People that you've never heard of, people that are in the dark shadows -- US Politics September 2020

Is Woodward irresponsible in not coming forward with the material in his tape a lot earlier?

just guessing but he probably wouldn't have gotten the next seventeen tapes if he'd released the material in his tape immediately

plus Trump said the same shit right out in public, on camera, anyway

It is important to realize that Bob Woodward is snugged like a tick into the deepest crevices of the governing establishment. He plays the game by rules that the people at the highest reaches of politics and power understand best and his professional venality is probably an asset in maintaining his access to them. He paints them more flatteringly than they deserve and in return they let him "wet his beak" by raking in book profits off of what they choose to reveal to him. He's the cowbird to their rhinoceros, at once both helpful and drawing blood from the small wounds he inflicts on their tough hides.

Ah yes, because every kid grows up knowing about US war crimes and is desperate to pull a Lynndie on some hogtied Iraqi. Gtfoh

btw FP'd tabes for racism here, even countries who have not had a stake in any war for the last 77 years can generate young people eager to commit and celebrate war crimes overseas

there's a lot of people angry that dipshit didn't mumble "under god" here but 40% of america is somehow not capable of discerning the sleepy confused racist grampa vibes? this lump would be extremely hard pressed to lead a pep rally at an arkansas middle school.

President Trump recites the Pledge of Allegiance. pic.twitter.com/UscZajM4lk

— The Hill (@thehill) September 11, 2020

he's out of breath standing there fer crissakes

holy shit i just had a gutbuster laugh at the first 25 seconds there

that was like watching a father forget the name of his own daughter (tiffany) while introducing his family one by one to an acquaintance

just faking it all the time, no you're the faker

it's okay, it was only at a small event to commemorate the anniversary of the deadliest terrorist action in human history so i'm sure no one noticed.

(i may be overlooking a few terrorist actions in that statement)

The state with the prettiest name!

A federal appeals court on Friday overturned a judge’s ruling that Floridians with felony convictions don’t have to pay all court fees and fines before voting, dealing a setback to advocates for 2018′s Amendment 4.

In a 6-4 ruling, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the 11th Circuit ruled that the plaintiffs did not prove a violation of the U.S. Constitution. The plaintiffs included more than a dozen people with felony convictions who accused Gov. Ron DeSantis and Florida lawmakers of imposing a “poll tax” by requiring them to pay off all court-ordered costs relating to their felony convictions before voting.

“Because the felons failed to prove a violation of the Constitution, we reverse the judgment of the district court and vacate the challenged portions of its injunction,” Judge William Pryor wrote for the majority.

btw FP'd tabes for racism here, even countries who have not had a stake in any war for the last 77 years can generate young people eager to commit and celebrate war crimes overseas

― erratic wolf angular guitarist (sic), Friday, September 11, 2020 11:36 AM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

Amazing how one can take a post that is explicitly calling out the racism and imperial nature of the US war machine and call it 'racist,' but whatever.

Can we just keep in mind that the issue is not even so much that the Florida state legislature imposed this fee-to-vote system, it's that they did so as an utterly fraudulent "clarification" of reforms instituted by a ballot initiative that got 2/3 of the vote which specifically said Floridian ex-felons should have the right to vote as they do in 46 other states? The people of Florida are supposed to be able to overrule the legislature like this if they clear a very high bar, which they did, and the legislature just said "yeah but we don't accept the result" and the court is nodding. THAT is the problem here. It is infuriating.

Like the whole point of that post was to call bullshit on the idea that young kids grow up being told about the disgusting nature of the war crimes at the heart of US American empire. They aren't, and most are in fact sold on an image of military glory and righteousness, and so arguing that young people are aware of this vile shit is just not in tune with reality.

Utilizing a description of an image of torture to make that point is arguably in bad taste, but I wasn't reifying the image as good, instead pointing to it as an example of something abhorrent. Willful misreading.

I think you are willfully misreading sic, who is making the point that this is a global and not a US issue

So wait, I'm racist because I didn't include Australians...in a conversation that was about the US military recruiting apparatus?

That... was not a serious statement, unless I am misreading sic's tone

Yeah, that’s another one of sic’s running “jokes”

Huh.

"FP'd you for racism" was a joke format to ironically link to that story, the following clause was included to highlight this and generalise the issue

Okay. I'm still a little ... confused, though I did read that article you posted. Awful stuff.

It's funnier when you have to explain it, I find.

On the Woodward thing, what I'm curious about is why anyone thinks it would have made a difference if Woodward had reported it earlier. Trump supporters would have given no more of a shit about it in March or April than they give now — and by April he'd already said about 5 different things about the virus anyway — and people who aren't Trump supporters mostly assume he's lying about most things anyway. I think Woodward is fair game for criticism on many fronts, but I don't see this revelation as all that momentous.

The thought that he sits on a treasure chest of quotes from the president refuting his public posture might've helped the morale of the scientific community for one, and it may have pushed governors into stricter policies. Plus, sorry, I just find this old rotter using this info as leverage for advances and future sales a repugnant thing.

Crazy story linked from the latest Taibbi screed.

Someone leaked a tape of CNN chief Zucker talking to Michael Cohen and basically coaching Trump up for the CNN debate in 2016.

It got worse. Zucker promised Cohen, “I’m going to give him a call right now and I’m going to wish him luck in the debate tonight.”

Why Zucker said he would call, and not email, was the real punchline.

“I’m very conscious of not putting too much on email, as you’re a lawyer, as you understand,” Zucker said, adding:

And, you know, as fond as I am of the boss, he also has a tendency, like, you know, if I call him or I email him, he then is capable of going out at his next rally and saying that we just talked and I can't have that, if you know what I'm saying.

It’s not that I don’t want to talk to him every day. I’ve just got to be careful.

Zucker added:

I have all these proposals for him, like… I want to do a weekly show with him and all this stuff… is he back in New York tomorrow, do you know?

(xp to table, everyone else sorry for sidebar, also guillotine Zucker and Moonvest)

The marketing of aggression to youth is not solely mediated through deliberate advertising, and the capacity for young people to enact consequence-free violence against wilfully othered and dehumanised individuals is obviously a specific draw for a significant number of recruits. This is the case for militaries worldwide, with the tendency most strongly focused in armies

(eg: "I want to fly the fastest planes" -> air force, "I believe in unglamorous research as strengthening national diplomatic preparation to forestall armed conflict, have a strong interest in engineering, and function well without access to a variety of social options" -> be a submarine person, "I want to shoot people 13,000km away from my house" -> army)

Teens are certainly marketed to and given many legitimate reasons to sign up that don't center on armed conflict - there's been a spike in US enlistment due to student debt this year - but as James said, it's impossible not to also know that people in armies kill people as part of the job.



I enjoyed seeing you steer your thinking in the Gawker thread today, so I'm not being combative when I say I read a disjunct between "dumb teens can never grow beyond offensive jokes told in an environment that fostered them" over there, and "hapless teens can only absorb the messages they're fed" over here. The "State Sanctioned Violence" instagram has presumably been exposed by service personnel who rejected or never held those attitudes. The service personnel running it probably entered the military with those attitudes, and have rejected the opportunity to grow (given the mockery even of reporting war crimes within the chain of command), and also find the attitudes actively fostered at every level of their social, online and working lives.

Thanks for that, sic. And yeah, I'm learning to listen more and dig in less as I get older, I find it's a lot more productive.

Ok, Captain Adderall...

"I think there's probably, possibly drugs involved. That's what I hear." -- during interview with Judge Jeanine, Trump casually accuses Joe Biden of using performance enhancing drugs pic.twitter.com/RVWJMqPNhn

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) September 11, 2020

possibly, probably

wishes to say, 50/50.

lol voice to text.

I’m okay with the DNC Flowers for Algernon-ing Joe.

wow has Trump ever — in his own special way — this directly admitted to his amphetamine use?

Every time he speaks?

1 of 23,051
Subject: Hadrian hates Obama?? (this can't be right)
answer needed ASAP ad✧✧✧@bold✧✧✧.c✧✧ via bounce.bluestatedigital.com
9:17 PM (4 minutes ago)
to me

Donald Trump is running a SMEAR campaign against President Obama.
We thought all Democrats loved Obama...were we wrong? Answer now →

HADRIAN: Do you HATE President Obama?!?!

YES! I HATE OBAMA >>
NO! I LOVE OBAMA >>

"TRUMP ACCUSES OBAMA OF CRIMES, CALLS FOR OBAMA TO BE PROSECUTED."
This is Trump’s evil plan to win re-election: run Obama’s image into the ground, ruin his good name, and get voters to turn on him! If Trump gets voters to betray President Obama, he’ll win the November election! We can’t let him get away with this! So we have to know:

HADRIAN: Do you HATE President Obama??

YES! I HATE OBAMA >>
NO! I LOVE OBAMA >>

We love President Obama and we’ll never abandon him. We hope you won’t either.

Good morning!

President Trump’s weekslong barrage against Joseph R. Biden Jr. has failed to erase the Democrat’s lead across a set of key swing states, including the crucial battleground of Wisconsin, where Mr. Trump’s law-and-order message has rallied support on the right but has not swayed the majority of voters who dislike him, according to a poll conducted by The New York Times and Siena College.

Mr. Biden, the former vice president, leads Mr. Trump by five percentage points in Wisconsin and by a wider, nine-point margin in neighboring Minnesota, a Democratic-leaning state that Mr. Trump has been seeking to flip with his vehement denunciations of rioting and crime.

The president has improved his political standing in Wisconsin in particular with an insistent appeal to Republican-leaning white voters alarmed by local unrest. But in both Midwestern states, along with the less-populous battlegrounds of Nevada and New Hampshire, Mr. Trump has not managed to overcome his fundamental political vulnerabilities — above all, his deep unpopularity with women and the widespread view among voters that he has mismanaged the coronavirus pandemic.

The thought that he sits on a treasure chest of quotes from the president refuting his public posture might've helped the morale of the scientific community for one, and it may have pushed governors into stricter policies.

Eh, I just don't see it. Those quotes are not all that revealing — to some degree Woodward's a victim of his own hype machine here, because they've been promoted as this big gotcha thing. But if you put them in the context of Trump's inconsistent and vacillating public statements about the virus, they're just one more data point and not an especially telling one. If Woodward had reported them in April, say, it might have been a story for a day or two, which would have quickly been shouted down and drowned out by everything else going on. I don't think it would have changed the trajectory of anything.

I don't mind Woodward being dragged for it, he deserves dragging on general principle. I just think there ain't much there.

that's all pretty much where i am at. woodward's share of culpability with the sins of this administration isn't really worth talking about while the barbarians are burning down our houses.

I take tipsy's point, but I reject yours: you imply I'm NOT paying attention to the president?

i think ulysses was more describing his own position, rather than commenting on yours, Lord Sotosyn.

yes.

I wonder if when Trump is gone we really will see a surge of the best and most qualified people to Washington, to right his wrongs and repair his damage. You know, like when Kal Penn put acting on hold and went to the White House.

If the great catalyst is removed will all the momentum that's been gathered over the last few years remain channeled or dissipate?

Maybe it just sags like a heavy load?
Or...

i think ulysses was more describing his own position, rather than commenting on yours, Lord Sotosyn.

― the unappreciated charisma of cows (Aimless), Saturday, September 12, 2020 2:20 PM (one hour ago) bookmarkflaglink

yes.

― Fuck the NRA (ulysses), Saturday,

My apologies.

no worries!

Nothing to see here...

Stone's list includes: evoke Insurrection Act, declare martial law: arrest Zuckerberg, Tim Cook & Clintons, send federal agents to "physically stand in the way" on Election Day, seize NV's ballots; take Harry Reid into custody; "nationalize" NV police, arrest Daily Beast staff https://t.co/EHZQcXcV3J

— Ronald Brownstein (@RonBrownstein) September 12, 2020

sorry to tweet my own tweet, but this clip made me lol and it's a strange event from a much longer c-span clip that no one would watch, so i uploaded it

I was doing some research for https://t.co/LSP7T3p4Ax (coming soon) and ran across the underdog candidate in the Maine Senate race that no one has the courage to support, Max Linn. But I am not afraid. Watch him ANNIHILATE the lying press!#RequestDenied pic.twitter.com/ndQqj1WSEN

— Z_S (@weinventyou) September 12, 2020

"i want the question but i don't want to be judged by my answer"
lol is that real?