Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Lord Liaden]

Members have been quitting Mar-A-Lago in droves since Trump moved back there, and his neighbors have petitioned the local government to evict him. Mar-A-Lago has been called "sad" since his return. Trump's investors and business partners are shunning him, and his properties are hemorrhaging money at an accelerating rate. And of course, prosecutors are circling him.

 

Couldn't happen to a more deserving guy.

[Old Man]

Meanwhile over Mar-a Lago:

 

[Pariah]

And here I am, fresh out of Likes. 

[Lord Liaden]

This is a very clear and informative breakdown of procedure by which the Democrats can get their stimulus package through.

 

 

[Cygnia]

After Capitol riot, police chiefs work to root out officers with ties to extremist groups

[DShomshak]

On 1/23/2021 at 7:16 AM, Starlord said:

‘Gondor has no king’: pro-Trump lawsuit cites Lord of the Rings

Oh, hey. While we're invoking works of fiction in our lawsuits, perhaps the Trumpkins can argue that all the election officials who say Biden won were under the Imperius /Curse from the Harryt Potter books.

 

If the Trumpkins are willing to pay me a lot of money, I'll produce an affidavit to this effect, based on my impeccable expertise with the supernatural. It would make as much sense as some of the crap they're citing.

 

Dean Shomshak

[archer]

Disneyland, Disney World to revamp 'Jungle Cruise' after years of criticism for racist depictions

 

"Additionally, the “trapped safari” scene that shows a group of adventurers climbing a tree to avoid a rhinoceros will also be revamped. In its current form in Disneyland, a white traveler is at the top in a safer position while native guides are seen lower down the tree." 

 

https://thehill.com/blogs/in-the-know/in-the-know/535797-disneyland-disney-world-to-revamp-jungle-cruise-after-years-of

 

< sigh > I guess I need to post this here rather than In Other News because talk of racism can easily turn political.

 

Okay, I've never seen the ride and never will. However...

 

This scene, as described in the article, is depicting a bunch of guides actually doing their job and making sure the person they're guiding gets to safety before they get themselves to safety.

 

Um.

 

I can't come up with any words to describe my reaction.

 

If Bear Grylls (the white British guy who's a wilderness guide on a variety of TV shows) is guiding me and there was danger from a wild animal, I'd hope he'd be doing exactly the same thing: get me to safety first then save himself.

[Old Man]

[archer]

9 minutes ago, Old Man said:

 

Thanks for the photo.

[Ragitsu]

Veteran GMs?

Veteran DMs?

Veteran players?

Introverts?

Autistic people?

Creative prodigies?

Promising authors/writers?

 

They all wish they had the imagination of anyone who deeply and wholly believes that Donald Trump won the election.

[Old Man]

44 minutes ago, Ragitsu said:

 

They all wish they had the imagination of anyone who deeply and wholly believes that Donald Trump won the election.

 

I don't think it's a question of imagination so much as indoctrination.  If you got all your news from Fox, Sinclair, Facebook, and Rush, you too might believe that Democrats are soulless evil drinkers of baby blood.  Especially if you start off from a generally conservative viewpoint and have no critical thinking skills. 

 

This doesn't excuse the violence or delusional psychosis, but conservative media deserves a lot of the blame.  And while they exist, the problem will only get worse.

[unclevlad]

Go back further.  Pre-Fox, pre-Facebook...but not pre-Rush.  He was the drum major, out in front.  You can also connect Paul Harvey on a few aspects...he claimed he only reported facts but that's debatable, but even more, and I remember this quite well, his transition from delivering a story to a pitch was completely seamless.  In that sense, I think he laid out the blueprint for mixing message taken up later by the truthbenders.

 

And while Rush was frequently strident, Harvey was soooo, so smooth.

[csyphrett]

3 hours ago, unclevlad said:

Go back further.  Pre-Fox, pre-Facebook...but not pre-Rush.  He was the drum major, out in front.  You can also connect Paul Harvey on a few aspects...he claimed he only reported facts but that's debatable, but even more, and I remember this quite well, his transition from delivering a story to a pitch was completely seamless.  In that sense, I think he laid out the blueprint for mixing message taken up later by the truthbenders.

 

And while Rush was frequently strident, Harvey was soooo, so smooth.

Now you know the rest of the story.

CES

[Lord Liaden]

4 hours ago, Ragitsu said:

Veteran GMs?

Veteran DMs?

Veteran players?

Introverts?

Autistic people?

Creative prodigies?

Promising authors/writers?

 

They all wish they had the imagination of anyone who deeply and wholly believes that Donald Trump won the election.

 

Not really. Their imaginations have plot holes you could drive a train through. And they're all Mary Sues. While Donald Trump is their deus ex machina.

[Cygnia]

[archer]

Twitter permanently bans My Pillow CEO due to “repeated violations” of its civic integrity policy. 

 

He wouldn't quit posting baseless claims that the 2020 election was stolen.

 

Dominion Voting Systems is considering suing him for claiming that their voting machines were rigged.

 

Bed Bath & Beyond and Kohl’s have said that they would stop carrying My Pillow’s products.

 

https://apnews.com/article/joe-biden-donald-trump-media-elections-presidential-elections-ac34de7cb5844d96589a10ea6e653d50

 

Live by the pillow. Die of slow suffocation.

[archer]

Justice Department to Stop Renewing Federal Contracts With Private Prisons

 

https://www.thedailybeast.com/justice-department-to-end-federal-contracts-with-private-prisons

 

When the individual contracts come to an end, they won't be renewed.

 

Of course the government doesn't have existing facilities staffed and ready to go to hold the inmates which are currently being held at private prisons. So there's a bit of a question about what's going to happen to the prisoners.

 

I for one would be in favor of decriminalizing street drugs at the federal level and releasing people who are incarcerated for non-violent drug offenses. That's assuming they haven't become violent or a threat to public safety while imprisoned.

 

There's a good argument to be made to keep drug offenders imprisoned if they've joined gangs which are known for their violence and/or gangs which focus on white supremacy or other racist ideas. And that should be thoroughly argued before any decisions are made about that part of the prison population.

 

If anyone knows of a handy dandy breakdown, by which crimes they committed, of everyone who is in federal penitentiaries, that would be helpful in future discussions. 

 

I've never had a feel for what percentage are non-violent drug offenders, what percentage are counterfeiters, what percentage are tax cheats, what percentage are murderers, etc. 

 

It might be that releasing non-violent drug offenders would fix the whole "but we don't have space" problem. Or it might be that we would have to make further decisions, this time difficult decisions, about prisoner releases. Or decide which defunct prison facilities to reopen for business.

[csyphrett]

Rand Paul filed a motion to declare the second impeachment unconstitutional. The five R senators who hate Trump voted against, the rest went all in which is no surprise. Good job Republicans. Good job

CES 

[Old Man]

Normalization of violence in politics is about 3/4 of the way down the road to fascism, so we're right on schedule.

[archer]

Sen. Rand Paul attempted a grandstanding stunt to have a vote to put Senators on the record about whether they think impeaching a president who has already left office is constitutional or not.

 

For some un-Godly reason, Schumer thought it was a great idea to allow a vote on it: without any advance warning to senators on either side of the aisle that it was coming and apparently without a lot of discussion and debate to let senators tell why they're taking the position that they are on the matter.

 

Just five GOP senators voted that it was constitutional.

 

https://thehill.com/homenews/senate/535925-senate-rejects-paul-effort-to-declare-trump-impeachment-trial

 

I find this very irksome.

 

By letting Paul frame it as an argument about impeachment rather than an argument about a trial, they let him have the advantage. And they didn't give senators an adequate chance to show that how framing the argument in that manner was false.

 

Trump was impeached while he was President. The impeachment is over and has been over for days. 

 

What's happening now is the trial about the impeachment.

 

You can't escape the trial by resigning from office or your term expiring. That's been tried in the past and the Senate has conducted the trial anyway. We're still operating under the same Constitution as the Senate was operating under for that previous trial (the 1876 trial for the Secretary of War).

 

If they could conduct a trial in the past, they can conduct a trial now.

 

"Removal from office" isn't the only possible penalty if found guilty at trial. The accused can also be barred from being elected to federal offices or being hired or appointed to any federal positions whether a mailman, a postmaster, a White House butler, a trustee for the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, an ambassador, a Cabinet post, or a Supreme Court Justice.

 

It's not only important to keep Trump out of those kinds of jobs because he can't do them but it's also very important that he not be allowed to rehabilitate his image by getting appointed to commissions by future presidents.

 

13 minutes ago, csyphrett said:

Rand Paul filed a motion to declare the second impeachment unconstitutional. The five R senators who hate Trump voted against, the rest went all in which is no surprise. Good job Republicans. Good job

CES 

 

Sorry, I was doing some long-winded typing as you posted that.

[archer]

8 minutes ago, Old Man said:

Normalization of violence in politics is about 3/4 of the way down the road to fascism, so we're right on schedule.

 

I'll admit, I was highly tempted to go to Washington and shake McCain in the face of those Republicans voting Rand Paul's way.

 

 

edit: Danged autocorrect. It was supposed to be "my cane".

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, archer said:

Sen. Rand Paul attempted a grandstanding stunt to have a vote to put Senators on the record about whether they think impeaching a president who has already left office is constitutional or not.

 

For some un-Godly reason, Schumer thought it was a great idea to allow a vote on it: without any advance warning to senators on either side of the aisle that it was coming and apparently without a lot of discussion and debate to let senators tell why they're taking the position that they are on the matter.

 

 

The Democrats have a long history of tactically shooting themselves in the foot. I really hoped Schumer, at least, would have learned better by now. I'm confident Pelosi wouldn't have gambled like that.

[TrickstaPriest]

So we are basically back to the Republican party being "violence against democrats is justified, just forget that we backstabbed your favorite guy" across the board now?

[Lectryk]

3 hours ago, archer said:

If anyone knows of a handy dandy breakdown, by which crimes they committed, of everyone who is in federal penitentiaries, that would be helpful in future discussions. 

 

 

Is this what you're looking for?  https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp

[archer]

12 hours ago, Lectryk said:

 

Is this what you're looking for?  https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics/statistics_inmate_offenses.jsp

 

Thank you. Perfect! Exactly the information I was wanting but too out of it today to track down. I bookmarked the site for future reference because I'll be using the hell out of that information over the next few months in various conversations.

 

46.4% of the prison population are there for drug offenses. The website doesn't break that down between violent and non-violent but I should be able to get at least some estimates from advocacy groups (and be able to compare their estimates against real numbers, which is sometimes needed when dealing with information from advocacy groups).

 

The next two highest categories are 20.3% and 11.1%. So drug offenses far and away account for the largest segment of the population.