Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[Lord Liaden]

Maybe they could rename the USS Maine.

[Starlord]

There will most certainly be a ship named after Donald Trump.  It will be a Russian ballistic missile submarine.

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, Starlord said:

There will most certainly be a ship named after Donald Trump.  It will be a Russian ballistic missile submarine.

 

Sneaky, attacking from surprise, lobbing bombs from a distance, and prone to sinking and drowning everyone aboard. Yeah, I can see it.

[Pariah]

The old joke about Bill Clinton showing everyone his junk comes to mind.

[unclevlad]

7 hours ago, death tribble said:

There is a trend to name American ships after Presidents and Politicians. I'm just wandering if there will ever be a USS Donald Trump ? I can see there being some resistance from all quarters for this.

 

In recent years, the vast majority of ships named after Presidents have been carriers;  the Lyndon Johnson is a Zumwalt-class destroyer.  That's the only exception I saw.  (There's also a USS Roosevelt, which is an Arleigh Burke destroyer...but that's named after Franklin and Eleanor.)

 

I'd say it's basically zero chance of happening.  Trump's remarks over the summer burned that bridge down rather thoroughly, IMO.

 

Story in the NYT today, going back to our discussion about the potential problems for Fox, NewsMax, etc. for their election-fraud claims.  
https://www.nytimes.com/2021/02/10/technology/nadire-atas-arrest.html?action=click&module=News&pgtype=Homepage

 

If it's paywalled, in summary, a woman who's made extensive, abusive, defamatory posts against *many* people over a period of decades (per a separate story in the Times recently) has been arrested in Toronto and charged with 10 counts each of harassment, defamatory libel, and spreading false information with the intent to alarm.  I'm not sure if the woman is going to be prosecuted in Canada for violating Canadian law, or whether Toronto police arrested her at the request of US authorities and these are US charges.  If it's the former, then there may or may not be similar US laws, but those characterizations could clearly be applied to Fox News' coverage.

[Old Man]

2 hours ago, unclevlad said:

 

In recent years, the vast majority of ships named after Presidents have been carriers;  the Lyndon Johnson is a Zumwalt-class destroyer.  That's the only exception I saw.  (There's also a USS Roosevelt, which is an Arleigh Burke destroyer...but that's named after Franklin and Eleanor.)

 

USS Jimmy Carter is a Seawolf-class nuclear attack sub, named after the only president to have served on subs.

[archer]

Trump prefers Big Macs to subs.

[archer]

Actress Gina Carano is fired from The Mandalorian for suggesting Republicans are facing similar persecution in the USA as the Jews did during the Holocaust.

 

https://www.mediaite.com/entertainment/fire-gina-carano-mandalorian-republicans-holocaust-victims/

[Starlord]

Yeah, you could see that coming for a few months now.

[TrickstaPriest]

25 minutes ago, archer said:

Actress Gina Carano is fired from The Mandalorian for suggesting Republicans are facing similar persecution in the USA as the Jews did during the Holocaust.

 

https://www.mediaite.com/entertainment/fire-gina-carano-mandalorian-republicans-holocaust-victims/

 

And already my R friends/sources are saying she was fired for not putting 'she/her' gender pronouns in her profile.

[Lord Liaden]

Deprogramming Americans will be a monumental task.  

[Hermit]

35 minutes ago, archer said:

Actress Gina Carano is fired from The Mandalorian for suggesting Republicans are facing similar persecution in the USA as the Jews did during the Holocaust.

 

https://www.mediaite.com/entertainment/fire-gina-carano-mandalorian-republicans-holocaust-victims/

 

Damn. I liked the character. 

 

 

[Iuz the Evil]

13 minutes ago, TrickstaPriest said:

 

And already my R friends/sources are saying she was fired for not putting 'she/her' gender pronouns in her profile.

She did that too but a bit more than that. Rather than decline to put her pronouns in her profile (which would’ve been a big nothing burger), she put “beep/boop/bop” or something of that nature. Intentionally provocative and mocking, and not even clever. Then she bragged about it to her coworkers.
 

Basically she’s a PR nightmare, and Disney don’t care for those sorts of issues. So she’s fired.

[Starlord]

7 minutes ago, Iuz the Evil said:

She did that too but a bit more than that. Rather than decline to put her pronouns in her profile (which would’ve been a big nothing burger), she put “beep/boop/bop” or something of that nature. Intentionally provocative and mocking, and not even clever. Then she bragged about it to her coworkers.
 

Basically she’s a PR nightmare, and Disney don’t care for those sorts of issues. So she’s fired.

 

Supposedly she 'sort of apologized' after Pedro Pascal explained to her why people were doing that.

[Pariah]

Apologies are fine, but as an old Bishop of mine used to say, "The bandage has to be bigger than the wound."

[Iuz the Evil]

Yeah, at the end of the day Disney is very much a business and won’t tolerate anything that detracts from their current “cash cow” franchise. I do not for a moment believe this to be anything but a prudent financial decision. They waited to see if it would blow over, she couldn’t manage to stay out of the media on this issue, didn’t blow over, fired.

[unclevlad]

And it doesn't help that this is pattern and practice.  Hollywood Reporter notes social media posts mocking mask-wearing and downplaying the pandemic, and promoting the election fraud.  Disneyland and Disney World are both closed...still.  On that alone, anyone with a microgram of sense would recognize they're going to be rather more sensitive about the former, if nothing else.  Reporter also mentions "sources say" she was going to be given her own show.  If so, she's cost herself a *tidy* sum.

[Lord Liaden]

  

4 hours ago, Hermit said:

 

Damn. I liked the character. 

 

 

Her acting was improving with experience, too. No awards likely in her future, but competent.

[Matt the Bruins]

I mean, all action hero actors can't be Sigourney Weaver. I'd like it if they tried not to be Roseanne Barr, though.

 

I was prepared to give Carano a pass on the pronouns thing because it was in response to trans activists badgering her about *not* having put her pronouns on her profile. As a member of the LGBTQ community myself, I can admit that some of our activists have gotten  overzealous on the issue lately, and I'm all too familiar with the experience of counterattacking someone in an argument using terms that are insensitive toward outside parties. But the fuller span of her social media show her promoting every QAnon conspiracy theory she runs across, and equating being disagreed with to being a victim of the Holocaust is just the last straw.

[TrickstaPriest]

8 minutes ago, Matt the Bruins said:

and equating being disagreed with to being a victim of the Holocaust is just the last straw.

 

Wonder how they would feel about being the only survivor from a family of 10... and the generational emotional damage that caused my family.

[archer]

7 hours ago, Matt the Bruins said:

I mean, all action hero actors can't be Sigourney Weaver. I'd like it if they tried not to be Roseanne Barr, though.

 

I was prepared to give Carano a pass on the pronouns thing because it was in response to trans activists badgering her about *not* having put her pronouns on her profile. As a member of the LGBTQ community myself, I can admit that some of our activists have gotten  overzealous on the issue lately, and I'm all too familiar with the experience of counterattacking someone in an argument using terms that are insensitive toward outside parties. But the fuller span of her social media show her promoting every QAnon conspiracy theory she runs across, and equating being disagreed with to being a victim of the Holocaust is just the last straw.

 

I don't follow social media so I usually give people a lot of passes when they don't deserve them.

 

[csyphrett]

My son and I were speculating if this is why Whedon had to do Justice League instead of getting another Avengers movie given statements by Ray Fisher about what was going set there. Disney HR might have said Predator? Wait What? Here is your papers.

CES

[Matt the Bruins]

I suspect it had more to do with his fights with Marvel/Disney execs about what to include in Age of Ultron and his complaints about the studio during the marketing campaign. Biting the hand that feeds you and hamstringing your own movie's promotion as it's being released are frowned upon by studios, even if the thing does end up earning over a billion dollars.

[archer]

I saw a hilarious tweet earlier about Disney rehiring Gina Carano because they found out that she self-identified as a white male producer.

[Lord Liaden]

1 hour ago, csyphrett said:

My son and I were speculating if this is why Whedon had to do Justice League instead of getting another Avengers movie given statements by Ray Fisher about what was going set there. Disney HR might have said Predator? Wait What? Here is your papers.

CES

 

  

46 minutes ago, Matt the Bruins said:

I suspect it had more to do with his fights with Marvel/Disney execs about what to include in Age of Ultron and his complaints about the studio during the marketing campaign. Biting the hand that feeds you and hamstringing your own movie's promotion as it's being released are frowned upon by studios, even if the thing does end up earning over a billion dollars.

 

What I had heard at the time, from Whedon and other people involved with Age of Ultron, was that Whedon was too exhausted from that experience to consider taking on another movie of that scope for the foreseeable future, which I could believe. There were also reports that Joss was unhappy with studio meddling, but he and Marvel both kept their public comments civil and respectful. This is the first I'm hearing of significant upsets on the JL set, although lots of people have come out recently with serious complaints over Whedon going back decades.