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Edited by Mrph1 on Nov 30th 2023 at 11:03:59 AM
We shouldn't, the constant parade of "ha ha Trump and Putin are boyfriends/fuck" is super unfunny and worse blatantly homophobic. There are far better ways to denigrate them and their relationship without being (unintentionally) bigoted.
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangI think it'd be fine, it's an established meme that doesn't really have any homophobic undertones.
Sure. But when we're talking about two guys the dynamic is rather different and IMO there's some fairly strong homophobic undercurrents, not that anyone who uses it is some kind of evil bigot but the jokes themselves are just problematic.
Maybe I'm being unduly biased due to my personal experiences but whenever I've seen hostile jokes about two guys being friendly with each other it's always in the context of using implied homosexuality to denigrate them.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 17th 2018 at 10:55:41 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji Yang
It helps that the terms used, being Japanese terms for Upper/Underclassmen (among others), does not inherently have romantic connotations.
Edited by MorningStar1337 on Jul 17th 2018 at 8:02:39 AM
Reading tropes such as You Know What You Did
Why not just call it how it is? No matter how much you split hairs Putin is getting Trump to act as Russia's spy on America, work as an agent of influence. By definition that is treason. You cannot hang someone for being gay. You can hang them as a traitor and that is exactly what Trump is, a traitor.
Currently reading up My Rule Fu Is Stronger than YoursActually he's not a traitor in the legal sense, the Founders in their infinite wisdom decided to make a very specific and stupidly limited legal definition of treason. IIRC it only applies to making war on the US or helping someone who's at war with the US.
But yes he's a traitor in a proper definition.
Edited by Fourthspartan56 on Jul 17th 2018 at 11:29:32 AM
"Einstein would turn over in his grave. Not only does God play dice, the dice are loaded." -Chairman Sheng-Ji YangThat actually makes it a better angle to mock them from. Accuse them of reactionary tendencies in the Freudian sense/mock them over something they hate.
Of course, I'm a fan of Crosses the Line Twice humour.
Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.All their homophobic bluster is covering up their real feelings. When you think about it, given what they've expressed it should theoretically be possible to just treat their supposed "bromance" as a fact, not actually denigrating them over it, and that would still piss them off.
Trump at least, Putin seems to have thicker skin but that's probably Damned by Faint Praise.
Edited by TroperOnAStickV2 on Jul 17th 2018 at 12:29:12 PM
Hopefully I'll feel confident to change my avatar off this scumbag soon. Apologies to any scumbags I insulted.Another point hopefully in favor of Democrats and anti-Trumpers:
According to the online survey of 1,200 registered voters, conducted July 2-5, an even higher number of independents hold Republicans responsible for corruption: 60 percent.
Those are welcome numbers to Democrats who have struggled to find their messaging in the run-up to the midterms. In May, the party signaled an effort to tap the “culture of corruption” theme that proved an effective mantra in 2006, when GOP Capitol Hill scandals helped Democrats regain control of the House and Senate.
“The fact that you have these recurring Cabinet scandals, the fact that it keeps happening over and over again, it registers,” said Jesse Lee, spokesman for the Center for American Progress, a progressive policy group behind the poll. “People understand it’s been taken to a new level. There’s no check on it anymore. Trump isn’t pushing back on Congress to keep it under control. Congress isn’t pushing back on Trump.”
The corruption framing today takes a different shape than in 2006, when it largely revolved around the behavior of Republican members of Congress. Now, the focus is on Trump Cabinet members who resigned under an ethics cloud, including former Environmental Protection Agency head Scott Pruitt and former Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price.
The current messaging also looks to portray the GOP tax plan as riddled with loopholes and benefiting only the wealthy. That’s the same plan Republicans are holding up in their reelection campaigns as a major achievement.
Lee pointed to the poll’s 4-point Democratic lead on the generic ballot as a notable shift from the last two cycles, where he said Republicans led in the same districts by an average of 14 points.
The internet-based study showed voters had a high-level of familiarity with Trump’s Cabinet and showed particular frustration when asked about pols spending “taxpayer money on perks for themselves” or when they “make policies that help their big campaign donors.”
A majority of voters (56 percent) said congressional Republicans are not doing enough oversight of the Trump administration — a number that’s even higher among independents (57 percent).
The polling suggests that the Republican tax cuts — and loopholes tapped by some of the same members who voted for the plan — may be an area ripe for exploitation.
Of those surveyed, 75 percent responded that it was “serious” or “very serious” that 53 Republicans in Congress would “get an average tax cut of over $200,000 each from a single loophole they added to the tax bill at the last minute.”
Since the article talks about the Republican tax plan, here's a reminder from a recent What The Fuck Just Happened Today article:
Worker pay in the second quarter dropped nearly one percent below its first-quarter level, according to the Pay Scale Index, one measure of worker pay. When accounting for inflation, the drop is even steeper. Year-over-year, rising prices have eaten up still-modest pay gains for many workers, with the result that real wages fell 1.4 percent from the prior year, according to Pay Scale. The drop was broad, with 80 percent of industries and two-thirds of metro areas affected.
"Now, economic confidence has been good, we're in a strong economy, GDP is growing, but the question has been, where's the paycheck?" said Katie Bardaro, vice president of data analytics at Pay Scale.
The answer is, largely, in the companies' coffers. Businesses are spending nearly $700 billion on repurchasing their own stock so far this year, according to research from Trim Tabs. Corporations set a record in Q2, announcing $433 billion worth of buybacks — nearly doubling the previous record, which was set in Q1.
When a company buys back some of its outstanding shares, the effect is usually to boost the value of the rest of its stock, sometimes making the company appear more valuable on paper. Because many senior executives are paid in company shares, buybacks temporarily boost their pay (as well as other shareholders' portfolios), sometimes at the expense of investments in infrastructure or workers.
The popularity of stock buybacks in the wake of the corporate tax cuts has drawn lawmakers' attention. A group of senators wrote to the SEC late last month, asking the agency to review the rules around buybacks. "The explosion of stock buybacks has funneled corporate profits to wealthy shareholders and corporate executives instead of workers and long-term investments that spur sustained economic growth," they wrote.
The money that has trickled down to workers this year hasn't been permanent, Pay Scale found. "One of the things we saw is firms are leaning more toward giving bonuses rather than straight pay increases," said Bardaro. "It's flashy, it makes you feel good, but it then doesn't stick around and compound year over year."
Some minor election news:
During the primary in June, Roby received 39 percent of the vote, while Bright received about 28 percent. Since neither of them met the 50-percent threshold needed to secure the nomination, both were sent to a runoff.
Following the primary, Roby seemed on shaky ground after Bright repeatedly hammered comments she made in 2016 slamming Trump as an “unacceptable” candidate for president in the wake of the infamous Access Hollywood tape.
After some reported cajoling from House Republican leaders Kevin Mc Carthy and Paul Ryan, Trump ultimately endorsed Roby despite her past snub. Many Alabama Republicans saw his support as important for her victory. (She maintains that she has “no regrets” about her critiques of Trump, however.)
Other random notes:
Host Greg Gutfeld complained about the response to the summit, claiming that the media blamed Putin for Hillary Clinton’s loss in 2016 and was demanding a “pound of flesh.”
“I’m not a shrink so I don’t fully understand it,” Carlson replied. “I don’t think Russia is our close friend or anything like that. I think of course they’re trying to interfere in our affairs. They have for a long time. Many countries do, some more successfully than Russia.”
“Like Mexico, which is routinely interfering in our elections by packing our electorate,” he continued, with laughter in the background. “So those are all concerns. I just don’t understand why we need to believe that Russia is the primary issue of American political life.”
Personally speaking, while I know this won't be popular with a number of forum goers or most people from small states, this is part of the reason why I'm becoming more and more of a fan of a unicameral legislature with the number of representatives being based on population only.
Edited by TheWanderer on Jul 18th 2018 at 4:57:59 AM
| Wandering, but not lost. | If people bring so much courage to this world...◊ |
So they're suing the victims of a mass shooting to help them? That's what they're claiming.
That is some serious chutzpah right there.
Disgusted, but not surprised

Do we have to call Trump and Putin boyfriends?
Oh wow, I finally got a pagetopper.
Edited by BearyScary on Jul 17th 2018 at 5:39:33 AM
Do not obey in advance.