Now That Trump's President... (not any more!)

Yeah ok she's not a shill but she's less consistent than Bernie

Trump is OK, he used to be a Democrat. 

  On 7/12/2019 at 9:12 AM, Zeffolia said:

Yeah ok she's not a shill but she's less consistent than Bernie

It’s not a purity test, it’s about policy ideas that are realistic and can be sold through competent messaging. Warren is just better at this. 

  On 7/12/2019 at 2:27 AM, goDel said:

One friend in particular is an interesting character. He's half Belgian - Swiss, but grew up in LA and lived most of his life in the US (he has a US passport). He currently has been living in Belgium for 10 years or something, and the fun part is, he considers himself a fairly extreme libertarian. He's one of those "Never Hillary" people and still hates Obama. He says he didn't vote in 2016. But I really don't believe that. Given his strong emotions about Clinton and Obama. So he currently lives in 'communist' Europe and is confronted with the fact things are pretty reasonable around here. Believe it or not, he's even fairly happy about the tax-rates in Belgium. US taxes are godawful though. Especially when you have a US passport and live outside of the US. Because you still need to pay taxes to the US. Kinda silly, seeing he has to pay Belgian taxes as well. So he's pretty salty about taxes.

I found that out, btw, when I mailed him that clip of Rutger Bregman at Davos ("Taxes, taxes, taxes!"). I was kinda pushing his buttons, but he actually got pretty pissed. (it was meant good hearted... yeah, taxes are serious business i guess) Taxes are a sensitive subject. So he spend tons of times explaining why taxes in the US are f-ed, even though he genuinely saw me as some typical PC leftist AOC commy nutcase. He really did. But still he took time to explain his theories on taxes and all that. Kinda heartwarming, even though I consider myself fairly moderate and felt he was jumping the gun with his assumptions. What also didn't help was our discussion about the Russia investigation, i guess. He has worked at the Washington Post and still has some contacts there, so he had some inside info about the Mueller thing going nowhere. This was just before Barr pushed his summary, btw. After Barr he gave his "told you so!" speech. My response was a "it's not finished yet, buddy". So, from his perspective a drank lots of cool-aid. His strongest argument about Russia leading to nothing was that it would have leaked by now. Which kinda confuses me, as there's been plenty of leaks. But whatever. Somethings we just wont see eye to eye, I guess. He's an interesting character, nevertheless. And apart from some of his beliefs, we can get along well. He's even fairly creative. Jazz musician. Knows squarepusher. And is into modern composers and all that. When it comes to music, he's as open minded as they come. 

So yeah, quite the character. Not sure why I'm putting this here. But yeah. Did so anyways. Needed to get it off my chest, or something.

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I worry he'll go hardcore right-wing if he gets more active. I say this as someone who was a Ron Paul fan / budding libertarian when I joined this forum back in 2008 or so. In hindsight I was doing it as a contrarian to my own leftist tendencies (I went from centrist to angry leftist in late high school and early college) and to try to salvage some family relationships (which was naive and regrettable in hindsight). The hypocrisy of the Tea Party and more apparent right shift of the GOP got me back to moderate then liberal sentiments by 2012. Whatever sincerity and truly "social progressive/economic conservative" / small government ethos remained in 2008 was completely excised and appropriated falsely into the current populist far right paleo-conservative / fascist soup that is the GOP now. So if someone has been maintaining "libertarian ideals" through the current populist right movement of the last few years they likely won't revert to more liberal or progressive stances and instead get radicalized by the alt right or, at best, cynically indifferent. 

That said, it might be possible to swing some people back from alt-right rhetoric, especially younger cynical folks who are still fairly detached from actual voting and activism. I've been binge-watching a lot of "breadtube" and "left-tube" videos lately - contrapoints, shaun, philosophytube, etc. - what's remarkable is these channels all emerged as a reaction to the very consistent swing of previously apathetic or nonpolitical gamers, reviewers, contrarian skeptics/atheists/academics (sam harris, jordan peterson), people who watch rogan or dave rubin non-political YT celebrities and their followers toward this anti-PC / anti-SJW sentiment and hysteria (gamergate was the flashpoint) and then toward more iffy right-wing and/or conspiracy stuff via pragerU, ben shapiro, saragon, infowars, stefan molyneux, and a slew of other dogwhistle heavy racists, fascists, anti-immigrant, anti-semitic, anti-LQBT, anti-feminists, etc. 

Many of these "lefttube" figures were non-political themselves and literally found their own content and/or feeds littered with alt right clickbait, so they came up with reaction videos - ones notably more fleshed-out production, thought-out arguments, and in-depth retorts. It's just as much a reaction to right-wing views as it is an alternative to the more knee-jerk, topical, and strawman reactions from many liberals and progressives which come from understandable frustration and anger but do little if anything to actually encourage more substantive leftist ideological ideas or proposals. I find them a lot more encouraging, even calming, compared to the years I've spent watching say, politcal satire via SNL, Daily Show, or binge-reading r/politics or even this thread. It's cathartic but ultimately fatiguing mentally, leaving a feeling of unresolved anger or gloomy futility. The thing that is the most fascinating, and why I brought this up, is when you read the comments and discussions on r/breadtube there are a lot of people, zoomers teens and college kids mostly, who have attested to being brought out of far-right and fringe beliefs that they were sucked into years ago. So that means some those depressingly cynical internet-obsessed edgelords and keks online are actually getting rehabilitated when alternative narratives are presented to them. I just hope that more are to come, and that more will actually manage to get out of their understandably nihilist bubbles and vote the current regimes out. 

  On 7/12/2019 at 2:54 PM, Candiru said:

It’s not a purity test, it’s about policy ideas that are realistic and can be sold through competent messaging. Warren is just better at this. 

she honed her chops as a regulator. long before she became a senator she was out there trying to protect consumers and holding banks and big corporation's feet to the flames.  i think she'd do a good job and a sanders warren ticket (in any order) would be cool. 

no candidate is perfect and people need to stop looking for perfect. .it doesn't exist. they can't please everyone and I don't think that should be their jobs.  even if candidate is checks all the boxes for you when/if he/she gets elected there will be compromises to get things done. 

Just gonna leave these here

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=plG5RKR7EJM

(Second one is latest Vic Berger edit, but YouTube won't allow embedding of it for some reason)

  On 7/12/2019 at 8:03 AM, ignatius said:

WaPo columnist Richard Cohen wrote that President-elect Donald Trump once asked, “Is it wrong to be more sexually attracted to your own daughter than your wife?” — but the quote was quietly removed before the syndicated column was published Tuesday.
Ivanka was 13 at the time.

 

 

 

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What's one thing that would be so vile that it would turn the Maga base against him, cause the R's to stop defending him, lead to immediate impeachment proceedings, lead to an arrest with not even his replacement Pence able to pardon him...I would think it would have to be a Trump & Ivanka sex tape...

Megan looked pretty hot at Kimmel, btw. Def would, even if she don't swing that way. ;)

(and she'd totally resent me for saying this hahaha)

@Josh: stay strong there buddy! good story!

megan and her team have been really triggering the right- especially during their parade when she claimed she deserved everything. not exactly modest but whatever

i'm kinda more interested in this new "super" religious stance with conservatives where they're so christian they cannot meet members of the opposite sex unless there is someone around to observe the-non sexual acts that will take place. latest candidate is God-fearing christian state-representative and man of the lord: robert foster

  Quote

On Tuesday, Mississippi Today journalist Larrison Campbell reported that her team had reached out to the three gubernatorial candidates seeking the Republican nomination, asking to shadow them on the campaign — a request that one politician denied. His reason: He didn’t want to be alone with a female reporter.

today foster was swimming in liberal hate for his respect of the "values of marriage and reputation"

not modest but hell.. she "feuded" w/the president, talked shit, caused an uproar and went out there and playe like a fucking boss. the equal pay stuff w/women's soccer at the front has been ongoing for years. they generated more revenue than USA men's soccer the last 3 years but they make like 1/8th what the men get and they have a super tiny budget for travel etc.  so, it's easy to argue that mayhaps she does deserve it

  On 7/13/2019 at 1:18 AM, Nebraska said:

i'm kinda more interested in this new "super" religious stance with conservatives where they're so christian they cannot meet members of the opposite sex unless there is someone around to observe the-non sexual acts that will take place. latest candidate is God-fearing christian state-representative and man of the lord: robert foster

today foster was swimming in liberal hate for his respect of the "values of marriage and reputation"

 

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Because no one can trust a lady around bowl cut boi. Definitely a pussy magnet with god-given self control. Most definitely not part of the kidfucking club either. 

maybe he's secretly muslim

  On 7/13/2019 at 1:18 AM, Nebraska said:

i'm kinda more interested in this new "super" religious stance with conservatives where they're so christian they cannot meet members of the opposite sex unless there is someone around to observe the-non sexual acts that will take place.

Sounds like they had a meeting about all those sexual cases in the various churches in the past and came to the conclusion they had to implement some new rules into their belief. To save their church.

So, priests and young boys are still fair game, I guess. Or rather, they still can't acknowledge homosexuality. That bit was already in the rulebook. Not that it helped...

  On 7/3/2019 at 5:47 AM, ambergonk said:

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  On 7/13/2019 at 1:39 AM, Candiru said:

Because no one can trust a lady around bowl cut boi. Definitely a pussy magnet with god-given self control. Most definitely not part of the kidfucking club either. 

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the perspective of the capitol behind him makes it look like its fallen over in a giant earthquake, movie style.. but yeah not to distract from the haircut..

The fact that ICE still identifies and wears the word "POLICE" on their uniforms, 2 years after this law was proposed, and after being sued by multiple local police departments bc of falsely identifying themselves, and causing confusion and fear among their citizens is FUBAR:

https://nypost.com/2017/04/05/law-would-bar-immigration-agents-from-having-police-on-uniforms/amp/

Someone really needs to kick his ass. I'm talking about a brutal, gang-style, savage beat down. Would be awesome if it was someone like Paul Ryan that did it.

  On 7/15/2019 at 5:01 PM, zero said:

Someone really needs to kick his ass. I'm talking about a brutal, gang-style, savage beat down. Would be awesome if it was someone like Paul Ryan that did it.

Trump? Or Stephen King?

  On 7/15/2019 at 5:05 PM, StephenG said:

Trump? Or Stephen King?

Ha! I'm talking about the orange king.

Although that would be a laugh to see Stephen King and Paul Ryan in a fight.

lol I thought that's what you meant but wasn't 100% sure. 

My money is on Paul Ryan in either of those fights - he's over 20yrs junior to either of them! 

Trump just went on another racist tirade on Twitter, this time against four Democratic congresswomen, telling them to go back to their home countries basically

https://www.courthousenews.com/trump-doubles-down-on-twitter-tirade-against-congresswomen/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=trump-doubles-down-on-twitter-tirade-against-congresswomen

He needs a stick of primed dynamite lodged in his rear orifice, for the fat, racist, disgusting piece of shit that he is. The bar has been set so low for office of POTUS now, it's practically a gateway to Hell at this point.