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

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#237126: Mar 31st 2018 at 8:44:30 AM

[up][up] If the Failure of the Articles of Confederation are any indication, we couldn't run on a minimalist Government even in the 1780, and the world has only gotten more complicated since

edited 31st Mar '18 8:46:52 AM by megaeliz

Reflextion from a post-sanity world (Time Abyss) Relationship Status: What's love got to do with it?
#237127: Mar 31st 2018 at 8:52:07 AM

Yeah, the kindest thing I can say about libertarianism is that minimal government is one of those things that sounds nice but simply cannot coexist with human nature.

And there are very, very, very few libertarians who I feel kindly towards.

Someone did tell me life was going to be this way.
ironballs16 Since: Jul, 2009 Relationship Status: Owner of a lonely heart
#237128: Mar 31st 2018 at 9:06:20 AM

There's been something with Ingraham's apology that was nagging me for a while, but I finally realized what it is.

Her tweet read, in part - "On reflection, in the spirit of Holy Week, I apologize for any upset or hurt my tweet caused him or any of the brave victims of Parkland."

Matthew 6: 5-8 reads:

And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. 6 But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. 7 And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. 8 Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him.

It then leads directly into The Lord's Prayer - and it's assholes like her that caused me to start identifying as Agnostic.

edited 31st Mar '18 9:07:07 AM by ironballs16

"Why would I inflict myself on somebody else?"
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#237129: Mar 31st 2018 at 9:10:44 AM

So, remember how Roseanne Burr is now a Trump Supporter and her show was being promoted by Russian Bots? Turns out she also a "qannon" conspiracy theorist (which is also often pushed by Russian Bots.)

Roseanne Keeps Promoting Q Anon, the Pro-Trump Conspiracy Theory That Makes Pizzagate Look Tame

On Friday night, Roseanne Barr tweeted a bizarre message that no one seemed to understand.

“President Trump has freed so many children held in bondage to pimps all over this world. Hundreds each month. He has broken up trafficking rings in high places everywhere,” she wrote, adding he gets the benefit of the doubt from her.

But as recently as November, Barr fans were speculating that the Trump-supporting actress had secretly been taken out and swapped with an imposter as part of a massive “deep state” conspiracy.

Roseanne, Barr’s 1990s show about a blue-collar Illinois family, spent 21 years off air before returning Tuesday to a massive viewership of more than 18 million. Trump called Barr to congratulate her on the ratings.

Since the show’s last episode in 1997, Barr’s politics have taken a sharp turn right, with the actress voicing her support for Trump as well as a number of fringe conspiracy theories. In November, she became a bit player in one of her favorite theories: a 4Chan-based conspiracy called Q Anon that alleges satanism and sex-trafficking by Trump’s opponents.

“who is Q?” Barr tweeted the morning of Nov. 17.

“tell Qanon to DM me in the nexxt 24 hours,” she tweeted hours later.

“Q” or “Q Anon” refers to a user on the anonymous message board 4chan. The user claims to be a high-ranking government official with inside knowledge of the White House where, he claims, Trump is planning mass arrests of top Democrats for allegedly being involved in a satanic child-sex-trafficking ring. Or something. Q Anon’s messages have always been vague to the point of near-gibberish, opening them to interpretation. When Q Anon has given specifics—like the time he claimed John Podesta would be arrested or indicted Nov. 3—the prediction has fallen flat.

Days after that failed prophecy, Barr was on Twitter asking her followers to put her in touch with Q Anon. Then, in what believers interpreted as confirmation of the Q Anon theory, Barr’s internet presence went dark. Her Twitter account appeared to be suspended for several hours, and her website went offline for “technical reasons” according to a notice on the homepage.

“Roseanne had been talking about Q mostly all day and asking him to contact her, now,” one Redditor in the r/conspiracies subreddit wrote of Barr’s disappearance from Twitter, and claiming it confirmed the Q Anon conspiracy. “I am viewing this as vindication.”

Barr was back online hours later.

“guys! i am OK! I’m here-thank you for worrying,” she wrote. “I am OK and back. explanation later on-”

She never appeared to offer the explanation. Redditors noted that Barr had lost more than 200,000 followers during her brief disappearance. The apparent purge suggests Barr’s account may have been flagged as having fake followers. Twitter does not comment on individual accounts, and a representative for Barr did not return The Daily Beast’s request for comment.

As for the technical difficulties on her website, Domain Tools shows the website underwent a semi-regular maintenance procedure that day. Like many celebrities, Barr registers her website through a privacy-protecting service. The service registers the website under randomly generated email proxies, which change every few months. One of those occasional changes occurred Nov. 17, potentially causing technical difficulties or suggesting other technical work on the site that briefly took it offline.

But even with Barr returned, some fans were suspicious that an imposter had replaced her. “How do we know its you?” one tweeted at the returned Roseanne.

“Let us know that you are really back,” another tweeted. “Give us a real sign that will let us know it really is you.”

Redditors theorized that Barr had suspended herself to draw attention to Q Anon. “Conspiracyception: She deleted her account to make it seem like Twitter is cooked,” one wrote.

The month after her brief disappearance, Barr deleted all her tweets and announced a temporary Twitter retirement after a knock-down fight with Hillary Clinton supporters on the website.

She was back in January, and has since resumed tweeting about Q Anon, in apparent contradiction of fans who had previously claimed Twitter was censoring her conspiracy tweets. Since Friday, she has tweeted or retweeted content relating to Q Anon (or its other name “The Storm”) at least four times, in addition to a March 24 tweet that read “MKULTRA,” the name of a 1960s CIA mind-control program. The context for the tweet was not clear.

Her most recent post about Q Anon is a retweeted clip of Stephen Colbert welcoming then-candidate Donald Trump onto his show. “You are not supposed to see this video,” the video, which is tagged with a Q Anon hashtag is captioned.

The clip, in fact, aired during Colbert’s CBS show. Barr retweeted it early Thursday. Hours earlier, she and Trump had spoken on the phone.

The Q Anon tweets weren’t Barr’s first dabbling in conspiracy. A prolific Twitter user, Barr had once retweeted an Info Wars report “on the ‘5.7 Million Illegals’ who they baselessly claim voted in the presidential election,” The Daily Beast’s Amy Zimmerman previously reported. Barr has also pushed conspiracy theories about murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, whom some truthers believe was killed in a Clinton-ordered hit.

Barr’s politics have also tended toward the fringes. In 2009, Barr (who is Jewish) posed for a photoshoot in the Jewish youth magazine Heeb, in which she dressed as Hitler eating singed, human-shaped “Jew cookies.” The magazine, which labeled Barr “the last celebrity utterly incapable of giving a fuck” later pulled the photo spread.

In 2012, she launched a presidential campaign as a Green Party candidate but lost to Jill Stein in the primary. Since then, Barr’s views have veered right with blatantly Islamophobic tweets. In an August 2016 Twitter rant, she claimed “jew hater hillary clinton’s handler huma weiner is a filthy nazi whore.”

edited 31st Mar '18 7:11:11 PM by megaeliz

Grafite Since: Apr, 2016 Relationship Status: Less than three
#237130: Mar 31st 2018 at 9:33:37 AM

[up] That's not even a conspiracy, that's some troll on 4-chan telling Trump supporters what they want to hear. I am, however, looking forward to their disappointment when the president doesn't go on a mass arrest of Democrats by the time his term is over.

Life is unfair...
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#237131: Mar 31st 2018 at 9:38:41 AM

[up] It's definitely been picked up by Russian Bots to push Disinfo though.

edited 31st Mar '18 9:44:13 AM by megaeliz

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#237132: Mar 31st 2018 at 9:39:08 AM

Another Trump supporters supports an insane conspiracy theory? Simply more evidence that support for him is a sign of personal defect.

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#237133: Mar 31st 2018 at 9:50:00 AM

Interestingly, when I spent way longer then was healthy monitering the "qannon" people's reaction to the passage of the Omnibus Bill, a lot of them seemed convinced that Trump would use the Military Budget to build a wall.

Then Trump was saying that they should use the Military to build a wall.

edited 31st Mar '18 9:51:31 AM by megaeliz

archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#237134: Mar 31st 2018 at 9:52:51 AM

I don’t think they could just reappropriate military funds like that. The military budget may seem bloated and wasteful but there are a lot of specific rules for how it’s used.

They should have sent a poet.
PushoverMediaCritic I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out. from the Italy of America Since: Jul, 2015 Relationship Status: watch?v=dQw4w9WgXcQ
I'm sorry Tien, but I must go all out.
#237135: Mar 31st 2018 at 10:03:50 AM

Question, one thing that I've thought about for a while and I'd like some clarification on: is the USA's average quality of life too high to be economically sustainable? Like, just in terms of purchases, utilities, food, luxuries. Obviously, the wealth inequality plays a big factor in this question, but it's been something I've been wondering since I saw an older Last Week Tonight examining the middle class that found what America considers the middle class includes some luxuries you'd usually associate with the upper class.

edited 31st Mar '18 10:04:40 AM by PushoverMediaCritic

Fourthspartan56 from Georgia, US Since: Oct, 2016 Relationship Status: THIS CONCEPT OF 'WUV' CONFUSES AND INFURIATES US!
#237136: Mar 31st 2018 at 10:04:05 AM

[up][up]They totally can't.

You're absolutely right to think that, military funding is sent to specific programs that were OK'd by Congress and just taking the money and using it on the wall is almost certainly unconstitutional. There seem to be a few ways that the Trump administration could go around it but that would inevitably lead to them clashing with Congress, which is not something they want if they have any sense (especially before a midterm).

[up]I have no idea. But I'm highly skeptical of that idea unless it's backed up by data, it's like how people have this idea of overpopulation being a serious issue when we have the agricultural ability to feed far more people.

edited 31st Mar '18 10:06:25 AM by Fourthspartan56

"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
archonspeaks Since: Jun, 2013
#237137: Mar 31st 2018 at 10:14:36 AM

Yeah, that article is a pretty good summation of the situation. The Antideficency Act was the one I was trying to remember that prevents them from moving funds around.

My bet is that they’ll try to go through the OCO by justifying the wall as part of the War on Terror, or as an emergency requirement. I think that’ll be met with significant resistance though, and while I know OCO funds have been used for stateside stuff before I think there are certain conditions. They don’t really mention it in the article but the OCO has been heavily abused recently and is really the only logical source for the money.

edited 31st Mar '18 10:16:11 AM by archonspeaks

They should have sent a poet.
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#237138: Mar 31st 2018 at 10:46:19 AM

So apparently, Roseanne's gone full infowars. She's also tweeted in lizard people, Chemtrails, Pizzagate, Obama being a Jihadist, etc.

edited 31st Mar '18 10:47:15 AM by megaeliz

M84 Oh, bother. from Our little blue planet Since: Jun, 2010 Relationship Status: Chocolate!
Oh, bother.
#237139: Mar 31st 2018 at 10:49:13 AM

Ugh, the worst bits of the Eighties and early Nineties really are coming back...

Disgusted, but not surprised
Ultimatum Disasturbator from the Amiga Forest (Old as dirt) Relationship Status: Who needs love when you have waffles?
Disasturbator
#237140: Mar 31st 2018 at 10:58:41 AM

I wonder how long before we hear the 'haxxors did it'

have a listen and have a link to my discord server
Kayeka (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#237141: Mar 31st 2018 at 11:07:45 AM

[up][up]Well, it was only to be expected after all the good parts made a comeback as well.

PhysicalStamina i'm tired, my friend (4 Score & 7 Years Ago) Relationship Status: Coming soon to theaters
i'm tired, my friend
#237142: Mar 31st 2018 at 11:17:39 AM

"Everything happens in cycles," they say...

i'm tired, my friend
DingoWalley1 Asgore Adopts Noelle Since: Feb, 2014 Relationship Status: Can't buy me love
Asgore Adopts Noelle
#237143: Mar 31st 2018 at 11:53:35 AM

So Roseanne is a complete whack job, not just a Trumpeteer who sees what she wants.

That was completely expected, to be honest.

LSBK Since: Sep, 2014
#237144: Mar 31st 2018 at 11:55:41 AM

The only thing surprising to me about it was that she seemed to be a crazy lefty of the Green Party or worse variety. Apparently, she shoots between extremes.

Demongodofchaos2 Face me now, bitch! from In a Cultivation World (Ancient one) Relationship Status: 700 wives and 300 concubines
Rationalinsanity from Halifax, Canada Since: Aug, 2010 Relationship Status: It's complicated
#237146: Mar 31st 2018 at 1:53:11 PM

Still think that fucker should have been charged for his comments (re: threats) about Obama and Clinton.

Politics is the skilled use of blunt objects.
SciFiSlasher from Absolutely none of your business. Since: Dec, 2011 Relationship Status: YOU'RE TEARING ME APART LISA
#237147: Mar 31st 2018 at 1:55:31 PM

[up][up][nja]

Specifically, he said "they have no soul."

I sincerely hope that this will be the beginning of the end for the NRA. They are truly morally bankrupt in every sense.

edited 31st Mar '18 1:55:50 PM by SciFiSlasher

"Somehow the hated have to walk a tightrope, while those who hate do not."
megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#237148: Mar 31st 2018 at 2:17:18 PM

Pruitt paid $50 a night to live at condo co-owned by top energy lobbyist's wife

Environmental Protection Agency Administrator Scott Pruitt paid $50 a night to live in a condo co-owned by the wife of a lobbyist with clients regulated by the agency.

Pruitt paid to rent the room in the two-bedroom condo only on nights when he actually slept there, Bloomberg News first reported Thursday.

Over the course of roughly six months, Pruitt paid $6,100 for the room. Those payments, however, came on sporadic dates and in different amounts, unlike traditional monthly rent payments, the EPA confirmed to The Hill.

A spokesman for the EPA said the arrangement took place while Pruitt was transitioning to Washington and that he moved out in July, more than four months after his confirmation.

edited 31st Mar '18 2:20:19 PM by megaeliz

megaeliz Since: Mar, 2017
#237149: Mar 31st 2018 at 2:34:17 PM

Good Wa Po op-ed

It’s time to go after Vladimir Putin’s money in the West

British Prime Minister Theresa May’s initial response to the attack with a nerve agent in England was old-school. She expelled 23 Russian diplomats, allowing Moscow to expel the same number of British diplomats and close the British Council and a British Consulate in Russia.

The joint Western action of 27 additional countries expelling Russian intelligence agents on March 26 added new force to the retaliation, but President Vladimir Putin can shrug this off. He is likely to expel a similar number of diplomats from all the countries involved. What would be even better is a crackdown on Kremlin money in the West — and the best place to start is by taking on the problem of anonymous ownership. The West should go after the money that the Putin regime has moved here.

Russia’s economic means are limited. Therefore, the Kremlin prefers cheap asymmetric or hybrid warfare, such as the hacking of elections, cyberwarfare, manipulation of social media and the corruption of foreign politicians. We need to respond asymmetrically, hurting the Kremlin more than it hurts us.

Putin controls the Russian state institutions, its secret police and its big state companies. Together with a few old friends from St. Petersburg, the president is tapping the big state companies through overpriced no-bid procurement, transfer pricing, asset stripping and stock manipulation. They are also making money by extorting old oligarchs and taking loans from state banks, not to be returned.

Boris Nemtsov, who was murdered outside of the Kremlin, and still-active opposition politician Vladimir Milov exposed this kleptocracy in their booklet “Putin and Gazprom” in 2008. A more extensive account in English is Karen Dawisha’s book “Putin’s Kleptocracy: Who Owns Russia?” The Panama Papers, a series of leaked documents on offshore accounts released in April 2016, offered plenty of evidence of Putin’s secret wealth.

Overall assessments indicate a personal enrichment of Putin and his closest cronies of some $20 billion to $25 billion a year since 2006. Nemtsov and Milov documented pilfering from Gazprom of $60 billion from 2004 to 2007, and this was probably just over half of their enrichment, which has only increased. By now, this group would have accumulated $240 billion to $300 billion. Businessman Bill Browder estimates that Putin is the richest man in the world, with a personal wealth of $200 billion. Total private Russian holdings abroad are assessed in the range of $800 billion to $1.3 trillion, according to Global Financial Integrity and a National Bureau of Economic Research study.

Putin and his friends have not accumulated their vast fortunes to consume them, but rather, to maintain power in Russia. The irony is that having undermined property rights in Russia, they — like other Russians — can only safeguard their savings abroad in countries that enjoy the rule of law, allow anonymous ownership and have sufficient financial depth for their vast fortunes.

Many countries have the rule of law, but just a few of them — those with Anglo-American law — allow large-scale anonymous ownership. Most European countries do not. Numerous small islands allow anonymous ownership, but they lack financial depth. Only two countries can harbor most of the Russian offshore wealth — the United States and Britain — because they allow anonymous investment in real estate on a large scale.

Twenty-nine countries, including most E.U. countries, already demand full disclosure of beneficiary owners, and 11 others have agreed to do so, too. They have all come to the same conclusion: Anonymous ownership has become a major threat to national security. Prime Minister David Cameron promised to demand full disclosure in May 2016, but he resigned two months later, and his successor, May, has shown no interest in doing so even after the nerve-agent attack in Salisbury.

The United States needs to catch up. Congress is currently considering two bills that go in the right direction. Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.) has submitted a draft of the True Incorporation Transparency for Law Enforcement Act for corporate transparency, and in the House of Representatives the Counter Terrorism and Illicit Finance Act has been submitted. Congress should adopt one of these bills. The important thing is to unearth secret ownership by sanctioned individuals and entities.

Helpfully, Putin has himself told us what sanctions hurt him the most by complaining incessantly about the Sergei Magnitsky Rule of Law Accountability Act of 2012 and the sanctioning of his St. Petersburg cronies in March 2014 for their role in Russia’s occupation of Crimea. These acts prohibit named individuals from entering the territory of the United States and freeze their assets whenever they are detected. So far, unfortunately, these new laws haven’t proved especially effective, since the U.S. government has detected only a few million dollars of their assets.

In 2015, the U.S. treasury assessed that $300 billion a year was laundered in the United States. According to Raymond Baker, founder of Global Financial Integrity, in a good year, the U.S. government detects 0.1 percent of that money. The reason? Anonymous companies are allowed to invest in this country. The same is true of Britain, where the National Crime Agency estimates that $125 billion is laundered annually. This must be stopped for the sake of national security.

The best British and American asymmetric response to the Kremlin’s hybrid warfare is to unearth the holdings of Putin and his sanctioned friends in our countries and freeze them.

Kayeka (4 Score & 7 Years Ago)
#237150: Mar 31st 2018 at 2:39:23 PM

[up][up]While I'm perfectly willing to assume this is scandalous considering the tone of the article, I'm not really sure how? I'm a little low on sleep today, so maybe I'm missing something obvious.

edited 31st Mar '18 2:39:45 PM by Kayeka


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