[News] Post a Political News Story

Ongoing discussion of the political news of the day. This thread is for 'smaller' stories that don't call for their own thread. If a story blows up, please start a new thread for it.

F*ck Trump and everyone who voted for him or a third-party candidate? Is that too harsh or disrespectful?

That is some top notch fan fiction masturbatory far right spank fantasy.

hbi2k wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

Barring Republican ratf*cking

I mean, barring the effects of gravity, I could fly to the moon.

Republicans definitely ratf*ck and disenfranchise.

But it also helps to remember that even with all the ratf*cking and the disenfranchising they still *barely* win elections.

The 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race came down to less than 55,000 votes. And that's with Kemp tossing hundreds of thousands of mostly black voters off the rolls as Sec State and shutting down polling locations. Florida's governor's race was decided by less than 35,000 votes.

Unless you subscribe to the view that the Republicans are such masters at meddling that they consistently make sure elections are squeakers that they still win then you might have to acknowledge that there are limits to how much the GOP can ratf*ck and disenfranchise. There's a point where their nefarious efforts get swamped by slightly higher Democratic turnout.

I'm cautiously optimistic that 2020 will be an election year where there'll be higher--hopefully a lot higher--Democratic turnout coupled with a lot of moderate Republicans and Independents who are simply just sick of Trump.

OG_slinger wrote:
hbi2k wrote:
OG_slinger wrote:

Barring Republican ratf*cking

I mean, barring the effects of gravity, I could fly to the moon.

Republicans definitely ratf*ck and disenfranchise.

But it also helps to remember that even with all the ratf*cking and the disenfranchising they still *barely* win elections.

The 2018 Georgia gubernatorial race came down to less than 55,000 votes. And that's with Kemp tossing hundreds of thousands of mostly black voters off the rolls as Sec State and shutting down polling locations. Florida's governor's race was decided by less than 35,000 votes.

Unless you subscribe to the view that the Republicans are such masters at meddling that they consistently make sure elections are squeakers that they still win then you might have to acknowledge that there are limits to how much the GOP can ratf*ck and disenfranchise. There's a point where their nefarious efforts get swamped by slightly higher Democratic turnout.

I'm cautiously optimistic that 2020 will be an election year where there'll be higher--hopefully a lot higher--Democratic turnout coupled with a lot of moderate Republicans and Independents who are simply just sick of Trump.

Ratf*ck things too badly and you end up with the sort of rioting you see in Belarus. And being in the minority when that sh*t goes bad usually ends up being a truly bad thing.

So Hillary, John Brennan (who's secretly a Muslim because one time he briefly spoke Arabic at a speech at the New York University School of Law), and Leon Panetta forced Obama to call off the hunt for Osama bin Laden because this "CIA whistleblower" was ordered by HIllary to directly negotiate with Iran who somehow had bin Laden in custody since 2001 to get Iran to transfer bin Laden to Pakistani control in Abbottabad 2010 in exchange for $150 billion (which was actually a wildly inflated value of Iranian assets, plus interest, that the US froze after the US embassy hostage crisis that the US government agreed to turn over as an ancillary part of the Iranian nuclear deal) so that they could then "find" bin Laden and take him out. (Also ignore that Iran apparently agreed to this five years before the treaty was negotiated and ratified and three years before secret negotiations with the US even began.)

But Hillary et al simultaneously didn't tell Obama about the Seal Team Six mission until it was over for...reasons...and they threatened "that if [Obama] didn’t go along with the kill mission that they would go to the press and he would not survive politically."

But the Iranians double crossed us by sending a body double of bin Laden to Pakistan and providing the CIA with the imposter's DNA. The fake bin Laden was buried at sea to prevent anyone from finding out.

Then, three months later, Hillary, Brennan, and Biden (who knows how he got involved at this stage of the conspiracy) somehow got access to tactical planning information for a special forces raid on a Taliban commander involving Seal Team Six and was somehow able to get that information to the Taliban forces who were able to set up a successful ambush which totally wasn't a surprised insurgent getting a lucky RPG strike on the tail of a big-ass, lumbering Chinook helicopter right as it was trying to land.

Never mind that the Red Squadron of Seal Team Six was involved in the bin Laden raid and that the Gold Squadron was the one who got shot down in August 2011. Heck, most definitely ignore that Naval Special Warfare Development Group--the official name for Seal Team Six--has 1,800 military and civilian personnel and quite of few of them would have to be added to Clinton Body Count to protect this "secret."

You left out the part where the Benghazi attack was a cover for disposing of some sort of evidence that would have traced the missile used to kill the SEALs back to Clinton. Also, all the information for this comes from a falconer who worked for seemingly everyone in Afghanistan and has "terabytes" of evidence to back up his claim.

Your board of strings needs to add "EVE Online" there somewhere, which has more of a real connection to the Benghazi attack than any of the right-wing fantasies.

Gremlin wrote:

Your board of strings needs to add "Star Citizen" there somewhere, which has more of a real connection to the Benghazi attack than any of the right-wing fantasies.

ftfy

So Qanon has shifted to just writing political humor these days, right?

Gremlin wrote:

Your board of strings needs to add "EVE Online" there somewhere, which has more of a real connection to the Benghazi attack than any of the right-wing fantasies.

RIP VileRat. o7

Chairman_Mao wrote:
Gremlin wrote:

Your board of strings needs to add "Star Citizen" there somewhere, which has more of a real connection to the Benghazi attack than any of the right-wing fantasies.

ftfy

I thought we decided Star Citizen was a secret russian money laundering operation, not iranian terrorism.

Tom Clancy has to be looking at all this and thinking to himself that he needs to up his game.

Kehama wrote:

Tom Clancy has to be looking at all this and thinking to himself that he needs to up his game.

Since he died seven years ago, that would require a fair bit of effort.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Kehama wrote:

Tom Clancy has to be looking at all this and thinking to himself that he needs to up his game.

Since he died seven years ago, that would require a fair bit of effort.

And now I just spit on my monitor.

ClockworkHouse wrote:
Kehama wrote:

Tom Clancy has to be looking at all this and thinking to himself that he needs to up his game.

Since he died seven years ago, that would require a fair bit of effort.

2020 is not over why did you put that into the universe?

IMAGE(https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn%3AANd9GcTW_2RFAenU-TJhPkCnEhydROHpXA5CBPt7Aw&usqp=CAU)

Asterith wrote:
ClockworkHouse wrote:
Kehama wrote:

Tom Clancy has to be looking at all this and thinking to himself that he needs to up his game.

Since he died seven years ago, that would require a fair bit of effort.

And now I just spit on my monitor.

nothing cleans spit off a monitor better than a pair of good old socks.

But, but... Tom's still making games! He programs them all himself and writes all the plots! Ubisoft said so! (I had no idea he'd died)

He sold Ubisoft the right to use his name on their products back in 2008. Not licensed it, but sold it outright on a perpetual basis.

Stengah wrote:

He sold Ubisoft the right to use his name on their products back in 2008. Not licensed it, but sold it outright on a perpetual basis.

WOW!! He must hate his kids or other heirs.

It actually makes it much easier to split up between them compared to trying to figure out who would control his brand after he died. Just look at the fight his 1st wife & widow are having over Jack Ryan.

As Local News Dies, a Pay-for-Play Network Rises in Its Place

Maine Business Daily is part of a fast-growing network of nearly 1,300 websites that aim to fill a void left by vanishing local newspapers across the country. Yet the network, now in all 50 states, is built not on traditional journalism but on propaganda ordered up by dozens of conservative think tanks, political operatives, corporate executives and public-relations professionals, a Times investigation found.

I believe I read about that company. They have “local” news sites registered everywhere. I found one covering Tucson, one for Mariana, a suburb near where I live, and one for Sierra Vista , another suburb south of Tucson. Scary.

Fortunately we have Tucson.com and azcentral.com which have good local reporting and editorial as they were developed by the main Tucson and Phoenix newspapers. They did a pretty good job of getting ahead of the Doom of Newsprint.

ClockworkHouse wrote:

You left out the part where the Benghazi attack was a cover for disposing of some sort of evidence that would have traced the missile used to kill the SEALs back to Clinton. Also, all the information for this comes from a falconer who worked for seemingly everyone in Afghanistan and has "terabytes" of evidence to back up his claim.

Who could have possibly imagined that the falconer lied...

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/hNiBiKF.png)

IMAGE(https://i.imgur.com/Oe8Sk6t.png)

Interesting theory on Qanon from a CNN reporter who attended two "events."

or many of its supporters QAnon is not just a set of conspiracy theories. For them, it's a way to distract themselves from the failures of a President they see as the hero of a fight against an all-encompassing villainy, to elevate themselves by casting his critics and political opponents as those villains, and to not have to pay attention to all of the US' very real problems, like Covid-19 and systemic racism.
JC wrote:

Interesting theory on Qanon from a CNN reporter who attended two "events."

or many of its supporters QAnon is not just a set of conspiracy theories. For them, it's a way to distract themselves from the failures of a President they see as the hero of a fight against an all-encompassing villainy, to elevate themselves by casting his critics and political opponents as those villains, and to not have to pay attention to all of the US' very real problems, like Covid-19 and systemic racism.

That fits with conclusions I've seen here and elsewhere for most conspiracy adherents: They are desperate to find answers in an overwhelming world. Most of them feel powerless, and thinking they "know" a secret that the mainstream denies gives them power and purpose.

What gets me is that many conspiracy nutters, such as flat earthers, are also strongly religious. I get the confluence of rejecting science and making a leap of faith, but I don't understand how church and the Bible isn't enough purpose for a devout believer. I suppose they feel called to something...

JLS wrote:

What gets me is that many conspiracy nutters, such as flat earthers, are also strongly religious. I get the confluence of rejecting science and making a leap of faith, but I don't understand how church and the Bible isn't enough purpose for a devout believer. I suppose they feel called to something...

I think it's the difference between having a sense of control and blind faith? With religion, it's simply blind faith that the words in the book you're reading are gospel and true. With the current conspiracies people are involved in, "solving the mystery" and "proving something is right."

From a social and behavioral science viewpoint it both fascinates and terrifies me.

The 8th Wonder of the World

The Verge wrote:

HOPES WERE HIGH among the employees who joined Foxconn’s Wisconsin project in the summer of 2018. In June, President Donald Trump had broken ground on an LCD factory he called “the eighth wonder of the world.” The scale of the promise was indeed enormous: a $10 billion investment from the Taiwanese electronics giant, a 20 million-square-foot manufacturing complex, and, most importantly, 13,000 jobs.

Which is why new recruits arriving at the 1960s office building Foxconn had purchased in downtown Milwaukee were surprised to discover they had to provide their own office supplies. “One of the largest companies in the world, and you have to bring your own pencil,” an employee recalls wondering. Maybe Foxconn was just moving too fast to be bothered with such details, they thought, as they brought their laptops from home and scavenged pencils left behind by the building’s previous tenants. They listened to the cries of co-workers trapped in the elevators that often broke, noted the water that occasionally leaked from the ceiling, and wondered when the building would be transformed into the gleaming North American headquarters an executive had promised.

The renovations never arrived. Neither did the factory, the tech campus, nor the thousands of jobs. Interviews with 19 employees and dozens of others involved with the project, as well as thousands of pages of public documents, reveal a project that has defaulted on almost every promise. The building Foxconn calls an LCD factory — about 1/20th the size of the original plan — is little more than an empty shell. In September, Foxconn received a permit to change its intended use from manufacturing to storage.

Even the handful of jobs the company claims to have created are less than real: many of them held by people with nothing to do, hired so the company could reach the number required for it to get tax subsidy payments from Wisconsin. Foxconn failed at that objective, too: last week, Wisconsin rejected the company’s subsidy application and found it had employed only 281 people eligible under the contract at the end of 2019. Many have since been laid off.

Foxconn did not return repeated requests for comment.

It’s not unusual for either the Trump administration or Foxconn to make announcements that prove hollow. But for Foxconn, the show went on — for two years, the company, aided by the vocal support of the Wisconsin GOP, worked to maintain an illusion of progress in front of a business venture that never made economic sense.

That illusion has had real costs. State and local governments spent at least $400 million, largely on land and infrastructure Foxconn will likely never need. Residents were pushed from their homes under threat of eminent domain and dozens of houses bulldozed to clear property Foxconn doesn’t know what to do with. And a recurring cycle of new recruits joined the project, eager to help it succeed, only to become trapped in a mirage.

Months after the 2018 groundbreaking, the company was racing to hire the 260 people needed to receive the first tranche of payments from the lucrative subsidy package passed by then-Gov. Scott Walker. Recruiters were told to hit the number but given little in the way of job descriptions. Soon, the office began to fill with people who had nothing to do. Many just sat in their cubicles watching Netflix and playing games on their phones. The reality of their situation became impossible to ignore. Multiple employees recall seeing people cry in the office. “The best is when you’re in the elevator with somebody and then they just scream out of nowhere,” said an employee who experienced this several times. “They’ve had enough, because things don’t make sense here.”

“Imagine being in a job where you don’t really know if it’s real or not. Or you know it’s not real, but you don’t know it’s not real. It’s a constant thing you’re doing in your head day after day,” said one employee, who returned to the rented building Trump had spoken at, where workers had been assembling TVs, only to find the line shut down and the lights dimmed a couple of weeks after the photo op was over. “I think all of us were on the verge of a major breakdown.”

It was just the beginning. Foxconn would spend the next two years jumping from idea to idea — fish farms, exporting ice cream, storing boats — in an increasingly surreal search for some way to generate money from a doomed project. Frequent leadership changes, a reluctance to spend money, and a domineering corporate culture would create an atmosphere employees described as toxic. Many of the employees The Verge spoke with have since left the company, and all of them requested anonymity out of fear of retaliation. It has been a baffling ordeal for the people who thought they were building the Silicon Valley of the Midwest — “Wisconn Valley,” Walker called it — all the more so because so many others still believe the vision.

“All people see is the eighth wonder of the world,” said an employee. “I was there and it’s not real. I mean, it’s not. This is something I can’t talk about ever again, because people think you’re crazy, like none of this could ever happen. How could this happen in the US?”

Religion doesn't usually have satisfying answers on the 'why' of things. Why do bad things happen to good people? Why do bad people escape justice? Why do people watch The Kardashians do anything?

'Because God has an unknowable plan,' etc, is comforting to some. But to others the inability to know the why behind the world is frustrating. In conspiracy theories they see a story that not only explains what is happening, but who is behind it and why. There is a greater reason for all the chaos they see, not simply that life is chaos, or a God that doesn't explain sh*t is running things.

OG_slinger wrote:

The 8th Wonder of the World

The Verge wrote:

It’s not unusual for either the Trump administration or Foxconn to make announcements that prove hollow. But for Foxconn, the show went on — for two years, the company, aided by the vocal support of the Wisconsin GOP, worked to maintain an illusion of progress in front of a business venture that never made economic sense.

That illusion has had real costs. State and local governments spent at least $400 million, largely on land and infrastructure Foxconn will likely never need. Residents were pushed from their homes under threat of eminent domain and dozens of houses bulldozed to clear property Foxconn doesn’t know what to do with. And a recurring cycle of new recruits joined the project, eager to help it succeed, only to become trapped in a mirage.

So just like the Trump administration? Promise everything, deliver nothing, and fleece millions from taxpayers while you're doing it.