US Politics April 2019 Thread: 'I find that pretty hard to believe'

‘start’

fair :-/

A WaPo story from Tuesday said "Hasson has been charged with illegal possession of unregistered and unmarked silencers, illegal possession of firearms by an unlawful user or addict of controlled substances, and simple possession of a controlled substance." It sounds like the judge agreed with Hasson's lawyers that he should be allowed bail on those charges. But he'll still go to trial.

i regret to inform you the whites are at it again

Confused, I thought I read the crazy judge thought he did not automatically meet the conditions for detention, but it's still up to his defense lawyers to make a conditional case that or how he should be released. That is, it's not like he has or will be simply turned loose.

not out yet, but

https://www.newser.com/article/c8ad9c55755a472f80da701ffdc14940/coast-guard-lieutenant-accused-of-terrorism-granted-release.html

who the fuck are these assholes around Trump saying General Lee is their favorite general ? lol who even has a favorite general other than general Tso ?

Asked if he still thinks there were "very fine people" on both sides of the white supremacist rallies in Charlottesville, Trump says, "I was talking about people that went b/c they felt very strongly about the monument to Robert E Lee. A great general, whether you like it or not" pic.twitter.com/D7O5vFWy29

— Aaron Rupar (@atrupar) April 26, 2019

what a joke he is a fucking joke

I am partial to General Electric, with General Mills as a close second.

i like generals who don't etc

General Johnson imo

He's probably thinking of the car from Dukes of Hazzard. A very fine car.

https://am22.akamaized.net/tms/cnt/uploads/2018/06/TerenceStampZod.jpg

the march was explicitly about white supremacy not robert e lee statues

weird that he didn’t clarify that at the time, instead waiting until just after right-wing talking heads started using that as their revisionist excuse for what trump actually meant by ‘both sides

rly makes u think

also, for a guy who has repeatedly voiced his disdain for ‘losers’, it’s weird that he should hold robert e lee, a noted loser, in such high esteem

rly makes u think

xpost tbf he did say that at the time

"I think there is blame on both sides. You look at both sides. I think there is blame object both on both sides. I have no doubt about it. You don't have doubt about it either. If you reported it accurately, you would say that the neo-Nazis started this thing. They showed up in Charlottesville. Excuse me. They didn't put themselves down as neo-Nazis. You had some very bad people in that group. You also had some very fine people on both sides. You had people in that group -- excuse me, excuse me. I saw the same pictures as you did. You had people in that group that were there to protest the taking down, of to them, a very, very important statue and the renaming of a park from Robert E. Lee to another name. "

fake news obv

I think a lot of people are overplaying their hand on the "very fine people" comment since the transcript doesn't really look so bad...its more to do with the occasion and timing of the remark, given Trump's one job was "don't make it look like you sympathize with the Nazis". he's said and done hundreds of horrible things since.

^otm. Even Trump isn't dumb enough to publicly state he thinks some neo-nazis are very fine people.

that is what he did! the people there "just" out of concern for the monument are fictitious. or are we going to start acting like "heritage" is *not* a gigantic code word scam for white supremacist revanchism?

Maria Butina gets 18 months, deportation after time served.

https://www.cnn.com/2019/04/26/politics/maria-butina-sentencing/index.html

that is what he did!

No, that's what you and many others perceived it as. Yes, he really thinks those people exist, not fictitious. I don't think any of them are "very fine people", but I also don't think the venn diagram of Neo-Nazis and people who get butthurt over Confederate statues is a perfect circe.

He meant to say (as of this afternoon, rather) that he aimed his comment at statue people, but in 2017 the marches were happening, and, sorry, there's no other way to interpret it and his subsequent policy (including his Justice Dept's refusal to seek charges for the white terrorist yesterday) as anything other than endorsing white supremacy.

are we really arguing about the intentions of a Gila monster with the brain of dry scrambled eggs

but it got condensed to "Trump called neo-nazis very fine people". and that just allows him and his followers to go "see?? more fake news! he clearly made a distinction!"

It sort of sucks but somehow there are people who have a long well-documented history of being absolutely foul and then somehow what really ends up sticking is some short phrase taken out of context which is quite possibly the 300th worst thing they ever said and which, were it the only foul thing they'd ever said, could reasonably be explained away as tone-deafness -- the quote that finally got steve king thrown off his committees was kind of like that, he really didn't say "what's so bad about white supremacy," except the thing is he kind of DID say that, over and over again, as a core part of his political identity, for many years, just not in those exact words, but no Republican said boo about it because it's only the lousy-sounding bite that forces then to briefly pretend to care.

but it got condensed to "Trump called neo-nazis very fine people". and that just allows him and his followers to go "see?? more fake news! he clearly made a distinction!"

― A True White Kid that can Jump (Granny Dainger),

So? They do this anyway.

right, I mean Trump has basically coasted on the fact that you can twist any soundbite or fact about him to sound a little more innocuous, and by the way how biased are you for even suggesting he'd mean it that way? even confessing to sexual assault on camera (and bragging about it, no less!) didn't kill him. I think Dems would be wise to focus a little less on all the dumb shit this guy says - he's essentially senile, who gives a shit???

People's brains retain information in ways that have no special regard for accuracy or truth, but mostly relate to how that information will help them avoid pain or experience pleasure. Because for most people politics reside at the periphery of those concerns, the amount of attention they give to fine verbal distinctions made by politicians is close to nil. ILXors on the whole have more idle mental capacity than the average person, so we amuse our brains with such matters. In summation, we are freaks, but very nice, funny and intelligent freaks.

ILXors on the whole have more idle mental capacity than the average person

in that they have easier jobs, maybe

^ a sound and testable hypothesis, but not worth the effort of testing it.

I'm reading student essays with an excess of passive voice and a habit of referring to sources by first name.

referring to sources by first name.

GD: idk abt neo-nazis and confederate statue whiners in general but the statement is about people *attending the right-wing white supremacist nazi rally* so i think the venn diagram is pretty fucking circular.

also yeah confederate statue whiners in general are on the nazi spectrum and are not very fine people, tho some may genuinely be just confused and misled teenagers writing essays about how they agree with Donald that heritage is important, IOW they don't know anything. but that's not who trump was speaking about.

I regret to inform you there are high capacity schadenfreude magazines in this story https://t.co/Yj7OcLagH3 via @TPM

— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) April 26, 2019

oh man don’t make me choose sides here guys

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aHA4-5N5AzA

This is absurd.

BREAKING VIDEO
Iowan confronts @ChuckGrassley about GOP's health care repeal “threatening her life”

His defense? Must see TV.

He says not to believe anything they're trying to do (repeal bills, overturn lawsuits) and just trust him that none will happenhttps://t.co/8YOrsyDO8I

— Jesse Ferguson (@JesseFFerguson) April 25, 2019

I can't tell if Grassley thinks he's getting one over on the audience or if can't even comprehend the meaning of his own words.

Sad lol even the person with the camera can barely keep quiet.

good morning!

No it’s not! It’s not morning!
“Then why did you vote for the ‘it is morning right now, it is a good morning Act’ 7 times?”
That act was never going to pass

the north will rise again

or will he

Nope, he’s not running for NRA president again, he’s sinking

usually the answer to “is that republican craven or just really dumb” is “yes”

We will never be rid of Reagan-era charlatans. Never.

godDAMN will someone please hit this dork with a 20' U-Haul truck

#FiveJobsIveHad 1. Grocery store clerk
2. Vocal soloist for church weddings
3. Chemist
4. Strike-replacement high school teacher
5. FBI Director, interrupted

— James Comey (@Comey) April 27, 2019

i like the replies

yeah the replies were cathartic

‘strike-replacement high school teacher’

so... a scab? this fuckin’ guy