[Offwidth]

They just keep coming.

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/10/trump-midterm-recount-election-rigging-arizona-georgia-florida

[Falling Down]

Paging Fiend https://thehardtimes.net/harddrive/dd-party-member-with-3-charisma-keeps-trying-to-fucking-roll-deception/

[tomtom]

😂

[TobyD]

Though you could argue that skews things towards cities.

Ummm... Good?

I think it’s fairer on balance - but the rural/urban argument is more nuanced than just population.

Rural areas typically suffer from poorer facilities/spending/whogivesafuckaboutthem etc.. per head because they are more spread out. Less economic for services etc... not coming down on either side - just saying.

Whatever the niceties the fact that a vote in Wyoming is effectively 67 times more powerful than a Californian vote cannot be couched as a legitimate democracy

[Offwidth]

Its the US ... its gun rated equality. California clearly needs more gang members not more people to improve the ratio.

[andy popp]

Armed black security guard apprehends shooting suspect. Police arrive and shoot black security dead. More guns really solved that problem:

https://slate.com/news-and-politics/2018/11/jemel-roberson-security-guard-killed-illinois.html?fbclid=IwAR3XhRVOsSdtxPJ4UDlcZ2Q-ebZYmhPJ5JpWGTOTk8O7IF9xecP9eUuWxTE

[Oldmanmatt]

[TobyD]

Trump ready to begin drawdown of troops at US-Mexico border

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2018/nov/19/trump-ready-to-begin-drawdown-of-troops-at-us-mexico-border?CMP=Share_AndroidApp_Copy_to_clipboard

This is really worrying. Trump is employing every classic technique of an autocratic regime to erode democracy. Also see the Jim Acosta incident.

[andy popp]

Yes, it was just a stunt, as was obvious all along.

[Oldmanmatt]

Yes, it was just a stunt, as was obvious all along.

What was that movie, where they invented a war to distract from a presidential scandal? Hoffman was the PR guru, I think.
(I remember someone claining that movie was the genesis of the whole “Crisis actor” mythology).

[SA Chris]

Wag the Dog

[tomtom]

Yes, it was just a stunt, as was obvious all along.

What was that movie, where they invented a war to distract from a presidential scandal? Hoffman was the PR guru, I think.
(I remember someone claining that movie was the genesis of the whole “Crisis actor” mythology).

And house of cards season 5

[tomtom]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

[Oldmanmatt]

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paradox_of_tolerance

This was the point I was trying to make to Will, on the other thread. The Liberal penchant for trying to see the other point of view, that leads to a false equivalency. Climate science, Flat earth, vaccines, the “Alt Right”, Brexit.... 

[TobyD]

A gold-dust quote from a Gary Young article in the Guardian the other day:

Or as George Clooney put it about Trump: “I grew up in Kentucky. I sold insurance door to door. I sold ladies’ shoes. I worked at an all-night liquor store. I would buy suits that were too big and too long and cut the bottom of the pants off to make ties so I’d have a tie to go on job interviews. The idea that I’m somehow the ‘Hollywood elite’ and this guy who takes a shit in a gold toilet is somehow the man of the people is laughable.”

[TobyD]

"I don't like him. I don't know much about him, but I know he's a blowhard. And I'm not too excited about him being a leader,"  George Bush Sr

[Oldmanmatt]

[Oldmanmatt]

If Trump goes to prison, will it be his first, ever, complete sentence?

[TobyD]

If Trump goes to prison, will it be his first, ever, complete sentence?

  is that your gag or was that pinched? If someone could just steal his phone to stop him posting on Twitter it'd be a start. If Trump went to prison it'd be satisfying enough for me to almost not mind about Brexit.

[andy popp]

If someone could just steal his phone to stop him posting on Twitter it'd be a start.

We're relying on his Twitter feed for the self-incrimination.

[Oldmanmatt]

If Trump goes to prison, will it be his first, ever, complete sentence?

  is that your gag or was that pinched? If someone could just steal his phone to stop him posting on Twitter it'd be a start. If Trump went to prison it'd be satisfying enough for me to almost not mind about Brexit.

Definitely nicked. Unfortunately, I read it in passing and couldn’t find the tweet when I scrolled back. Still, too good to not share.

[WilliCrater]

If Trump goes to prison, will it be his first, ever, complete sentence?

Not if he gets parole (or pardoned).

[Oldmanmatt]

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/12/trump-white-house-has-no-plan-counter-mueller-report/577417/

 

[Mugabe251]

"I don't like him. I don't know much about him, but I know he's a blowhard. And I'm not too excited about him being a leader,"  George Bush Sr

Asking this just out of curiosity, but why does something that George Bush Sr says carry any weight to you? It's just a phenomenon that's quite funny, how American democrats and liberal-minded British people are happy to dogpile onto Trump alongside powerful Republicans (namely Bush Jr and Sr) who were responsible for some quite nasty goings-on in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan that killed a good few hundred thousand people

[Oldmanmatt]

"I don't like him. I don't know much about him, but I know he's a blowhard. And I'm not too excited about him being a leader,"  George Bush Sr

Asking this just out of curiosity, but why does something that George Bush Sr says carry any weight to you? It's just a phenomenon that's quite funny, how American democrats and liberal-minded British people are happy to dogpile onto Trump alongside powerful Republicans (namely Bush Jr and Sr) who were responsible for some quite nasty goings-on in Iraq, Kuwait and Afghanistan that killed a good few hundred thousand people

Were they?

B Jnr wasn’t the sharpest tool and certainly played into the hands of the hawks, lusting for blood after that little incident in 2001.
But, remind me, what did Bush Snr do in Kuwait? Iraq? Afgan?

I mean, I saw the results of some unpleasant crap, carried out by the Iraqis, in Kuwait, during their occupation of it and heard some awful witness accounts from others that arrived before I did (Fighting was done, a few days earlier, when I got there).
During Desert Shield, I was in Turkey, counting heads, as the Kurdish refugees came in. I didn’t speak to any directly, but drank copiously with some of the Red Crecent guys and listened to their tales, secondhand. (Bearing in mind, drinking was Haram for most of those guys, but the shit they heard/dealt with was enough to waive that Surah for a while).

You often seem to present a very one dimensional view of the world. Granted I do too, sometimes, but thats usually just because I’m debating Pete (or someone) and don’t want to admit I half agree with him.

Your going to say something about it all “not being about the people” but all about the “Oil” or “Business interests” aren’t you?

Duh!

War and violence suck. Even bumping up against the edges, as I did, is deeply scaring and sickening, with knobs on.

But, everyone else (because Mr Mugabe won’t), close your eyes and, for a few moments, imagine the oil stops flowing...

Did you see it?

Almost every aspect of our lives ground to a halt.

Our societies couldn’t cope, they’d collapse.

We’re like a junky, without even the prospect of surviving cold turkey, more like a Vampire without blood.



PS: I don’t for one second, think this is a “good” thing. If we can’t end our fossil fuel dependence pronto, we’re dead anyway.