19 minutes ago, Tom said:

Well, we do live in a society that uses firearm related analogies and metaphors as casually as sport related analogies and metaphors. 
 

And there are politicians who toss similar firearms related “political speech” onto the airwaves in speeches and their political advertisements and then claim its all harmless...

 

And thus tacitly suggests that the only way to solve political differences is through violence...

here I was trying to have more of a normal life instead of being online all the time.  Now I'm wondering if it's better to just start more HERO games... >_>

So at what point should we start comparing the violence in our society to be comparable to the acts in the Middle East?  ie- the bombings, shootings, and so on?  That is, 'failed state' level violence?

(thinking about it, likely statistical - you can probably predict that based on FB information via Cambridge Analytica... and even if CA went away, the data results would not.  a 90% match rate will still look like <x> voters... which could have been cross-referenced by those on record as having showed up to vote in person.)

5 minutes ago, Iuz the Evil said:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.wsj.com/amp/articles/california-takes-down-firearms-dashboard-after-gun-owner-data-are-leaked-11656535100
 

This was not okay. Seriously?! That list includes judges and law enforcement officers home addresses. 
 

Very upsetting.

This sort of thing happens more than one would like to think.  AZ had the same problem with the 'report election fraud!' site 😕

https://threatpost.com/trump-site-alleging-az-election-fraud-exposes-voter-data/161068/

IIRC there was a story in AZ about voter information being leaked that was apparently only republican voters who voted in person... interesting in how they obtained/figured out that data, IF it was true...

Just now, Old Man said:

It's not the ramifications for climate change that bother me so much as the reasoning that regulatory agencies have no authority to do anything.  I reckon the FDA is up next.

I mean, it bothers me because literally everyone is fooling themselves at thinking they are making "the correct financial decision for their retirement" by supporting these policies.  Retiring is hard when your grocery bill is higher than rent.........

33 minutes ago, Cygnia said:

...and I just checked the voter registry here in OH to see if I was listed.  We just had an election back in May, voted with no issue...

 

...I've been removed.

That's horrible.  I did the same check here just to make sure I was getting mine.

4 minutes ago, tkdguy said:

If my old company understood that, I'd probably still be an employee there. Even when they asked me to come back they offered no incentive for me to do so.

Literally told them I was leaving over this, which scared the Director so bad he ran (on injured feet) to the CEO to tell him.  He asked 'do you want anything' but gave no offers, and so I left.

Many companies chronically underpay their staff.  Chronically offer poor health insurance.  Chronically avoid any inconvenience to their internal systems or administration while applying incredible inconvenience (and even harm) to their employees.  Anything they are not mandated to do, they won't do.  😕

Just now, BNakagawa said:

If you're not going to use your temporary advantage to change the situation to redress the obvious injustices done by the other side by refusing to even give Garland a hearing and to ramrod their candidate in record time, what is even the point?

Yeah.  There are consequences to not act when a political party has thrown out the idea of elections and laws.

6 minutes ago, Dr. MID-Nite said:

So now what? Voting doesn't work (and they're actively ensuring to keep it that way), the court is now compromised for possibly another generation, protests don't work, and the disparity of power between the top and the rest of us is even worse than ever.  Not trying to be a doomer, but seriously...I'm tired of losing.

And climate change is going to destroy the financial stability of anyone making less than a few million a year.  And don't even talk about retirement.

The death of protest is why I was so scared about how the Floyd protests were being handled.  And this is pretty much what we are going to see now that this right is no longer effective. 😕

17 minutes ago, wcw43921 said:

 

None of these judges have heard of the Ninth Amendment?

One of the recent justices couldn't even enumerate the rights given in the First Amendment.

Just now, unclevlad said:

We can hope today's decision polarizes enough people to turn away from the Republicans.  I think there will be some, particularly women voters...but I don't think it'll be close to enough.  I don't think they'll bother trying to impeach Biden;  I think it more likely they'll focus on positioning for 2024 and beyond.  But I could be wrong;  they might, just as payback for the Jan. 6th hearings, and to pander to their base.

 

My expectation is that the blame on gas and food prices on Biden will work for the midterms, and the Jan 6th hearings will be the political excuse to investigate the dems (regardless of popularity of the idea) and to re-engineer the legal courts as much as possible for the next few years.  So the next time they want to challenge an election legally, they can essentially kangaroo-court the entire legal process of reviewing the election in numerous States.

Oh, and the war of Russia on Ukraine is being blamed on Biden too, for closing the pipelines.

1 hour ago, Lord Liaden said:

The November mid-terms will tell the tale. If the Republicans lose decisively at the federal and state level, there's a path to recovery. If the GOP actually regain control of Congress, after everything that's happened and everything that's been revealed... the United States as a whole will have chosen what kind of country it wants to be, and God help us all.

With inflation and the gas prices being shoved onto Biden, I highly doubt that will happen.

So people are going to have to think of what they are going to do when the Republican party pushes back into power again.

5 hours ago, Tom said:

This isn’t the first time Texas has threatened to secede, and likely won’t be the last. But trying to apply logic isn’t the best way to discount the threat. 
 

There are still people who think Brexit was a good idea….

Yep.  I've been watching Brexit news the last few years as a means of getting away from our news...

12 minutes ago, unclevlad said:

The signal for me will be how many Texas Republicans switch affiliations.

 

A staggering, staggering amount of people I know who are Republicans only use Fox or Fox-like sources for news, or none at all.  Which goes for the same thing - if there's news that would make us look bad, never even mention it exists.

14 minutes ago, dmjalund said:

you realize, that Texas seceding is the best thing for the Democrats

Except it wouldn't be alone, and attempting to split the country is what caused the first civil war. 😕 

2 hours ago, Cygnia said:

GOP’s Greitens pushes his luck with ad about hunting ‘RINOs’

Does this mean the GOP is finally going to get to hear what I've heard the last 5-6 years of my life?  "Let's make our politicians featured in commercials joking about killing liberals.  No, come on, it's just a joke guys."

After Trump's retweet today, I feel like nostalgically digging up the post on this thread where someone was accusing everyone on this thread of being traitors against the (then) President. >_>

I'm in a mood.  Like this was a mood.    Time for some drink and chips.

On 1/5/2021 at 9:24 AM, TrickstaPriest said:

Mussolini and the fascists managed to be simultaneously revolutionary and traditionalist;^[83][84] because this was vastly different from anything else in the political climate of the time, it is sometimes described^{[by whom?]} as "The Third Way".^[85] The Fascisti, led by one of Mussolini's close confidants, Dino Grandi, formed armed squads of war veterans called blackshirts (or squadristi) with the goal of restoring order to the streets of Italy with a strong hand. The blackshirts clashed with communists, socialists, and anarchists at parades and demonstrations; all of these factions were also involved in clashes against each other. The Italian government rarely interfered with the blackshirts' actions, owing in part to a looming threat and widespread fear of a communist revolution. The Fascisti grew rapidly; within two years they transformed themselves into the National Fascist Party at a congress in Rome. In 1921, Mussolini won election to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time.^[18] In the meantime, from about 1911 until 1938, Mussolini had various affairs with the Jewish author and academic Margherita Sarfatti, called the "Jewish Mother of Fascism" at the time.^[86]

March on Rome

In the night between 27 and 28 October 1922, about 30,000 Fascist blackshirts gathered in Rome to demand the resignation of liberal Prime Minister Luigi Facta and the appointment of a new Fascist government. On the morning of 28 October, King Victor Emmanuel III, who according to the Albertine Statute held the supreme military power, refused the government request to declare martial law, which led to Facta's resignation. The King then handed over power to Mussolini (who stayed in his headquarters in Milan during the talks) by asking him to form a new government. The King's controversial decision has been explained by historians as a combination of delusions and fears; Mussolini enjoyed wide support in the military and among the industrial and agrarian elites, while the King and the conservative establishment were afraid of a possible civil war and ultimately thought they could use Mussolini to restore law and order in the country, but failed to foresee the danger of a totalitarian evolution

16 minutes ago, Pariah said:

Slippery slope, you say? This woman's already got her toboggan waxed:

 

A Trump-backed Michigan state House candidate says birth control 'should not be legal'

"I'm hoping that through God's grace, we can use the political positions of legal power that conservatives will get to crush that revolutionary force," she said. "Otherwise, it's going to be very bad."

...

3 hours ago, Lord Liaden said:

I don't know if you've noticed that at the state level, state Republicans have been campaigning aggressively to replace the Secretaries of State with their preferred candidates. The SOS are the ones who certify elections.

Yep.  And no one is interested in getting involved...

So you guys understand, I'm actively supporting and comforting female friends of mine, probably going to have to be more than one, because of the devastation this is causing them.  It's terrifying them.  I know friends who've had friends commit suicide over stuff like this, being trapped in a state that wants them to suffer.

Louisiana has over 2 million people... so over 1 million women.  Roughly 25% of women have an abortion, and almost half of those are pro-life or highly religious.

So are they going to attack 100000s of women?  Or just 'the uppity ones'?  What happens when the police sues for an app's geographic tracking data to find 'murderers'?  Wholesale lawsuit, wholesale prosecution, of thousands of women?

The Louisiana government has said they are justifying acting outside of the Supreme Court as "well the other states ignored the Fed to legalize marijuana, so we feel this is fine".  Fighting to destroy hundreds of thousands of women is apparently the same as fighting to give people more rights. 

Even though our laws are structured specifically to prevent the argument of 'you are treating those people too nice, you should treat them worse'.  That argument literally cannot exist, legally.  The only argument you can have is 'you treat them nice, so you should treat me nice too'.

The Constitution was written to guarantee people's rights regardless of what the Federal Government could declare.  To grant the states limited rights, as well, while deferring to the Fed's rule of law for everything else.  It was the agreement that we shouldn't enter a period of constant inter-state warfare that could last a hundred years.

It was not written to guarantee the right of the states to abuse its people.  It's a document to grant these minimum rights, guaranteed no matter where you live within the Union.  Not an abstract set of rules to say 'each state should have control over what rights its people have'.

Had I written this earlier today, I would have probably cursed so much I'd have been banned for good.

If men... nah, just don't be any kind of woman in Louisiana.  Can't really put it any other way.

Right to privacy is also on the chopping block.  Especially.

It really does seem as though gay rights is next, judging by the draft.