These days it's always voting for who you think is the least bad because there is no other choice.
I think there's something different happening among Trumps base and it's getting weirder and weirder. They aren't choosing which politician is least bad, they are choosing to worship Trump. I think that this whole impeachment process has the potential to bring it to the attention of many Americans who maybe haven't been following close enough to hear over all the noise that the President has been becoming more and more powerful. These warning signs of a cult make me think...: - Promises are made of a new life. * The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Everyone is listening to you now... From this day forward, a new vision will govern our land. (inauguration) - Former followers are always wrong in leaving, negative, or even evil. - The Leaders authority is absolute, without meaningful accountability. - There is no tolerance for questions or critical inquiry. - There is no meaningful financial disclosure regarding budget or expenses, such as an independently audited financial statement. (Billionaire with international corporation, but wont let us see his taxes...) - There exists an unreasonable fear about the outside world, such as impending catastrophe, evil conspiracies, and persecutions. * You have no choice. You have to vote for me. Otherwise, everything that you've built in your entire life will be gone. Goodbye, Iowa. Have a good time. Instead, I worked my ass off up here, OK. * If you want your children to inherit the blessings that generations of Americans have fought and died for, then, we must devote everything we have toward victory in November of 2020. (this week) - Former members often relate the same stories of abuse and reflect a similar pattern of grievances. * Tillerson, General McMaster, General Kelly, etc... - There are records, books, news articles, television programs that document the abuses of the leader. (fake news) - The group/leader is always right. - The group/leader is the exclusive means of knowing "truth" or receiving validation; no other process of discovery is really acceptable or credible. Am I crazy to think the trial might have opened a lot of peoples eyes who may have otherwise not paid attention to these things? |
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I will say that I didn't take from the ZH article that Dr. Zhou would have been the guy to release the thing either on purpose or by accident.
Headline: "Is This The Man Behind The Global Coronavirus Pandemic?" Body: He's researching the viruses, and bats, and hiring people to help him, and the place he works is a lot like an evil corporation from a video game. Conclusion: You should contact him. Here's his email, phone number, photo and a map of where he works. |
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Censorship is always the solution right? All we need to do is keep the people who don't agree with us from speaking, and everything will be fine! Nobody's saying that but you. The fact is ZeroHedge has been manufacturing garbage content for quite some time now. This is common knowledge to everyone except people who have a warped sense of reality. I can't stand Tim Incel's voice. He pretends that everything is such an earth-shattering outrage when really he is just baking spam-flavored cheetos for other far right conspiratards who also can't get laid. Like ZeroHedge, he manufacturers empty calorie junk food for easily inflamed intellectual cowards. Oh no, one of the worst fake news sites got kicked off Twitter, let's all sit around and cry about how we're being oppressed. Oh, the tyranny! I didn't see anything 'fake' in ZH's Dr. Zhou story, and indeed, most of what they say in most of their stories basically checks out when I bothered to research it. Actual examples are welcome. Surely there is someone cataloging ZH's most egregious fabrications considering that they are 'one of the worst' and influencial enough to matter. Just point me to a link. With respect to the Dr. Zhou story, I kind of appreciated specific documented information about who was interested in what (quite relevant) scientific endeavors in bioengineeringland. It seems almost certain at this point that if 'we' are ever going to get to the bottom of 2019-nCoV, 'we' are going to have to at least consider who is doing what on the bio-engineering front. The reaction that any and all 'mainstream journalist' have at even a suggestion that the ailment was caused by anything other than bat-eating Chinese tells me that a tiny group of someones are very very interested in diverting attention. Call it 'conspiracy theory' or whatever you like. Time and time it has proven a valuable logic tool to arrive at an accurate representation of the world for me. Very often the plurality catches up in a few years and what was previously a 'conspiracy theory' mutates into an obvious and unchallenged reality. They found a scientist in China that studied bats that can't get sick from the virus and then made it seem like he, or the people he worked with intentionally released it. They also linked him to some wacky conspiracy theory involving purging the world of humans for a new start. They posted his picture, email, work address, phone number and ended the article with "If anyone wants to find out what really caused the coronavirus pandemic that has infected thousands of people in China and around the globe, they should probably pay him a visit"Buzzfeed was the first to call out ZH, and they have since been banned from twitter. A few hours ago they made a post about an old tweet that the buzzfeed reporter doxxed someone else in 2012. For extra measure they also included a bunch of troll tweets from people that made a fake blogs and screenshots to make him look like a pedophile. BuzzFeed Journo Reportedly Blogged About Pedo Fantasies, Rape Jokes And Doxing |
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I'm thinking he fell for one of the articles with the fake "Democrats Push Legislation to Make Criticism of Government Officials a Criminal Offense" headlines, didn't realize they were amendments and misinterpreted the old laws (thinking they were new) to fit the headlines he had just read. Virginia Bill Wouldn’t Criminalize CriticismOnline headlines falsely claim that Virginia lawmakers want to make criticizing state officials a “criminal offense.” The bill doesn’t create new offenses. It would merely allow cases of threats or harassment against some state officials to be prosecuted in Richmond. Viral headlines peddled by multiple websites have warned that a bill in Virginia’s state legislature would make a “criminal offense” out of criticizing the state’s elected officials. Actually, the bill in question doesn’t create any new criminal offenses. A review of the proposed state legislation, House Bill 1627, shows that the bill would make changes to where certain crimes against public officials can be prosecuted, but it doesn’t change the existing statutory offenses. The bill proposes several amendments to the law that would make it so that cases of threats or harassment against certain state officials — or threats against some state-owned property — could be prosecuted in the state capital of Richmond, regardless of where such messages were sent or received. Under the current law, some of the statutes contain language that says such prosecutions can occur in locales where the communication was made or received. |
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The only one of the 1,2 and 3 that's even worth discussing is 3.
Will you answer anyway? Sure. My answer will be based on how these three things are considered in a court of law. T, T, T. Now how about you answer how would they be considered in a court in Russia during the Stalinist era. True or False: 1- 'it was a perfect phone call, there was no quid pro quo'
True or False: 2 - 'it's all hearsay and second hand information' (this implies that direct evidence would be relevant)
True 3 - 'if he did do it, it's not impeachable'
The other two are jokes.
Why do you think so much effort was put into making the arguments then? "If you could show me that Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing" -Lindsay Graham Why would Graham say that, and then vote against having direct evidence in the trial? And it wasn't just Graham. The overall defense for weeks was 'there isn't enough evidence from just the transcript'. Then after all the house testimony it was 'that's all just hearsay, none of the witnesses have first hand knowledge'. And then when they found out someone was willing to provide direct evidence, they voted against hearing it. It's an overused saying, but why do you think they keep moving the goalpost when they could've just went with argument 3 from the beginning? My opinion? They're all remembering the Kavanaugh fiasco, where there was time after time, "one more witness," "One more reason to keep it going." So if they shut it down quicker, it's the Dems past behavior as the cause. You got what you deserved. Try considering just the evidence of the trial, not that it's Trump being investigated, or the democrats doing the investigation, and no 'us vs them' mentality. True or False: 1- 'it was a perfect phone call, there was no quid pro quo'
True or False: 2 - 'it's all hearsay and second hand information' (this implies that direct evidence would be relevant)
True or False: 3 - 'if he did do it, it's not impeachable'
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The only one of the 1,2 and 3 that's even worth discussing is 3.
Will you answer anyway? True or False: 1- 'it was a perfect phone call, there was no quid pro quo'
True or False: 2 - 'it's all hearsay and second hand information' (this implies that direct evidence would be relevant)
True 3 - 'if he did do it, it's not impeachable'
The other two are jokes.
Why do you think so much effort was put into making the arguments then? "If you could show me that Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing" -Lindsay Graham Why would Graham say that, and then vote against having direct evidence in the trial? And it wasn't just Graham. The overall defense for weeks was 'there isn't enough evidence from just the transcript'. Then after all the house testimony it was 'that's all just hearsay, none of the witnesses have first hand knowledge'. And then when they found out someone was willing to provide direct evidence, they voted against hearing it. It's an overused saying, but why do you think they keep moving the goalpost when they could've just went with argument 3 from the beginning? |
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If anyone is able to take out student loans, borrowing the max and putting it all on Biden to win the nomination seems like almost a freeroll.
You are assuming that Pocahontas, or sanders would automatically beat trump, and I don’t think this is the case. Both are too extreme for mainstream voters and really appeal to fringe democratic voters, who are more likely to vote in a primary. It also doesn’t account for the possibility that no one will win in the first round at the convention that could result in someone like Clinton getting the nomination. I'm talking about the primary, not assuming anyone will automatically beat Trump in the general election. The biggest assumption is that if Bernie or Warren win (and the Biden bet lost) you wouldn't have to pay off the loan. I was mostly joking though, it's just something interesting to think about. If you are describing it as a ‘free roll’ the assumption would be that Bernie or Warren would win. Trump isn’t canceling student debt, so Biden loosing the nomination and Trump loosing the general is the only way that bet is a freeroll. Unless you are saying that Trump winning the general will do so much for the economy that a student in college stands to earn a high enough of a higher wage that he can afford to throw away one semesters worth of tuition. You're right. I wasn't thinking before typing lol. Ok lets change that to if Bernie or Warren win the nomination, max out your student loans and bet it all on Trump. |
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If anyone is able to take out student loans, borrowing the max and putting it all on Biden to win the nomination seems like almost a freeroll.
You are assuming that Pocahontas, or sanders would automatically beat trump, and I don’t think this is the case. Both are too extreme for mainstream voters and really appeal to fringe democratic voters, who are more likely to vote in a primary. It also doesn’t account for the possibility that no one will win in the first round at the convention that could result in someone like Clinton getting the nomination. I'm talking about the primary, not assuming anyone will automatically beat Trump in the general election. The biggest assumption is that if Bernie or Warren win (and the Biden bet lost) you wouldn't have to pay off the loan. I was mostly joking though, it's just something interesting to think about. |
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This article is unsurprisingly a bunch of rubbish. The quoted studies in the article say nothing about "HIV insertions", rather that it contained protein structures similar to those found in HIV. While an uncommon occurrence in nature, in no way does it mean HIV proteins had been "spliced" into the virus. Have you looked at the story recently? They have included this tweet and are doing some backtracking, probably after having been called out repeatedly for being full of shit: These short inserts do indeed exist in #nCoV2019 relative to its closest sequenced relative (BetaCoV/bat/Yunnan/RaTG13/2013, seen here https://nextstrain.org/groups/blab/sars-like-cov). However, a simple BLAST of such short sequences shows match to a huge variety of organisms. No reason to conclude HIV. The key word here is pets. This is pretty excessive, useless, and authoritarian exercise. Perhaps they should kill all the sparrows while they are at it too... This is a base example of trauma based mind control. Kill your pet or go to prison. You are damned if you do you are damned if you don't. If you do then you chose complicity in your mind, and it will be harder to sway you from that which you made such a sacrifice for. If you don't they lock you up and probably kill your pet anyway.
And this is you misinterpreting what the article you posted says. It doesn't say anybody will go to prison. It says provincial villagers are being ordered to cull their pets in some places, and keep them indoors in others, at the risk of them being culled by the police or officials if they are found outdoors. Its not "trauma based mind control" so much as local officials being pressured to implement solutions even at the risk of them being poor or ineffective. Its an unfortunate byproduct of panic and nothing more. |
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If anyone is able to take out student loans, borrowing the max and putting it all on Biden to win the nomination seems like almost a freeroll.
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Your three arguments can easily coexist, they are not exclusive of one another.
Agree. They could be all true, all false, or any combination. What do you think about each of them? 1- 'it was a perfect phone call, there was no quid pro quo'
2 - 'it's all hearsay and second hand information' (this implies that direct evidence would be relevant)
3 - 'even if he did do it, it's not impeachable' |
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Such dissonant points of view must be explainable based on cognitive dissonance and preconditioning. However, as for "who is right" I'll certainly place my bets on those people who simply said that the whole thing was a sham and 2/3 wasn't going to come.
'whole thing was a sham' and '2/3 wasn't going to come' are not the same. It was clear from the beginning that the the chances of getting 2/3 of the Senate was slim to none. That doesn't make the whole thing a sham though. The democrats shined a light on something Trump did, and forced the Republicans to go on the record with an up or down vote. Remember back in September when all we had was the transcript? The defense was 'it was a perfect phone call, there was no quid pro quo'. "If you could show me that Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing"
-Lindsay Graham
So they opened up the inquiry and got a bunch of witnesses that were involved with the Ukes (i'm gonna use 'Ukes' from now on), including several appointed by Trump. "I know that members of this Committee have frequently framed these complicated issues in the form of a simple question: Was there a 'quid pro quo?' As I testified previously, with regard to the requested White House call and White House meeting, the answer is yes."
-Sondland (Trump campaign donor and appointee) After a whole bunch of credible witnesses testified that there was definitely a quid pro quo, the defense pivoted to 'oh but it's all hearsay and second hand information'. So they went to a trial a John Bolton made a statement saying he would no longer fight a subpoena. “I have concluded that, if the Senate issues a subpoena for my testimony, I am prepared to testify,”
-John Bolton Perfect, right? We'll finally get to have direct evidence on whether or not Trump has been lying or telling the truth this whole time! Nope. Now the argument is 'even if he did do it, it's not impeachable'After all this though, something still happened. Every Senator has been forced to on the record. The historical kind of record. Also, the country got to look in on wtf is actually going on in the senate. If anyone is willing, I'm interested in which of these statements you consider true or false. And if you consider 2 or 3 of them true, why do you think they even used any defense other than the last? 'it was a perfect phone call, there was no quid pro quo''it's all hearsay and second hand information' (this implies that direct evidence would be relevant) 'even if he did do it, it's not impeachable'imo, that answer is False, False, False. I think the democrats forced the republicans to go from True, True, True => False, True, True => False, False, True. Which realllly looks like they don't care about the actual truth and are more concerned about protecting Trump. They got lindsay graham to go from "If you could show me that Trump actually was engaging in a quid pro quo, outside the phone call, that would be very disturbing"
-Lindsay Graham
To being the most vocal opponent of having Bolton come testify and explain exactly what happened in a matter of a couple months. Why? |
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Apparently everyone else is allowed to joke around and post memes in Politics & Society, except myself and anyone Flying Hellfish doesn't agree with. Especially when it is mocking one of his ideologically aligned pals. This made me lol. There are multiple Trump meme threads, one of them started by you, with lots of memes, many posted by you, which haven't been deleted. And the one that got deleted (not flagged by me), was you literally editing a quote to make it looks like I posted the meme. Troll on multiple levels. I respect that, but you can't cry if it gets removed. |
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Roughly 10–20 million dogs are killed for consumption in China each year, making the country the world's largest consumer of dog meat. Consuming dog meat is not illegal in mainland China, and the Chinese Ministry of Agriculture has never issued quarantine procedures for slaughtering dogs.https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dog_meatJust sayin.
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Schiff likely things he's an important guy, someone who could go places ... now.
He's been in congress for 20 years, chair of the intelligence committee and was lead prosecutor in two previous senate impeachment trials for federal judges. It was probably a very easy decision for Pelosi to tap him to lead the house managers. |
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If any of the Republican senators choose to run for president in the next few decades, the no witness vote they just had will very likely come back to haunt them.
I doubt it. The majority of the public have the memory of a gnat and most don't care anymore. They just vote for their king and thus any representative no matter how bad the person is as long as he's of the kings party. I was thinking more in the primaries. Bidens definitely taken some damage from votes he made in the 80s. I agree with pretty much everything else, including the Sekelow being slimy. I just meant that he 'performed' well as in he people to pay attention was able to articulate his point. "Trump bad orange man" meme.
I'm curious. How is that any different than the years of "Obama, bad black man" that the right did for years (and many still do)? The right mocks the left for the whole orange man bad thing. But they had, and many still do, Clinton derangement syndrome. When it comes to climate change the amount of Gore derangement syndrome I see is staggering. And there was a whole lot of Obama derangement syndrome.. So how is the current climate any different.. it just flips back and forth now and has really become meaningless as some sort of attempt at mocking those people one deems of having that sort of syndrome. Obama didn't have 4chan trolls on his side or a cult like following. It really is just an attempt to make someone feel or look stupid because of their opinion. |
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Nevermind. I shouldn't have said that. Was that a joke meant for me? Well played! Figured I'd get a few people in a thread like this  |
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Given they never dreamed or seriously considered they'd get 2/3 in the senate, it's then useful to ask what the real motivations were. What were they actually trying to accomplish? I think a motive that has to be considered is that they are actually quite confused, and do not have clear motives. I think the House was thinking more about the case they were presenting to the country than the Senate. Also, they put a lot of republican senators in swing states in an undesirable situation by making them actually pick a side on something they have always defaulted to political non-answers when asked about. It's pretty common in congress to propose and force a vote on something that you know doesn't have a chance of passing just to get a record of it. (The Republicans did that often during the House Impeachment hearings, and the Democrats are doing it right now with amendment propositions, for example) All in all, I'm not comprehending what the witnesses were intended to accomplish and for what goal.
The whole trial was on whether or not Trump did something bad, and how bad it was. During the House hearing, Bolton said he would challenge any subpoena in court, which could take over a year. Before the Senate trial Bolton said he would not fight a subpoena, and that he had information that had not yet been made public. 'all hearsay, no direct evidence' had been repeated over and over in defense of the President. Bolton would be able to provide direct evidence. By refusing to hear any witnesses, and the fact that Pompeo, Mulvaney and Bolton were all considered 'democrat witnesses', is evidence that there is a cover up happening. |
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