleaded guilty last year to conspiring "knowingly and willingly" to convert campaign funds for personal use.

Beyond the high-profile pardons, Trump also pardoned more than 20 other individuals, including those who had pleaded guilty to various cyber crimes, firearm possession and mail fraud. He also commuted the sentences of three others.

We knew this was coming but it doesn't make it suck any less. Most corrupt administration in history.

Lazlo74 from A tropical hell-hole Since: May, 2018
#344633: Dec 24th 2020 at 9:25:25 AM

Trump pardoning his goons to own the libs aside, America has a bigger problem: a mental health and acceptance problem.

It's becoming increasingly clear that quite a few hardcore right-wing elements on the web and in real life are calling for extreme measures in order to ensure a Republican win, ranging from martial law to straight-up armed insurrection and massacring anyone who doesn't comply with them. I know that most of these people are just LAR Ping on the internet as a macho gun-toting conservative, but sooner or later, one of them will do or at least attempt to do something reckless - and all hell will break loose.

I really hope nothing ugly happens by January, because the increasing agitation of the MAG Ats has turned from laughable to disturbing, with all the death threats some of my acquaintances as well as American politicians are receiving from these fucking nutters.

Scaled seeker
Blueace Surrounded by weirdoes from The End Of the World Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Surrounded by weirdoes
#344634: Dec 24th 2020 at 9:37:06 AM

The worry is that many actually believe that shit. But if they really attempt something, the first few'll get stomped down and the rest will go back to the hole in the ground they should never get out off.

Wake me up at your own risk.
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#344635: Dec 24th 2020 at 9:41:11 AM

Please do not demonize the mentally ill like that. Being a hyper-partisan asshole is not a mental illness. Being a Second Amendment yahoo is not a mental illness. Having anti-democratic beliefs is not a mental illness. Wanting to preserve majority-status privilege is not a mental illness. Being lied to for decades by propagandists is not a mental illness.

People who are actually suffering from mental illness do not deserve to be constantly villified every time an evil person exists in the world. Evil is not a mental illness.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 24th 2020 at 9:42:10 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Silasw A procrastination in of itself from A handcart to hell (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: And they all lived happily ever after <3
A procrastination in of itself
#344636: Dec 24th 2020 at 9:48:17 AM

Yeah we don’t claim that Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan have mental health problems because people there support terrible, authoritarian, regressive groups there, we shouldn’t pretend it’s a mental health problem in the US.

As for the likelihood of violence, remember, someone tried to pipe bomb Biden & Harris (plus Hillary, CNN, Obama and others) back in October of 2018.

Edited by Silasw on Dec 24th 2020 at 5:58:51 PM

“And the Bunny nails it!” ~ Gabrael “If the UN can get through a day without everyone strangling everyone else so can we.” ~ Cyran
Lazlo74 from A tropical hell-hole Since: May, 2018
#344637: Dec 24th 2020 at 9:55:29 AM

Okay, that was a bit insensitive of me to equate wilful ignorance and evil with people suffering from real mental illness and I'd like to apologize.

But at some point it can be pretty hard to distinguish what is batshit insane or not with their increasingly outlandish and self-contradictory denial to reality on top of calling for literal authoritarianism.

Scaled seeker
TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#344638: Dec 24th 2020 at 10:07:27 AM

You need to understand something: these people do not believe in democracy. They aren't just, in a vacuum, saying that authoritarianism would be a pleasant alternative to democracy as a political model. They are supporting authoritarianism because they would be the ones in the position of authority.

Capitalism is a pro-authoritarian model, and it encourages authoritarian thinking. Capitalism is a system where the CEO is God-Emperor Almighty, and all in the hierarchy below bow to him. It's a system that supports the idea that some people are fundamentally better than other people, and the hierarchy reveals who is fit to lead and who is only fit to serve.

Capitalism is fundamentally at odds with the concept of democracy, in which all people are considered to have an equal voice.

Americans have been drinking capitalist kool-aid for centuries. Our forefathers primed their children and their children's children and their children's children's children to reject the democracy they built in favor of God-Emperors and serf classes. Conservatives demanding authoritarianism isn't crazy. It's not mentally-deficient. It doesn't come from a fundamental inability to think clearly or understand the world. It is the direct product of being raised to believe that hierarchical systems with God-Emperors at the top are good and democratic systems led by politicians are bad.

They aren't supporting authoritarianism because they're crazy. They want to remain in power, whatever that takes.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 24th 2020 at 10:07:58 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
TitanJump Since: Sep, 2013 Relationship Status: Singularity
#344639: Dec 24th 2020 at 10:13:59 AM

[up] Correct.

Not to mention none of them actually realizing how they, the majority, won't get anything from this and end up as sacrifices for the Ultra-rich 1% in order to keep that percentage super rich through this system.

They are all lemmings running towards a cliff, following a helium balloon with a gold coin strapped to the end of its string, wherever it floats while carried by the wind that blows from those in power to have them go wherever they want them to go...

...it's pretty sad and dangerous, actually.

TobiasDrake (•̀⤙•́) (Edited uphill both ways) Relationship Status: Arm chopping is not a love language!
(•̀⤙•́)
#344640: Dec 24th 2020 at 10:20:32 AM

No, that's a misconception. Not everyone who supports the hierarchy does so because they think they'll get to sit at the very tippy-top of the pyramid. They do get something out of this. There are benefits to supporting the hierarchy for people in the mid-tiers.

If you support giving jack-booted thugs power over people, you can become a jack-booted thug. And then you get to have power over people.

If you're white, then white supremacy offers you a position of power and status above minorities. If you're male, then suppressing women offers you a position of power over them. Etc. etc. You may be bending your knee and paying fealty to the God-Emperor, but there are people beneath you bending their knee and paying fealty to you. The middle-manager must serve the executive, but the working class serves the middle-manager.

Most conservatives don't aspire to be the God-Emperor. They want to be his cops. His middle-managers. Or even to just live in the society he created, where people on the street must respect and obey them because they have the preferential status. To people on the bottom, the people in the middle may as well be God-Emperors too.

Edited by TobiasDrake on Dec 24th 2020 at 10:22:11 AM

My Tumblr. Currently side-by-side liveblogging Digimon Adventure, sub vs dub.
Voltron64 Since: Jul, 2016
#344641: Dec 24th 2020 at 10:21:32 AM

[up] It's still pretty pathetic and sad honestly.

Resileafs I actually wanted to be Resileaf Since: Jan, 2019
I actually wanted to be Resileaf
#344642: Dec 24th 2020 at 10:27:20 AM

[up]It's because it's the only society they've ever known, and they don't believe that a different kind of society is possible. They don't hear "We want to make everyone equal", they hear "We want to make you bow to those people who once bowed to you". In their minds, there is no equality, it will inevitably lead to them being on the lowest rung of the ladder. They are terrified of this.

Voltron64 Since: Jul, 2016
#344643: Dec 24th 2020 at 10:31:06 AM

[up] And if that's the case, maybe they deserve it.

If you treat life as a zero-sum game, you probably deserve to lose by those same rules.

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#344644: Dec 24th 2020 at 10:40:05 AM

Frankly, a lot of the above is reaching. Specifically because CEOs aren't actually owners of the company unless you're following some sort of weird Randian-Tony Stark model where the billionaire industrialist geniuses own it. No, instead they answer to the stockholders.

Corporations by and large are group owned and fundamentally all decisions can and should be managed by the shareholders as a collective authority. The problem is the masses are a greedy bunch of fuckers as a general rule and don't care about the process beyond share price.

American capitalism is also notable for having dismantled unionization and collective bargaining which is another element of why looter capitalism is so rampant. Its confusing American capitalism for all forms of capitalism. Authoritarian capitalism as a function of the state is also bad but capitalism is a servant of the already dictatorial regime.

Worker owned capitalist corporations and state-industries in democracies are very different.

Edited by CharlesPhipps on Dec 24th 2020 at 10:40:50 AM

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
Lazlo74 from A tropical hell-hole Since: May, 2018
#344645: Dec 24th 2020 at 10:54:56 AM

You also have to wonder whether the hardline right winger crowd even stand by to Republican values anymore. Some of them are throwing the Republican Party under the bus after they fail to overturn the results on behalf of Trump's tantrums. Heck, I even heard that some of them are never going to vote red again out of anger over not cowing to Trump's demands. They're owning the GOP to own the libs.

Do these people even care about the capitalist way of life when they're utterly consumed by anger and hatred? They just seem to be content with looking for an excuse to get mad at something, and in this case the Democrats, because they happen to comply to reality at the moment.

Edited by Lazlo74 on Dec 24th 2020 at 10:58:03 AM

Scaled seeker
Voltron64 Since: Jul, 2016
#344646: Dec 24th 2020 at 11:00:18 AM

A lot of comes down from the fact that these are often people who are failures all over, and who are desperately looking for someone to either blame or look upon with spite. They need someone inferior to them in the pecking order, and they cannot accept the sad reality that the only reason they fail is not because "hur the latinos are taking our jobs!" or "the blacks are ruining 'Murika", but because of themselves. So they blame an easy target if the target has equal rights and has success-stories, and maintain an oppression if there is no equality, because that way, they can feel they're not the lowest echelon of human society.

So if black kids can go to school and, horror of horror, get good grades or go to college, it cannot be tolerated as it cracks that "lovely" world view. It shows these simpletons what they really are: a bunch of sick losers.

That's the FREEDOM they demand: the freedom of being a kapo.

Edited by Voltron64 on Dec 24th 2020 at 12:00:50 PM

Blueace Surrounded by weirdoes from The End Of the World Since: Dec, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Surrounded by weirdoes
#344647: Dec 24th 2020 at 11:00:40 AM

They became the "fuck you got mine" party at some point, and spent years radicalizing their base, while siding with mayor assholes enabling other assholes.

If it backfired on them, it's all their fault.

Wake me up at your own risk.
Voltron64 Since: Jul, 2016
#344648: Dec 24th 2020 at 11:02:05 AM

Yeah, they got theirs. But what if theirs ain't even worth jack whatsover and isn't even going to last?

CharlesPhipps Since: Jan, 2001
#344649: Dec 24th 2020 at 11:02:24 AM

I'll believe it when they see it but yes, a lot of people voted for Trump because they believed he'd institute white supremacy and disenfranchise sexual as well as racial minorities plus help dial back the clock to the 1950s.

Him losing a democratic election messes with them because they assumed he would game the system.

It basically just illustrates that their posturing and authoritarianism beliefs were just talk.

Author of The Rules of Supervillainy, Cthulhu Armageddon, and United States of Monsters.
sgamer82 Since: Jan, 2001
#344650: Dec 24th 2020 at 11:04:13 AM

Meanwhile they're convincing themselves we gamed the system.


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