Joe Money, Joe Problems: the November 2021 U.S. Politics Thread

'they are like children/they are brutal savages' used by europeans in regard to most colonized peoples

suspect IDed

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2021/11/22/suspect-waukesha-parade-incident-identified-darrell-brooks-jr/8717524002/

lol tipsy otm

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/11/22/fox-news-contributors-quit-over-tucker-carlson-larger-truth/

...The two contributors — conservative writers Stephen Hayes and Jonah Goldberg — quit Fox to protest Carlson’s online special “Patriot Purge.” As Ben Smith of the New York Times reports, they objected to its depiction of an alternate history of Jan. 6 as a “false flag” designed to create a pretext to persecute conservatives.

This is being widely seen as the latest sign that the right’s institutions are purging themselves of the few remaining conservatives who are hostile to Donald Trump and his movement, and what this says about how much the Trump era has transformed the conservative firmament.

What’s more interesting is why this was the final straw for the two Trump critics. Hayes told the Times he was alarmed by Carlson’s propagandistic recasting of federal prosecutions of the rioters as a “domestic war on terror” against the right.

Specifically, Hayes noted that he was disturbed by Carlson’s comparison of Jan. 6 defendants to terrorism suspects tortured by the United States, and his suggestion that “half the country is going to be subject to this kind of treatment.” Hayes said this is “truly dangerous".

Mr. Hayes said he’d been particularly disturbed recently when a man at a conference of the pro-Trump group Turning Point USA asked its leader, “When do we get to use the guns?”

In a follow-up statement, Hayes and Goldberg cited a quote from Carlson’s video — “the left is hunting the right” — and noted that this rhetoric could prompt Americans to act on it. They added: “This is what actually happened on January 6, 2021.”

...But a true reckoning requires more than just observing this trend. It also requires reflecting on the instrumental nature of propaganda like that coming from Carlson. Much of the discussion treats the possibility of violence as a mere incidental byproduct of that propaganda, depicting it merely as conspiracy-theorizing-for-profit getting out of control. But this isn’t quite right.

Instead, let’s note that this bundle of propagandistic devices — the suggestions that our system is incapable of rendering trustworthy or legitimate outcomes, that the Jan. 6 rioters’ underlying cause was just, that they are persecuted political prisoners, and that this reflects broader scorched-earth warfare the left is waging on conservatives via our institutions — has a purpose.

This isn’t to say the propaganda is a deliberate effort to incite violence. The point is broader: It’s that all this appears designed to lay the justificatory foundation for efforts to resist or subvert legitimate democratic outcomes by any means necessary or available in the future.

That is what creates the risk of sparking more violence. That is what is so dangerous about what we’re seeing now.

"Whaddup, peeps. I'm out of my FOX gig now. I'm coolin' it behind Target. Hit me up if you like my LinkedIn!

https://i.imgur.com/jt73C0a.jpg

https://t.co/cjDL0VamXn pic.twitter.com/3hDU9vmckW

— Matt Lech (@MattLech) November 19, 2021

Remember just after Jan 6 of this year, when there was widespread speculation that FOX had its come-to-Jesus moment and was putting distance between itself and the crazies and toning down its incitements to insurrection?

I do, vaguely. That was, what, a decade ago?

"out-organizing voter suppression" is what happened in the 2020 and 2018 and 2016 elections, and beyond, as well. the frightening part is the suppression gets more extreme every time

we are stress-testing democracy to see how much it can handle, nothing to see here

We’re at the point where I doubt we could pull together as a country to fight an alien invasion. Don’t want to seem alarmist, but this country is a mess.

what do you think is happening at the border?! We gotta stop'em, man!

Yeah, as soon as I posted that I knew “space” should’ve been included

the thing people misunderstand about the War Against the Machines is that it all started with humans trying to shoot skynet satellites out of the sky

There's a PBS documentary series currently being broadcast (narrated by Henry Louis Gates, Jr) about the Reconstruction and the events coming out of it that effectively reads like a contemporary news report.

We're regressing. The period of 1990-2015 effectively reads like a recapitulation of the period of 1890-1910, the heyday of tycoons like Morgan, Rockefeller and Carnegie, big business consolidating into monopolistic 'trusts', and open corruption and bribery in Congress and state legislatures.

How is portraying 1/6 as a false flag squaring with the celebration of Ashli “Horst Wessel” Babbitt?

I think the idea is that the FBI guided the true believer rank-and-file into storming the building and therefore she’s still an innocent victim of the tyrannical state.

how do they square a false flag operation which trump promoted for weeks beforehand, to the point that there are posts in mid-december 2020 here referencing 1/6, planned out with his staff, attempted to run over the justice department with a plan for a coup sealed by pence, and then stood there the day of and got everyone riled up and watched in glee all day as his supporters overran the capital, etc etc etc (there is so much)?

how do they square all of that with it being a false flag operation, unless it was trump who led the entire effort?

they don't need to square the facts. they only need to ignore them completely, announce the new party line, and the followers will obediently forget the existence of whatever doesn't square and fervently accept the new version as true, because they are nothing if not fervent and obedient followers who can only recall whatever they were told most recently by their leaders.

^^^

The joke that conservative "belief" is "whatever makes liberals angry, updated daily" has never been more true.

yeah I mean look KM you know probably better than anyone that there is no squaring up anything in today's GOP. I thought of Covid as the one thing that might be a "come to Jesus" (lol) moment for conservatives, since they all parroted the same lines about how it was just the flu, how only terminally ill people were gonna die, how it was all gonna go away by the summer, etc. etc., and thought surely as the bodies start stacking up and as the PEOPLE THEY KNOW start dying horrible deaths that surely they might realize that they were actually wrong about something. instead we find out we are at the point where they are literally willing to die rather than admit this.

so 1/6 is just...whatever the fuck they want it to be. it was antifa. it didn't happen. it was infiltrated by the FBI. the media made it up. the people who were there were just patriots trying to cosplay for a day. it wasn't actually dangerous. whatever makes 'em feel better.

https://i.imgur.com/38lYPgN.jpg

oh, i hear you, haha. yeah, i guess i meant that question rhetorically. it is a big conundrum, though, trying to figure out how to deal with a giant swatch of the country that is like this. facts are out of the question, persuasion is pointless, being nice and polite is maybe the best of worst options but imo often means white people forgiving other white people for being horrible fucking racists all their lives and trying to bring down the rest of the world into their scum.

honestly it feels like that part in battlestar where you realize the extent of the Cylons reach

xp

GIANT SWATCH OF A COUNTRY

SWATCH!

meant swath

does Ohio have a space program?

GOP=Swatch Dogs & Diet Cokeheads

Of course...

Kyle Rittenhouse's attorneys have filed legal docs, asking that the $2 million raised by right-wing organizations to bail the teen out after his arrest be given to Rittenhouse and/or his mother.

But Lin Wood says the money belongs to his group. https://t.co/UdFtcCich0 pic.twitter.com/14X8Adr7MH

— Stacy St. Clair (@StacyStClair) November 22, 2021

they could...give it to the families of the people he killed...

hahaha, sorry. that would mean treating other people with a shred of respect and dignity

The New Yorker piece on Rittenhouse painted a portrait of a kid and his family just way, way over their heads, being taken advantage of left and right (but mostly right, if you get my drift), by extremists and grifters and lunatics and the like. Just being pushed and pulled by the worst elements of society, without the sophistication or savvy to navigate that world. I'm not sure how any of us could handle that, tbh, but he just seemed and seems so ill-prepared for this all. Which I suppose one might expect from a kid that brought an assault weapon to a protest just to, you know, see what's up, protect a few parking lots, that sort of thing. Just virtually (and appropriately, for someone that shot three basically random people) aimless.

Here we go https://amp.cnn.com/cnn/2021/11/22/politics/roger-stone-alex-jones-subpoenas-january-6/index.html

Predictably Roger Stone got his presidential pardon and immediately went on a crime spree.

Charlottesville conspiracists guilty of state conspiracy charges, large punitive damages awarded. jury deadlocked on Federal conspiracy charges.

smh this morning hearing some msm reporters talking about the dems have a problem with messaging regarding the economy, then they go on to talk about Biden not doing enough to end worldwide inflation. next segment they bring on a repub congressman to talk about the shutting down of the keystone pipeline having to do with gas prices being high and don't challenge that idiotic theory. ffs!

That's apparently one of their new talking points.

kind of aggravating something as simple as how gas prices work = something the media and Dems themselves don't challenge enough.

like if you want to blame the sitting Prez for gas prices (which is stupid in any situation, regardless of who is in office), point out the highest gas prices occurred on Dubya's watch, and ask if it was his fault then or not.

like quite literally the same thing happened when Obama took office after Dubya. gas prices had become artificially low because gas exceeded $4/gallon in 2008, it was the Great Recession, unemployment in double digits, nobody could afford to fuckin drive places, so it went under $2/gallon.

Economy recovers under Obama, prices spike back up as demand increases, and everybody blames Obama even though it's a sign of recovery and the prices didn't stay that high forever, as the shale boom lead to a huge decrease in gas prices around the 2012 election.

it's like anticipate the goddamn fingerpointing and go on the offensive for once.

Wouldn't be prudent, says a senator who doesn't understand how email works.

fuckin emails, how do they work

Travis McMichael GUILTY on all charges. https://t.co/gJeuFesKEU

— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) November 24, 2021

Greg McMichael GUILTY on all charges EXCEPT count one, Malice Murder

— Katy Tur (@KatyTurNBC) November 24, 2021

Bryan posting the video was one of the greatest self-owns in legal history.

Phew

Oh thank fuck. After Rittenhouse I was sure this would end up being a stain on Georgia's legacy of struggling to join modern civilization.

The jury found Travis McMichael guilty of malice murder, four counts of felony murder

Can someone more legally inclined than I explain the multiple counts of murder, when there was only a single victim?

"Felony murder" is when you're committing some other felony (a bank robbery, an arson fire) and someone ends up dead. These assholes committed at least four other felonies on Arbery, and in the process he died. Hence, multiple counts of felony murder.

Ah okay, thanks

This guy wins today:

i called a conservative morning show and tried to name as many punk bands as i could before they caught on. pic.twitter.com/2D3KyTZQ1R

— Rob Dobi 👤 𝙾𝚗𝚕𝚒𝚗𝚎 𝙽𝚘𝚠! (@Robdobi) November 24, 2021

Not all heroes wear capes