Just when you might be getting concerned that we Americans are running out of ways to jack up the number of firearm deaths, Donnie Dump and the GOP Congress squeezed out this lovely turd.
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"We can have democracy in this country, or we can have great wealth concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can't have both." ~ Louis D. Brandeis
"Psychos do not explode when sunlight hits them, I don't give a fuck how crazy they are." ~ S. Gecko
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-lang="en"><p lang="en" dir="ltr">A populist racist in power<br>Whose attitude’s typically dour<br>Won praise from the press<br>Across the US<br>By toning it down for an hour.</p>— Limericking (@Limericking) <a href="https://twitter.com/Limericking/status/836983073111670786">March 1, 2017</a></blockquote>
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I heard some of this on the news this morning, and it was disgusting to hear even NPR fawn over Trump, as if he's some sort of wonderful person because he finally, finally said something to the effect of "anti-Semitism isn't cool".
Wait, have we forgotten that this guy blatantly ran on a platform of stirring up and encouraging racism? (The KKK and other such organizations certainly haven't.) Have we forgotten that he has appointed racists and White Supremacists to key positions?
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
It is entirely possible he will survive this, because Republicans have no shame, but crucially, his word will be worthless going forward, and that alone already counts as a victory to me.
Edit: Also, Sir Patrick Stewart is applying for U.S. citizenship to help fight the Giant Orange Toddler with Nukes.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
I don't think you really appreciate the situation.
Republicans, at least old white men Republicans, can inherently be trusted to run private servers and private meetings and so on and ensure they are secure. Or at least if they turn out not be secure, not to get caught. Or at least if they do get caught, for no actual damage to be provable. Or if actual damage is found, to get away with it anyway because their voters love power and will excuse anything.
Others (Democrats, women, blacks, or any combination; let alone foreigners - except strong ones - or non-Christian or non-straight or non-cis individuals) are inherently untrustworthy and should be locked up without a trial in case they do something we don't like. (If they resist being locked up they obviously have something to hide and should be shot. In case.)
The optics are terrible, but from a security standpoint using an email service that presumably has professionals minding zero day exploits and rolling your own without said professionals minding the server, the server is probably worse.
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Peering from the top of Mount Stupid
The fact that, popular perceptions aside, Clinton's server was not hacked seems like a pertinent detail to consider. One might also contrast this with the official State Department server, which was hacked.
As for Pence... I mean, it's AOL. Have some fucking standards, man.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
And I still don't know who or what to believe at this point. So I'll just lol @ Mike Pence.
I find it hard to credit Andy Greenberg and Bob McMillan with much integrity for that piece, which has the hallmarks of a partisan, innuendo-laden, smear job. For example;
So the probability is a certainty is it, Prof Rent-a-Quote?
So there we have it, summed up in one simple soundbite—There's no guarantee that Andy Greenberg and Bob McMillan are not talking crap.
The last two years' worth of American politics and "journalism" summed up in one image.
(If you're stuck, read the newspaper headline.)
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
Vox has an interesting article about how a 16 year-old high school student was largely responsible for Yiannopoulos' fall from grace.
That's interesting and all, but what I find particularly interesting is the claim that Millennial Conservatism has nothing whatsoever to do with traditional "Conservative values" and has only one true goal: "opposing the leftists, SJWs, and so on and so forth."
Quote:
The Canadian 16-year-old had a concise way of describing Yiannopoulos: “He’d be more accurately described as anti-liberal than he would be conservative.”
This is an accurate description of the reactionary movement Yiannopoulos is a part of. It’s not necessarily that they support any specific conservative policies or political ideals; they by and large just oppose social liberalism — multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, equality for people of all races, religions, and genders, and so on.
This, it seems to me, is a dead-on assessment of what the more vocal elements of the "Conservative movement" are all about. It's not that they have any ideas, nor even that they want to improve the country -- they just reflexively insist that anything supported by "Liberals" must be bad.
That would certainly explain what I see on Facebook. It's not like any of the outspoken "Conservatives" I know ever post anything positive. Ever. No, it's all: "Liberals are evil and need to be opposed;" "We need to lock up all these Thugs [i.e. African-Americans] who do nothing but lay around all day waiting for their welfare checks and shooting police officers when they get bored"; "Muslims are evil and the 'fact' that Obama is a Muslim is proof of it -- they should all be deported!"; "How dare those disgusting gay people demand 'special treatment'?! [i.e., 'How dare they politely ask that they not be actively discriminated against'?]". And so on, and so on, and so on.
They know they're getting screwed economically, but it's always the fault of "Liberals," according to them. Somehow. Even as they enthusiastically vote for the very people who are openly working to make the rich even richer at the expense of everyone else, get rid of worker protections, make it harder to get access to health care, etc., etc.
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”
Vox has an interesting article about how a 16 year-old high school student was largely responsible for Yiannopoulos' fall from grace.
That's interesting and all, but what I find particularly interesting is the claim that Millennial Conservatism has nothing whatsoever to do with traditional "Conservative values" and has only one true goal: "opposing the leftists, SJWs, and so on and so forth."
Quote:
The Canadian 16-year-old had a concise way of describing Yiannopoulos: “He’d be more accurately described as anti-liberal than he would be conservative.”
This is an accurate description of the reactionary movement Yiannopoulos is a part of. It’s not necessarily that they support any specific conservative policies or political ideals; they by and large just oppose social liberalism — multiculturalism, cosmopolitanism, equality for people of all races, religions, and genders, and so on.
This, it seems to me, is a dead-on assessment of what the more vocal elements of the "Conservative movement" are all about. It's not that they have any ideas, nor even that they want to improve the country -- they just reflexively insist that anything supported by "Liberals" must be bad.
That would certainly explain what I see on Facebook. It's not like any of the outspoken "Conservatives" I know ever post anything positive. Ever. No, it's all: "Liberals are evil and need to be opposed;" "We need to lock up all these Thugs [i.e. African-Americans] who do nothing but lay around all day waiting for their welfare checks and shooting police officers when they get bored"; "Muslims are evil and the 'fact' that Obama is a Muslim is proof of it -- they should all be deported!"; "How dare those disgusting gay people demand 'special treatment'?! [i.e., 'How dare they politely ask that they not be actively discriminated against'?]". And so on, and so on, and so on.
They know they're getting screwed economically, but it's always the fault of "Liberals," according to them. Somehow. Even as they enthusiastically vote for the very people who are openly working to make the rich even richer at the expense of everyone else, get rid of worker protections, make it harder to get access to health care, etc., etc.
There is a name for this observation: Cleek's Law. Today's conservatism is the opposite of what liberals want today, updated daily.
My only complaint with this observation is that these people don't deserve the label of conservatives. Actual conservatism is perhaps best exemplified by Edmund Burke. I don't agree with all of Burke's philosophy, but overall he was incredibly concerned with human rights, and he was appalled by the excesses of the Reign of Terror. His philosophy can largely be summed up as the observation that, if something is already working, it's not a good idea to change it unless there is empirical evidence suggesting that the change will be an improvement. I really have no quibble with this observation, though I don't agree with all the conclusions he draws from it.
Regardless, today's right-wingers have nothing in common with this philosophy. They reject empiricism, and are obsessed with rolling back all the accomplishments of liberals over the past few centuries, regardless of whether those accomplishments were improvements. They may perhaps best be described as reactionaries, but even reactionaries typically valued social stability, and today's right-wingers don't even care about that. "Conservatism", at one point, described a respectable philosophy with much to offer the world, and I feel the term needs to be reclaimed from these jackasses.
Regardless, this quibble aside, I have yet to see a single counterexample to Cleek's Law. Indeed, the behaviour of modern Republicans, I feel, can be entirely explained by the following three principles:
1. Cleek's Law
2. It's always projection / every accusation is a confession
3. IGMFY
#2 is, essentially, the observation that basically everything modern right-wingers accuse liberals of is something that they are guilty of themselves. They accused Obama of being an autocratic tyrant, and then they voted for an autocratic tyrant. They accuse liberals of wanting to suppress their free speech, and they're the ones talking about "opening up the libel laws" and so on. They accuse Democrats of trying to rig elections while doing everything they can to prevent core Democratic constituencies from being able to vote. And so on.
#3 stands for "I've got mine; fuck you." Self-explanatory, really.
Anyway, I mean, yes, the Vox article is strictly correct that "Millennial Conservatism" has nothing to do with traditional conservative values, but American right-wingers in general have had nothing to do with traditional conservative values for decades, so I feel the observation somewhat misses the mark.
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Cēterum cēnseō factiōnem Rēpūblicānam dēlendam esse īgnī ferrōque.
“All for ourselves, and nothing for other people, seems, in every age of the world, to have been the vile maxim of the masters of mankind.” -Adam Smith
Regardless, this quibble aside, I have yet to see a single counterexample to Cleek's Law. Indeed, the behaviour of modern Republicans, I feel, can be entirely explained by the following three principles:
1. Cleek's Law
2. It's always projection / every accusation is a confession
3. IGMFY
That is probably the simplest and most accurate assessment of what passes for the "Conservative" movement in the U.S. today.
Honestly, Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama should get together and give a press conference in which they announce how much they hate the Environmental Protection Agency, Science, Education, Women, Minorities, Jews, Muslims, Equal Pay Laws, Anti-Discrimination Laws, etc., etc.
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“The greatest way to live with honor in this world is to be what we pretend to be.”