The News Thread

[CiG]

My problem is less with the tactics used by the Trumpsters and more with the reason why they're doing it. Trying to force an election to be overturned based on ZERO EVIDENCE OF FRAUD. At least BLM just want less black males shot by cops, even if sometimes they're misguided or championing shootings that weren't illegitimate. That woman died because Trump got her fired up with lies because his ego is bruised.

I hope he refuses to leave and the military drag him out by his fat fucking neck at this point.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

I agree there, Trump's electoral and political failures are not the kind of thing anyone should sacrifice themselves for, nor the thing that one should stage a last stand on democracy over. And fwiw I don't think it's necessarily a bad thing for US Capitol police to be armed, and that someone getting shot and killed was a pretty obvious outcome. I'm not remotely pro-cop but I think anyone taking on the power should know and accept the consequences. That being said, the feds in Portland should have been armed too, and the seditious media should not have been promoting a "Walls of peaceful moms" narrative during that. Trump ultimately surrendering the courthouse was pretty much the sign that he had given up.

But hasn't Trump already asked his supporters to leave a bunch of times? "We have to respect our great people in LAW & ORDER" is what he said a few hours ago. I think Trump will leave peacefully, though this might be enough to permanently fracture any relationships with the establishment GOP and kill his 2024 ambitions. Even relatively hardcore Trump fans like Cerno are now asking Trump to do unity photo-ops with Biden, which is the quickest way for Trump to declare surrender.

The best thing to come out of all of this is that a LOT of former "Back the Blue" types are wising up real fast. The only problem is that when too many (or any) MAGAtards/Qtards get angry and start killing cops, it's going to create a Patriot Act II type response and they will be crushed. Oh and only half-related, but I hope Kyle Rittenhouse finds a way to drop Lin Wood, I don't think anything good can come of a defense from him anymore, dude has totally fucking lost it.

 

[CiG]

At first Trump was encouraging protests at Capitol, then when it got crazy he was saying to be peaceful (as opposed to telling them to just leave/don't do it) and then he started saying for them to just leave. It definitely wasn't the case that he told them to stop right away. His position has changed as the optics have gradually worsened (similar to Biden with the protests/riots).

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Well yeah it was supposed to be his big day of MAGA warriors coming to support their God Emperor, and it looks like some of them got a bit feisty. I'll admit I didn't expect this outcome (breaching the US Capitol) at all, they far exceeded my expectations and in some way give me hope for the country, but Trump is no more to blame than every single person in office or the media that incites violence through racial hoaxes. Same problem with Charlottesville or the overrated Michigan court house protest (where people literally just walked into a public building and chanted). Any right-wing event where things get restless, the media elevates the threat level to super-critical war-imminent, forces the GOP to disavow, and everything backfires in a yuge way. The right will never win the optics war because they don't control the cameras and the broadcasts.

I kinda respect Trump for pushing it even if it was entirely self-serving though, this is the kind of social war that only a US president could possibly wage (a senator/congressman like Steve King just gets censured and anyone not in public office gets censored). I'll respect him a ton if he issues unconditional pardons for most of the participants and shows the same kind of spine that Bill Clinton did when pardoning a far-left bomber.

 

[CiG]

You'll respect him if he directly contradicts his own views from July 2020? Fair enough.

An explosive device is found at the R.N.C., and the D.N.C. is evacuated.

An explosive device was found at the headquarters of the Republican National Committee in Washington and the nearby headquarters of the Democratic National Committee was evacuated after the discovery of a suspicious package on Wednesday, according to three people briefed on the discoveries.

The device that was found at the R.N.C. was a pipe bomb that was successfully destroyed by a bomb squad, according to an official for the R.N.C.

The package at the D.N.C. has yet to be identified, according to a top Democrat briefed on the matter who was not authorized to speak publicly about it.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Yes. Playing by the rules/taking the "higher ground" when your opponent refuses to makes you a cuck. Most US presidents pardon all sorts of scum and friends, and while of course Trump has pardoned guys like Stone and Manafort, I don't know if he has it in him to pardon his dearest supporters. Biden will force dropped charges of most lefties under federal custody anyways.

Just a pipe bomb? Poor showing.

Love this:

 

[CiG]

Trump prefers to pardon war criminals because he's anti-establishment or some shit. Also it's not about playing by the rules/taking the higher ground, as we're talking about Trump's own standards here. He's the one bragging about people being sent to prison for 10 years for doing what his own supporters are doing right now. I mean, call that a good play if you like, but it just furthers the idea that he's an inconsistent flip-flopper. Promotes alternative treatment for COVID, gets COVID himself, gets the standard treatments. Fearmongers about mail-in voting for months and months, votes by mail himself.

There's nothing based about any of this stuff anymore. It's a pile of jokes.

Also the whole "sent your sons to die in wars" rhetoric is a bit ridiculous considering the military is primarily volunteer. Sons send themselves to wars these days, nobody is being drafted and dropped on foreign soil against their will. Never mind the fact that Trump ducked into a bunker that one time remember? The guy who droned more in his first term than Obama did during his entire presidency. The #EmptyTheSwamp guy etc.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

Trump was citing the law, not creating it. If the left doesn't operate under those standards, then neither should the right.

I can agree that there are worse victims of war than the soldiers, though even there I'd argue they're victims of a system that fetishizes the military and bribes and preys on young adults in a way that's even worse than predatory school loan sharks. I just saw the screencap on 4chan and saved it rather than tracking down all the photos of the senators, it's more about the juxtaposition of the message with a bunch of fat wannabe-omnipotent fucks being forced to hear their heart beat for probably the first time in their lives.

 

[CiG]

Trump was citing the law, not creating it. If the left doesn't operate under those standards, then neither should the right.

Sure, fair, but wasn't the Statues & Monuments Act re-enacted via executive order? This isn't a law that just coincidentally got re-enacted at the time, he went out of his way to re-enact it. Again, if this is a good look in your view to do that via executive order and then contradict himself not even a year later, fair enough I just completely disagree.

I can agree that there are worse victims of war than the soldiers, though even there I'd argue they're victims of a system that fetishizes the military and bribes and preys on young adults in a way that's even worse than predatory school loan sharks.

Most of this fetishization coming from?

 

[CiG]

Read: Vice President Mike Pence's statement breaking with Trump on Electoral College vote count.

Vice President Mike Pence released a statement on his role moments before Wednesday's joint session of Congress, saying that he cannot submit to demands he overthrow the results of the November election.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

As far as I can tell he was just citing this law, apparently signed by GWB back in 2003, and I see nothing indicating that it wasn't in effect prior to Trump's EO. Though I guess in some countries laws do expire when not in use, but in America there is definitely precedent for reviving even disused 100+ year old laws as long as Supreme Court rulings haven't since invalidated them. Trump just bungles legal wording a lot. He also contradicts himself a lot (e.g. "Stop the vote in Pennsylvania!" "Keep counting in Arizona!" as you pointed out earlier) and he is also facing record backlash from his own Washington allies, so for him to not pardon his people out of fear of being called a hypocrite would be lame.

Recrooters

 

[CiG]

As far as I can tell he was just citing this law, apparently signed by GWB back in 2003, and I see nothing indicating that it wasn't in effect prior to Trump's EO. Though I guess in some countries laws do expire when not in use, but in America there is definitely precedent for reviving even disused 100+ year old laws as long as Supreme Court rulings haven't since invalidated them. Trump just bungles legal wording a lot.

So what's the purpose of an executive order if the law was already in effect?

He also contradicts himself a lot (e.g. "Stop the vote in Pennsylvania!" "Keep counting in Arizona!" as you pointed out earlier)

Hoooold on haha I'm not letting you slide that one in. That wasn't him contradicting himself, that was him actively trying to game the counting in states where he was ahead or behind.

lmfao. I mean still, I'm going to assume most of the fetishization comes from conservatives in both parties, and primarily from Republican-adjacent individuals and families. The kind of people who are balls deep in Trumpism, the #BlueLivesMatter types and so on.

 

[Allfader]

Justifying treason, sedition and a fucking COUP via domestic terrorism is one of the most laughable and pathetic things to behold from the so called Patriots, ever. Every scum that supported that "raid" should be arrested.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

A lot of executive orders are purely ceremonial/for show, and that goes doubly for Trump's. In theory an executive order gives the President a mechanism for forcing underlings within the Executive (e.g. Attorney General, Secretary of the Department of X, etc) to prioritize enforcement of already-existing laws, though a lot of that comes down to the funding that happens to be available (depends on Congress) as well as the willingness of said underlings (doesn't work on the Deep State(tm)).

I mean it seems pretty logically inconsistent to me for the pres to favor two completely different approaches to different states' polls, but if I got the context of your post wrong, then fair enough.

Definitely. I don't feel bad for basically any soldier that voluntarily joins and faces harm as a result, but it's still a system that Congress funnels ungodly amounts of money into. Semi-related, the woman who was shot and died trying to climb through a window to see Congress was apparently in the Air Force for 14 years and a self-described libertarian.

 

[CiG]

She died bravely, serving Trump's ego.

 

[Bloopy]

Love this:

View attachment 27250

The people who sowed the seeds for the average American to become poorer over time are long dead I imagine, and the protesters won't call them up on the war issue generally. They'll still support the wars that Trump tells them to support.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

The decline has accelerated in recent decades. Many of them have been in serving in Congress since the 80s.

 

[CiG]

 

[Einherjar86]

Fewer people arrested yesterday than when the Sunrise Movement sat down in the damn hallways. What a fucking joke.

 

[Mort Divine]

The problem with basically all people on the right is that they don't realize the left has been in permanent control since FDR

There is no left in the US with regards to political institutions. Fuck off you goon.