The News Thread

[HamburgerBoy]

It's not "just making hot air" when a President is such a fervent liar that he convinces half the country he won an election that he actually lost. It's a personality cult, the kind of shit that puts dictators in power in countries with weaker rule of law. Though the GOP hasn't outright disregarded the law, the absurd number of avenues they pursued to overturn this election suggests that they would have gladly stolen it from Biden if they had the power to.

Is lying about election fraud itself worse than telling lies in order to generate a favorable electoral outcome? The alphabet agencies have been stealing things far more important than elections btw.

You're making a false equivalency. The media does not possess the authority of a government institution. Trump used his authority as President to delay his successor. And John Adams doesn't "set a precedent" -- that was over 200 years ago, and no outgoing President has pulled anything this crazy in modern times.

True, the media is actually more powerful than the government in terms of its use of soft power to shape culture and acceptable speech. The government is still nominally required to abide by the bill of rights, due process, etc. "Precedent" should perhaps be replaced with "history", fair. In any case, being uncooperative with an incoming opposition administration hardly sounds like the worst scandal when there is a long history of US presidents arresting political opponents for wrongthink and unfavored speech. Political obstruction is almost foundational to the two-party system.

Right, and while we're at it let's go around shooting holes in bridges to see if they collapse. That'll motivate the DOTs to enforce bridge inspection standards.

FOIA law only passed because of Watergate, and Ford would have vetoed it had Congress not united against flagrant Executive overreach. Not to suggest that Congress is the lesser evil in the grand scheme of things, of course.

Actually neither party should be doing any of this shit, and the fact that you're cheering on this kind of batshit conflict escalation goes to show how useless it is discussing any of this with you, because ultimately you just don't give a fuck and would be fine with watching the country burn.

The country has been burning since LBJ and the civil rights era and concurrent rise in the filibuster, judicial obstruction, runaway omnibus packages, the permanent cancer of the administrative class, media-government collusion in cracking down on dissident speech, etc. If you genuinely think that McConnell was the first guy to block judges in a partisan manner or Trump the first one to lie brazenly to the public then you haven't looked much into recent history. The entire racism hoax being perpetrated on a nation where blacks commit 90% of violent interracial attacks is just one of countless examples where the media together with the other party create a damaging narrative that has killed more than every Qanon, Proud Boy, and MAGAtard combined. The concept that democracy is our saving grace is laughable when in fact it (together with eroded federalism) bears a lot of the responsibility for our sectionalism and systemic failure, all the while of course we readily prop up stable dictatorships when convenient and are currently being (justifiably) economically slaughtered by the anti-democratic PRC.

 

[rms]

https://www.texastribune.org/2020/1...r&utm_medium=social&__twitter_impression=true


Idiots lol

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Wow. Trump just outflanked everyone from the left. He's weaponizing congresses' corruption, pork barrel, and austerity against them. If he would have been talking and acting like this instead of calling Biden a radical socialist for the past year, he would have been reelected.

 

[Einherjar86]

Trump doesn't give two shits about giving people money. He's doing this to fuck McConnell because McConnell acknowledged Biden's win.

Trump could have done this earlier, but he waits until now? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for more money to people who need it--but this isn't about helping anyone except himself.

I also agree--if he had done this sooner (i.e. if he'd had any kind of conscience toward the people suffering financially) he would have won reelection.

 

[rms]

It's the same shit, right? He's ignoring that two bills passed and is not including the weekly unemployment payments all in order to cause some populist hysteria about overthrowing the system because it doesn't care about you.

 

[CiG]

He's doing this to fuck McConnell because McConnell acknowledged Biden's win.

This. Also laying a seedbed for re-election in 2024 possibly.

 

[Einherjar86]

It's the same shit, right? He's ignoring that two bills passed and is not including the weekly unemployment payments all in order to cause some populist hysteria about overthrowing the system because it doesn't care about you.

I don't know about all that necessarily, but maybe true to some extent. I do think he's being entirely consistent in that he's not governing, simply out to get those he doesn't like.

 

[rms]

I don't know about all that necessarily, but maybe true to some extent. I do think he's being entirely consistent in that he's not governing, simply out to get those he doesn't like.

I mean if you agree he's just riling up mad trump voters, he did that by being half honest about the bills that passed..and I don't think I can agree about McConnell since even Trump says "maybe I'll be your next president".

Think it's always been Pelosi > McConnell for his base. I went with my father in law to Yosemite a few years ago and he was excited to hike to a reservoir because it fed into San Fran, because he could piss in the water Pelosi might drink/use

 

[HamburgerBoy]

This. Also laying a seedbed for re-election in 2024 possibly.

Almost certainly. Would be especially amazing if he reinvents himself as anti-McConnell/anti-establishment-GOP for a second time after the first time going anti-Bush managed to win him the whole thing, and then somehow wins reelection. It's going to be weird as fuck though since if Trump does go 2024 mode for the next four years, you can guarantee that various lawsuits and even criminal charges will be filed at least at the New York state level, if not at the federal level outright. And then the cycle goes from "Obama/Biden spied on Trump's campaign, illegal!" to "Trump directed agencies to sabotage Biden's campaign, impeach!" back to "Biden/Harris is trying to ban the Trump campaign, illegal!", with some Don Jr/Kushner and Hunter Biden shit serving as the undercard. Best fucking political system in the world. Can't wait for China to finally win in full and start lifting our economy out of the shitter, maybe first by destroying our reserve currency status, second by outsourcing their manufacturing to our weakened-dollar cheapened-labor base, third by giving us the Africa treatment building new infrastructure in exchange for our oil.

Trump doesn't give two shits about giving people money. He's doing this to fuck McConnell because McConnell acknowledged Biden's win.

Trump could have done this earlier, but he waits until now? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for more money to people who need it--but this isn't about helping anyone except himself.

I also agree--if he had done this sooner (i.e. if he'd had any kind of conscience toward the people suffering financially) he would have won reelection.

Trump did push for new checks before Nov 4, it was McConnell who blocked him out of fiscal concern, and Trump held his tongue, probably also in part because he needed McConnell to secure ACB to the Supreme Court. That being said, Trump signed every other omnibus before this one with sometimes a mild complaint but never bothering to actually veto things, so the fault still rests on Trump for not sticking to the message that got him elected to begin with.

But frankly, being only 40k votes behind in three swing states means doing anything a little better could have won him reelection. If he didn't pick Fauci to be his wuflu spokesman, or kept his mouth shut over dumb shit like "disinfectant" and "it will go away soon", he probably would have won. Though I enjoyed his first debate against Biden quite a lot and don't put too much weight into them, it's possible that the shitflinging there did manage to knock him down just enough to lose. If he had dedicated himself to attacking the various media platforms that conspired against him in 2020, instead of wasting time on dumb peace deal photo ops, he likely would have won. Even the stupid Platinum Plan could very well have cost him critical white votes. Basically he always does just enough right to get in striking distance, and sometimes it takes him just far enough, sometimes it doesn't.

It's the same shit, right? He's ignoring that two bills passed and is not including the weekly unemployment payments all in order to cause some populist hysteria about overthrowing the system because it doesn't care about you.

Which two bills are you referring to? I thought most unemployment has been handled state-side anyways and is drying up for people now, wasn't aware of weekly federally-backed unemployment payments.

EDIT: Was reading some other stuff and I think I found what you were referring to?

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jimwan...efit-no-one-is-talking-about/?sh=37be49991d12

Apparently that expired a couple months ago, though fwiw I can agree that these mail-out checks are basically just silly populist garbage, and when you consider that many states have pre-wuflu unemployment levels now, it's especially silly.

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Trump doesn't give two shits about giving people money. He's doing this to fuck McConnell because McConnell acknowledged Biden's win.

Trump could have done this earlier, but he waits until now? Don't get me wrong, I'm all for more money to people who need it--but this isn't about helping anyone except himself.

I also agree--if he had done this sooner (i.e. if he'd had any kind of conscience toward the people suffering financially) he would have won reelection.

They’re all idiots. Trump should have been campaigning on this an so should have the Dems. Kamala has a bill she wrote with Bernie to give people $2k a month for the remainder of the pandemic. Biden could have taken that one policy and won in a landslide.

I’m super interested to see how the Republicans vote on this though. Some of them really are ideological deficit hawks. However, voting against aid and Trump has to be career suicide in the Republican Party.

 

[rms]

Which two bills are you referring to? I thought most unemployment has been handled state-side anyways and is drying up for people now, wasn't aware of weekly federally-backed unemployment payments.

. Two bills passed that night, one that had a shitload of foreign aid and one they had a bunch of covid money, pploans and unemployment insurance and that 600$ check

 

[crimsonfloyd]

Pelosi puts the $2k checks amendment up for unanimous consent, knowing deficit hawk Republicans will vote it down. More political games from Pelosi. There needs to be a bipartisan pact between Democrats and Republicans to primary and remove all these people. We need a total restart.

 

[HamburgerBoy]

. Two bills passed that night, one that had a shitload of foreign aid and one they had a bunch of covid money, pploans and unemployment insurance and that 600$ check

From what I can find it seems like the unemployment component was mostly an extension of previous CARES Act unemployment supplement, and doesn't do anything for people failing to qualify for state unemployment benefits. There are many, especially on the left, who shit on federal unemployment benefits like those, so it's not surprising that Trump ignoring those bennies to promote free cash for everyone is winning with the populists.

 

[CiG]

Also:

http://twitter.com/Phil_Mattingly/status/1341791993782005762

 

[rms]

That bomber in nashville hasn't gotten shit for attention

 

[Einherjar86]

It was the politest bombing ever. It broadcast the fact that it was a bomb and gave people a countdown to detonation. I'm still confused as to how three people actually got hurt.

 

[rms]

He's a better mcveigh I guess lol gave off warnings from the rv right ? Weirdo

 

[Cythraul]

It's not "just making hot air" when a President is such a fervent liar that he convinces half the country he won an election that he actually lost. It's a personality cult, the kind of shit that puts dictators in power in countries with weaker rule of law. Though the GOP hasn't outright disregarded the law, the absurd number of avenues they pursued to overturn this election suggests that they would have gladly stolen it from Biden if they had the power to.

They would have gladly stolen it, but Democrats magically did not, even though there is plenty of evidence that they did and that they had ample opportunity, incentive, and ability to do so. Fucking sick of the dishonesty people like you.

The media does not possess the authority of a government institution.

Sure, they have what the government itself does not have: an unprecedented ability to shape public opinion. That kind of matters, doesn't it?

 

[Einherjar86]

They would have gladly stolen it, but Democrats magically did not, even though there is plenty of evidence that they did and that they had ample opportunity, incentive, and ability to do so. Fucking sick of the dishonesty people like you.

There is literally minimal evidence that they did. All the purported “evidence” has been routinely debunked or deemed insignificant.

 

[CiG]

Holy shit MF DOOM apparently died.