Political Discussion Thread (With Rules)

[unclevlad]

22 hours ago, csyphrett said:

I think someone said that the NY DA is looking at him for all of this stuff. They want to know where his money came from to declare is what I heard.

CES 

 

IIRC, basically correct.  Santos' income didn't seem to support making a very large loan to his campaign, so it becomes a question of whether he's covering up an illegal contribution, if not something more severe like money laundering.

[BNakagawa]

The other thing the west in general and the US in particular is getting out of their involvement in Ukraine is that their Military Industrial Complexes are in position to make a killing while the Russian military is just getting killed.

 

Moving forward, what country is going to want to invest in Russian military hardware after watching it get pwnd by NATO stuff? Besides the bad press, Russia is going to have a hard time filling any external orders because all of its production capacity is already pre-spent just trying to replenish its lost inventory.

 

Besides that, the Pentagon and other nations are going to be able to make much more informed decisions about what systems to invest in and what to avoid based on the performances of said systems in a real world testing ground.

[Iuz the Evil]

If we can effectively cripple the Russian military for 6% of our annual military expenditure (mostly in repurposed gear that we will be replacing), with no loss of American lives, why wouldn’t we jump all over that?

 

 It’s a fantastic ROI

[unclevlad]

Because it's being done by a Democratic president, so of course it's just another spending boondoggle.

 

 

[Lord Liaden]

It's just good to have these points ready, for when the subject inevitably comes up with our relatives/friends/coworkers/etc.

 

Because helping fellow human beings who are being attacked and killed by a foreign invader who wants to conquer them, just doesn't seem to cut it for a lot of people any more.

[Iuz the Evil]

29 minutes ago, Lord Liaden said:

It's just good to have these points ready, for when the subject inevitably comes up with our relatives/friends/coworkers/etc.

 

Because helping fellow human beings who are being attacked and killed by a foreign invader who wants to conquer them, just doesn't seem to cut it for a lot of people any more.

I don’t disagree with this, and it’s also in our strategic interest. That’s a compelling reason why it’s Ukraine (as a way to degrade Russian power) as opposed to Ethiopia or Myanmar. 
 

I would be in support of this action whether it’s Biden, Trump, Obama or GW Bush. It’s a rare opportunity to do the right thing and also advance national military and geopolitical interests for a relatively modest cost (to us, anyway). It’s unfortunate we are so polarized that isn’t good enough anymore.

[unclevlad]

Sure, but you're not a rampantly hypocritical

 

--power-hungry bully

--craven, greedy, narcissist

--or blatant opportunist 

 

who have no care whatsoever beyond their own self-interest

[tkdguy]

 

[wcw43921]

A post like this would be more appropriate for Banned Books Week, but seeing as book banning and yes, book burning is a 24/7/365 (+1 for leap year) proposition, I figure anytime is a good time for this.

There’s a significance to this particular book–in Francois Truffaut’s movie adaptation of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451, this appears in the scene where the Firemen arrive at Montag’s house to burn all his books. It gets consumed in the flames along with works by Nabokov, Salinger, Miller, Twain, Melville–there’s even a book of crossword puzzles burned to ashes.

I think that scene makes a really great point–that it’s not just the works of literary significance that deserve protection; the supposedly “lowbrow” works of fiction are equally deserving. The author Theodore Sturgeon once famously said, “Ninety percent of everything is crap.” I believe that to be true, and I believe this corollary to also be true–”The ten percent that isn’t (crap) is worth fighting and dying for.” I further believe that you cannot protect the ten percent without protecting the other ninety percent. The reason this book and many like it are more easily banned is that they are considered less worthy of protection than works of literary or artistic significance–simply because they supposedly lack that significance, that merit. But again, if you’re going to protect the works that have merit, then you have to protect the works that are supposedly without merit.

So anyway–the humor in this book may be dated, but it’s still a pretty decent read. If you decide to get your own copy, I hope you enjoy it–I hope you cherish it–but most of all, I hope you keep it safe from the Firemen.  Keep all your books safe from the Firemen.

Take care, everyone--and have a Happy New Year.

 

Spoiler

 

[Lord Liaden]

MAD Magazine was a satirical snapshot of what was hot in politics and popular culture in America in its day. It's a valuable historical document.

[unclevlad]

And for those who don't remember it, here's a quote that offers a hint of why certain factions would be...less than fans.  From Wikipedia:

 

Quote

In 1994, Brian Siano in The Humanist discussed the effect of Mad on that segment of people already disaffected from society:

 

For the smarter kids of two generations, Mad was a revelation: it was the first to tell us that the toys we were being sold were garbage, our teachers were phonies, our leaders were fools, our religious counselors were hypocrites, and even our parents were lying to us about damn near everything. An entire generation had William Gaines for a godfather: this same generation later went on to give us the sexual revolution, the environmental movement, the peace movement, greater freedom in artistic expression, and a host of other goodies. Coincidence? You be the judge.[41]

 

The first objective of the censors is to block anything and everything that might be construed as a red pill...and Mad, in its heyday, definitely counted.  BTW, it was rebooted, but it doesn't have the reach it had from the 50s through probably the 70s.  

[wcw43921]

17 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

MAD Magazine was a satirical snapshot of what was hot in politics and popular culture in America in its day. It's a valuable historical document.

 

Try telling that to the teacher who confiscated the copy you were hiding in your social studies textbook.  Don't forget that MAD grew out of EC Comics, which was held up by Wertham and his dark disciples as the most egregious example of how comics were corrupting the youth of 1950s America.

[unclevlad]

2 hours ago, wcw43921 said:

 

Try telling that to the teacher who confiscated the copy you were hiding in your social studies textbook.  Don't forget that MAD grew out of EC Comics, which was held up by Wertham and his dark disciples as the most egregious example of how comics were corrupting the youth of 1950s America.

 

I don't see a conflict between this, and what LL said...

[Lord Liaden]

And now classic comic books are in museums, icons of graphic storytelling, and inspiration for some of the highest-grossing movies in history. We all knew this stuff was great, but it always takes a while for society as a whole to catch up with its youth.

[Cygnia]

[unclevlad]

The lawsuits are starting against Musk and Twitter, for things like the unpaid rent and private charter flights.  Not necessarily significant financially to Musk, but it's that much more piling on.

 

I'm still kinda feeling he's aiming at bankruptcy for Twitter.

 

But by the same token...Musk is reported to have lost $200 BILLION in 2022.  Most ever, said another story.  Hard to believe he's reacting normally...whatever 'normal' might be with him...so these suits may be more impactful to him than any potential financial consequences.

[Logan D. Hurricanes]

[unclevlad]

I'm sure by now many of you have heard that Buffalo Bills player Damar Hamlin collapsed after a hit.  Report now is, he went into cardiac arrest.  CPR and a defib were required.  In the hospital;  last report, some hours back, his vitals were better, a tube to help support breathing was inserted, and he was put to sleep.  In critical condition, I presume in the cardiac care unit.  No word since, but it was getting pretty late and further evaluation will come later.

 

You can read all about that in the NFL thread.  I started to post this here, but...can't.

 

 

Cheapest of the cheap, lowest of the low.  

 

A few 'pundits' have made comments about "gee, NFL players are dropping like flies, well, that's not surprising."  I saw one such...I think it was a response, but I don't recall...and at the time, I basically said "he can't mean what it seems he means..."

Some of them make sure you can't miss their point by tossing in syringe emojis.  That one didn't.

 

Yeah...the <BLEEP>s are claiming it's vax related...because 99% of NFL players are now vaccinated.

 

No basis.  No factual support.  No clue.  No scruples.  No shame.  

 

Note that I don't think this was widespread.  I think it's some of the hardest of the hardcore;  one was Grant Stinchfield, who was so divisive that Newsmax canned him.  I even looked over on Fox News, and they're reporting it as a straight, tragic story, it looked like.  

[Lord Liaden]

 

[Pattern Ghost]

On 12/30/2022 at 11:11 AM, unclevlad said:

Remember the inexplicable 4 murders in Idaho in mid-November?  A suspect has been arrested.

 

My niece and her boyfriend were renting a cabin in the area where he was arrested, when he was arrested.

[Cygnia]

https://www.commondreams.org/news/house-republicans

 

Quote

Government watchdog groups on Monday blasted plans by U.S. House Republicans to gut an independent, nonpartisan ethics office that was established 15 years ago to review allegations of misconduct against members of the chamber and their staffers.

The GOP is set to have a narrow House majority once new members are sworn in on Tuesday. The party's proposed changes to the Office of Congressional Ethics (OCE) were among various controversial policies included in the rules package for the 118th Congress that was unveiled late Sunday.

As Politico's Nicholas Wu summarized on Twitter, the Republican proposals "would effectively sack most of the Democratic-appointed board members by instituting term limits and make it much harder to hire staff."

 

[csyphrett]

Did Kevin MCCarthy get enough votes to be a speaker? I think it would be hilarious if he didn't.

CES

[unclevlad]

Vote hasn't happened yet.  NYT reports they'll start live coverage at noon eastern, along with C-SPAN and PBS.

 

 

[DShomshak]

When Nancy Pelosi announced her coming retirement from Democratic House leadership, one of the news programs I listen to said she'd been one of the strongest House speakers of all time, and went into her particular political talents that earned her this rating. Like, she knows everything about everyone in her caucus.

 

Discussing Kevin McCarthy, I have heard that Pelosi has been openly contemptuous of his political skills, or lack of them. I would guess that if he gets the speakership he has sought so long, he will be one of the *weakest* Speakers of all time.

 

Dean Shomshak

3 hours ago, Cygnia said:

https://www.commondreams.org/news/house-republicans

 

 

Of *course* they want to gut the ethics office. <eyeroll>

 

Dean Shomshak

[TrickstaPriest]

7 minutes ago, DShomshak said:

Of *course* they want to gut the ethics office. <eyeroll>

 

 

We are talking about a political party that's supported members who openly court political violence.  This is like... kicking puppies by comparison :/