Enough With The Cutesy Titles, People Are Dead: US Politics January 2021 pt 2

nah Portland protestors otm

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/21/us/protests-portland-seattle-biden.html

anyway, i'm in portland for work. first time I've left my house for my job since covid hit and i'm *extremely* unhappy about it.
we're staying downtown and it's pretty much a boarded up ghost town compared to when i was here last. if things are popping off around our office & hotel it can't be much, or it's happening pretty late at night.

on that NYT headline:

Change in Headline pic.twitter.com/35VI67L5JP

— Editing TheGrayLady (@nyt_diff) January 23, 2021

and here's the washpost version:

https://i.imgur.com/kbGl20N.png

I'm not sure I understand why Donnie didn't just create his own alt-website in order to directly funnel his parasitic filth into his hosts' willing brains.

He knows the best people:

I have a son. He’s 10 years old. He has computers. He is so good with these computers, it’s unbelievable. The security aspect of cyber is very, very tough. And maybe it’s hardly do-able. But I will say, we are not doing the job we should be doing, but that’s true throughout our whole governmental society. We have so many things that we have to do better, Lester and certainly cyber is one of them.

What has Biden done since inauguration that they are protesting?

existing

He has continued to be Joe Biden.

can't speak for everyone but for me probably not saying "Damn i'm sorry that was really stupid of me to say i'd veto M4A if it came across my desk"

The systemic racism and brutality of the police continues, as evidenced by feds teargassing people protesting against it in Portland, and a cop in Tacoma accelerating an SUV through a crowd and running over / hospitalising one bystander last night. Biden repeatedly campaigned on treating brutality by increasing funding to police, and training them to shoot protestors. As the interviewees in the article say, continuing to protest continues to keep attention on the issues in a way which ceasing protests does not.

and this is more Dem party in general rather than Biden specifically, but the little tapdance about "vote for us and $2k is yours" to "hahah sike we were already including the 6 hundo you fucking rubes and the GOP hasn't even begun negotiating" probably didn't win them any friends

xp agree w/all of that and also think waiting a week would have been a better choice

yeah, i think those are valid reasons to protest, i don't know if the timing was productive and worry it gives the republicans space to "both sides" jan 6, which is bullshit but

As one person held a lighter below a Biden-for-president flag, another chanted a phrase often seen on conservative message boards: “Not my president.”

republicans are going to respond to all left protest exactly the same regardless of when it happens or what happens, though

“Not my president.”

Should've been "not any president".

Optics, people!

I'm every President

Fillmore's in mmmeeeeeee

As one person held a lighter below a Biden-for-president flag, another chanted a phrase often seen on conservative message boards: “Not my president.”

Incredibly stupid framing here, heard this at every Bush era protest.

Protesters were seen drinking water, as was common at many STOP THE STEAL events. Clear liquids are also fond with RUSSIANS.

popular with RUSSIANS, damn it

they also like kahlua and milk iirc

agree w/all of that and also think waiting a week would have been a better choice

The cop in Tacoma accelerated through and ran over pedestrians (a crowd of randos watching dickheads do donuts) at 18:45.

A spontaneous protest was taking place by 8pm.

In August, Pierce County diverted COVID response funds to a cop project to monitor specific organisers who had been coordinating protest against, and calling for the arrest of, the individual cops who murdered Manuel Ellis in March.

Two of those organisers arrived at the protest between 8 and 8:30, sat peacefully in place, and were searched without consent and arrested without Miranda reading before 9. They were held overnight until hat-passing raised their bail.

If the crowd who had been attacked by a cop in a murdervehicle had waited a week to protest, instead of organising immediately, would the cops have returned the stolen COVID funds, instead of targeting and violating the rights of two people for protesting previous cop murderers?

If the two organisers had waited a week to go down to yesterday's protest, would the four cops originally filmed murdering Ellis in March have somehow not been cleared to return to work in April?

If the pedestrians who filmed the cop attempting to kill random citizens last night had waited a week to tweet their videos, would the local PD and Sheriff's Dept have, for some reason, finally censured the two additional officers (one off-duty, just abetting murder for fun), whose active involvement had been kept concealed for until three weeks ago?



There's no polite time to wait to protest. The change of President in Washington DC last week doesn't affect the reasons to protest police violence in the PNW, unless that president does anything to curb or correct it.

Reminder that the new President's repeated, and repeated, up to the internationally televised campaign debates in November, policy towards addressing police violence to state that the institution of US policing is irreparably damaged and rotten, and to argue that the solution is:

1) increase funding for the police
2) remove external oversight
3) shoot protestors.

ok this may sound harsh but i really think we need to start letting the kids out of the cages and replacing them with Guys like This:

https://www.kansascity.com/news/local/article248663695.html

I would like it if his prison cell was "over the edge of a cliff"

wtg Joshua you've shot past some of the most loathsome assholes to ever draw breath

I know, Stuart Stevens (who, among lots else, I'm sure, has Sarah Palin to answer for), but I did find this funny:

"Now, if you're a Republican, if you're a Trump voter, to be born in America is you're a victim, you're a sucker. There are these powerful forces out there in the world, like Canada, that are taking advantage of us."

(The inflection he puts on "Canada" is better heard than read--it's at 2:50.)

https://www.cnn.com/videos/business/2021/01/24/stevens-rupert-murdoch-is-the-most-dangerous-immigrant-in-america.cnn/video/playlists/reliable-sources-highlights/

Maybe, as a Canadian, I should be offended, I'm not sure. But we invented self-deprecation, so I'm okay no matter how he intended that.

I just realized that I’m almost more interested in the story of this present administration than the story of the administration we just escaped.

i'm absolutely dying to be more interested in this administration but they need to fucking DO something instead of crying about republicans not liking them

i'm probably the only person in this thread who thinks this but i just. don't. fucking. care. what happens to trump at this point. what i need is for the democrats to fucking work for the people for once.

why on earth would you believe you're "the only person in this thread who thinks" democrats working for the people is badly needed and what happens to trump is a minor side issue by comparsion? this is a weird idea.

if it was donors' pockets on the line they'd use reconciliation in a heartbeat and something would already be done. instead it's just everyone else who doesn't matter and fuck them obviously.

xp thanks for providing a valuable counterpoint to my hyperbole

Interesting interview with Fauci about his interactions with the dministration, with Trump personally, and holy-shit details about death threats to him and his family: https://www.nytimes.com/2021/01/24/health/fauci-trump-covid.html

the dministration

I think we can probably grade it a fministration.

and this is more Dem party in general rather than Biden specifically, but the little tapdance about "vote for us and $2k is yours" to "hahah sike we were already including the 6 hundo you fucking rubes and the GOP hasn't even begun negotiating" probably didn't win them any friends

― Washington Generals D-League affiliate (will), Sunday, January 24, 2021 2:44 PM (five hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

from the beginning this was phrased as increasing checks from $600 to $2000 so i'm not sure what "lapdance" you're referring to.

idk man it seems bad and dumb and honestly no one in DC seems to thinks money’s ‘real’ until it comes to helping out poor and working people.

Dems and their media proxies were absolutely running the campaigns in GA on on folks getting 2k *after* the $600 had already gone out. No one said “$1400 more to make u whole”. It’s just a weird thing to not be explicit about.

So there were definitely ads during the Georgia races that made reference to an additional $2000. I wasn't really paying attention to these at the time and always thought the plan was to add on $1400, so I'm not particularly upset about this, but I totally understand people who paid closer attention and are pissed off now.

And yes, the democrats need to act with way more urgency than they are. I think lots of people are saying this, but it isn't clear exactly what Schumer and team are actually willing to do to make things happen now.

We talked about the $1400 vs. $2000 here and even ILXors who were paying attention were confused - it's dumb to pretend that Democrats didn't want people to hear "$2000 more" before they voted.

More importantly, why defend the trim to $1400 now? Which of us here is worried about the deficit?

(sorry if I’m picking old scabs w the $1400; I don’t think I was online much when all that was coming by to light)

With a 50-50 split in the senate, the boldest budget legislation that can pass is whatever the timidest Democratic senator can be persuaded to vote for, unless at least one Republican decides to play along. I'm pretty sure this is a much touchier proposition than our furthest left posters will be willing to concede and we'll hear nothing but 'the Democrats have full control over the Congress and the Presidency, so why haven't they enacted fully automated luxury socialism, yet?'

So, once more, if anything is not to the liking of the left, the Democrats as a party will be entirely to blame. It's never going to be the fucking voters who keep sending so many wild-eyed radical Republicans to Congress who are the biggest problem. Or the goddamn US constitution that lets Wyoming and Alaska be as powerful as California and New York in our magnificent US Senate.

why haven't they enacted fully automated luxury socialism

Because it would be a fals economy

it just seems like such an slam dunk to let the republicans be the bad guys, particularly when it comes to broadly popular policies during a pandemic when normal people have spent 10 months getting their asses kicked. Even if you’re a centrist dem who hates poor people, let the GOP grinch it up and run against *that* in 2022. but I’m not a politics brain genious

or just be crystal clear that you’re capping the giveaways. and probably not to expect more. The honesty would at least be refreshing

I don't pretend to know what's going to happen politically in the US in the next three or four months. Between the New Great Depression among low wage workers, the spreading more-contagious covid-19 variant, the cack-handed vaccine rollout, the 50-50 senate and the timidty of its tiny, but critical, 'centrist faction' that will have to provide the one or two vital swing votes, and the potential for radical white supremacist violence, it seems crazy to do anything but hunker down, wait, watch, and react as indicated.

The election is past. The actual bills, amendments and votes will play out with minimal further input from the masses, unless they appear in the streets in numbers so vast as to overwhelm all question about public mood or intent. Certainty in this situation is confined to seeing the great and urgent need for effective action, but what those actions will be is anyone's guess. I don't plan to waste emotional energy getting angry over what might happen, since almost anything I can think of seems possible right now.

give everybody 2k. even at this point that shit is mad insufficient given how long everybody's been abandoned. fuck "just an additional 1400"

give everybody 2k

I'm all for it. even better, add several more programs that pay non-essential workers to stay home, raise the minimum wage to $15/hr., cancel student debt for everyone making less than $75K and institute the Green New Deal.

So, what's the plan?? Who should I vote for, for Congress, who's in favor of doing all those in the next six to eight months? Ooops. Can't vote again until 2022. How do I threaten or bribe my reps? Ooops, legal threats and bribes are strictly beyond my means. What should I do?

What should I do?

idk ask this guy mb

appear in the streets in numbers so vast as to overwhelm all question about public mood or intent

Because it would be a fals economy

🏆

appear in the streets in numbers so vast as to overwhelm all question about public mood or intent

I personally am not a number so vast that I can impersonate the masses all by myself. Their appearance in the streets only happens when the public mood and intent is genuinely unmistakable and extremely motivated. That's not so much a plan as a wish.

invite some friends