US Politics, September 2024 -- “I’m Not Going to Apologize For Posting a Joke”

xxp or porn brain + race stuff (Elon musk is an example of this)

why not let ukraine into nato? because that's not what this country wants.

― scott seward, Sunday, September 22, 2024 4:28 PM (four minutes ago) bookmarkflaglink

ukraine was invaded by russia in 2014, by rule a country cant join nato or even start the process while involved in a border dispute fwiw, i agree that the US has used ukraine a chess piece in its cynical scheme, but i suspect at this point were russia to withdraw there would be support for them joining

should also be noted that before 2014 ukraine didnt have governments who were interested in joining nato

I think this analysis of the Russia / Ukraine war grants the US more agency in the conflict than it really has (though this tendency is not unique to this thread - I think even people like Mearsheimer were guilty of this, at least with respect to the war’s causes).

The difference between the two conflicts is that the US doesn’t really have effective leverage (that it can use without legitimate fear of the consequences) over the psychotic state actor in one of those conflicts, whereas it does have that leverage in the other but chooses not to use it for what are essentially domestic political reasons.

I tend to think those reasons are neither “we personally support Israel’s campaign of destruction” nor “we think it’s domestically politically unpalatable to do otherwise” but a weird mixture of both. Watching my own govt crabwalk away from unquestioning support of Israel to a (somewhat) more nuanced position of quasi-neutrality with a massive grimace on its face has underscored to me how much of this is about institutional political instinct. It’s the ideological equivalent for them of that moment in abseiling where you first lower your body over the side of the cliff face and every part of your body is screaming at you that you’re about to die.

gotta say that i think anyone who believes that most Dems (aside from Tlaib and Omar etc) actually give a fuck about Palestinians dying is a total rube. neither Biden nor Harris nor any of the AIPAC-funded ghouls in Congress give a fuck, they want their Israel lobby money and if that means directly aiding a genocide, fuck the Palestinians. why do i say this? because this is the only conclusion that one can come to given the past 11.5 months. that such cynical fuckwits will blather about “human rights” is laughable bullshit— they don’t give a fuck.

they at the very least effectively dont give a fuck

“Yet this misses how Trump—and perhaps Vance, though this is murkier—really understands this issue. Trump actively wants the argument over immigration to be as charged with hate and rage as possible. He doesn’t think that will alienate swing voters. He thinks it will activate their latent MAGA tendencies. The picture Trump is seizing on Springfield to invoke—that of a largely white, innocent heartland town getting ravaged by dark, alien hordes who basically constitute a subhuman species—simply cannot be a distraction from the immigration debate. To Trump, it is the immigration debate.

An underappreciated difference between Trump and Vance is that Trump is explicit on that point, while Vance is not. Trump says that migrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” that we should not let in people from “shithole countries” like Haiti, and that other countries are sending millions of people “from prisons, from insane asylums, from mental institutions.” Those and other statements constitute quasi-open declarations that the problem with immigration is racial contamination. They drain migrants of any trace of basic humanity that might make claims on our sense of justice. When Trump says Haitians are “eating the dogs” and “eating the cats,” it’s more of that dehumanization game.

So what exactly does Vance believe about all this?

After Vance got caught out spreading falsehoods about Haitians eating house pets, he angrily insisted there’s no racial component to his assertions about their impact on Springfield. He declared that he objects to the scale and speed of their influx and their effect on housing costs and public health.

Local leaders and business owners have said that social tensions are real but manageable, that Haitians are filling real labor shortages, and that Haitians are hardworking, upstanding people who carry out jobs that locals won’t do. But Vance has an answer here too. He has suggested that when local employers hail Haitians’ willingness to work, employers are using them as tools to drive down wages, and that native-born Americans are the real victims of that.”

https://newrepublic.com/article/186224/ohio-governor-dewine-exposes-trump-vance-maga

they at the very least effectively dont give a fuck

"effectively" seems right to me. i think for a lot of elected democrats it's more about cowardice than malice. they don't want to stick out their necks bc they are worried about the political consequences, whatever they may be. better to stick with the status quo and blend in with the party consensus.

who knows what lays in their hearts but as long as theyre toeing the line it doesnt really matter

This seems less than ideal (for him)... Mark Robinson's campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, finance director, and campaign consultant/senior advisor have all resigned.

The fact that someone like Schatz can crow over their ability to move opinion on project 2025 and not see the electoral implications for Gaza where they’re starting from a foundation of overwhelming sympathy seems to me to prove that actually (not effectively) don’t give a fuck.

Anyway, what a vp pick

Unearthed audio of JD Vance: “I certainly would like abortion to be illegal nationally” pic.twitter.com/YHlnZe8Sxb

— Kamala HQ (@KamalaHQ) September 22, 2024

fair xp

these are my fave quotes from this Department of Defense article:

https://www.defense.gov/News/News-Stories/Article/Article/3736017/

We've had a huge increase in demand from our European allies and partners over the last few years since the ... invasion by the Russians in Ukraine," James Hursch said yesterday during the 2024 Sea-Air-Space maritime exposition just outside of Washington.

European nations — including Sweden, Poland and the Netherlands, to name a few — have become "huge customers" for U.S. military hardware, he said.

In fiscal year 2023, the U.S. did more than $80 billion in business through the foreign military sales system, including grant assistance. "That is a record," Hursch said.

"This is a huge increase," he said. "That's representative of the increased investment that our allies in Europe are making every day, which is a story that may not be as widely reported as it needs to be."

Cha-ching! Who loves you, Poland?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2FW1WJc0lg

scott I love u but I haven't been able to discern what your point is for this entire day of posting, all wars are not created equal and I am pretty much with lagoon here.

I guess he's saying "war is bad." Which we agree with. But America paying for Ukraine's resistance to Russia is, whatever you may think of the intentions, well within our foreign policy ethos; the assisting in a genocide in Israel I haven't seen since Ford and Kissinger fucked up East Timor.

70% support is insane, when will the dam break

its cool if you believe in this country's good intentions concerning ukraine. i don't, that's all! i think its for money and consolidation of world power. and i think the support of israel is for money and consolidation of world power. we can agree to disagree. you guys just have more faith in this place.

i didn't even start out by talking about this stuff. i fell in a lagoon!

I don't believe our intentions are good either, but I still believe they are completely different examples that are not comparable.

duly noted. i hear you and i see you. and i smell you.

i promise to stick to walz/harris memes for the rest of the calendar year. i get fidgety sometimes.

<3

This seems less than ideal (for him)... Mark Robinson's campaign manager, deputy campaign manager, finance director, and campaign consultant/senior advisor have all resigned.

― Instead of create and send out, it pull back and consume (unperson),

Even better: https://www.wunc.org/politics/2024-09-22/mark-robinson-campaign-staff-quit-cnn-report

But WUNC has confirmed that other staffers have quit as well, leaving Robinson with just three people working on his campaign — two campaign spokesmen and a bodyguard. The list of departures also include longtime director of operations Patrick Riley and political directors John Kontoulas and Jackson Lohrer.

this shit is too funny

I’m sorry but RFK is blatantly lying in this price and anybody that can’t see that is blinded by misogyny lol. Olivia Nuzzi acted unprofessionally and should be fired but I simply don’t believe she coerced RFK into a digital affair, he’s clearly trying to make her look even worse https://t.co/pGEh2Do6o9 pic.twitter.com/wDoXVMiztG

— Dhaaruni ✨✨✨ (@dhaaruni) September 22, 2024

TBF if anyone could be hypnotized by lewds it’s the guy with the actual brain worms.

i like the idea that she tricked him with the imminent hit pieces ruse multiple times

rfk's account of events makes no sense at all

Hate it when I'm bombarded with increasingly pornographic photos and video that I find it difficult to resist

its the kennedy curse

“Look upon my boobs or else I’m telling everyone about the bear.”

i just find the most shocking thing to be that anyone would throw their life away over for the increasingly greyscale-afflicted RFK Jr.

That's the incomprehensible aspect of the story for me, too. You're 31 years old, you have already ascended to a professional status way out of proportion to your talent or intelligence — why throw all that away for a goddamn lunatic who's a) married; b) running a doomed vanity presidential campaign; and c) more than twice your age?

he is very wealthy

rfk's account of events makes no sense at all

this is true of every event he recounts

i do think theres a chance she just kinda went overboard cultivating a source here tho

if she was planning to burn him i don't know why she would compromise herself like that, though. it seems she trusted him and should not have.

very much doubt nuzzi has 'thrown her life away' -- she'll just have to settle for a post-network-megyn-kelly level of fame rather than working at a 'legitimate' news outlet

i mean c'mon, she's a blond white woman -- anyone else would have been fired on the spot

she'll do the podcast and substack circuit. i do think her motivation needs more clarification, though, unless she just liked him. i guess there is no accounting for taste.

yeah shell pop up writing for one of those billionaire funded vaguely right wing publications youve never heard of in six months

is it possible she does this to cultivate her sources? it seems so insanely risky. but from her articles it is clear that lots of people, especially the sloppier ones around trump, are very happy to talk to her all the time.

i know this is what lagoon suggested above. i am trying to think it out. perhaps it would be worse for these people to reveal that she does this?

its the kennedy curse

― lag∞n, Sunday, September 22, 2024 8:53 PM

https://i.imgur.com/2QMo3Ri.jpg

i like the idea that she tricked him with the imminent hit pieces ruse multiple times

― lag∞n,

He hates when that happens!

is it possible she does this to cultivate her sources? it seems so insanely risky. but from her articles it is clear that lots of people, especially the sloppier ones around trump, are very happy to talk to her all the time.

― treeship., Sunday, September 22, 2024 9:31 PM (one minute ago) bookmarkflaglink

maybe shes never gone so far as to send nudes before but how chummy she is with her sources is one of the things that made so many people skeptical of her, theres also been other unprofessional impulsive seeming behavior

I remember she had all these funny nuggets from Giuliani in 2020-21, he would text her insane shit. I guess she's kind of a crazy-old-man whisperer. But sometimes the whisperer falls in love ...

yeah i was specifically thinking of giuliani's drunk texts that she published. and then he would keep texting her!

who amongst us has NOT received Nuzzi nudes

A Nuzzi is going to be a new Sniglet meaning when a young blonde woman bombards an elderly man with demure nudes.