The Onion wrote:“We polled 90 prominent GOP members who have come out in support of Donald Trump in recent weeks, and concluded that the majority of these statements were made after these officials lay in their bed and stared vacantly up at the blank expanse of ceiling above them for quite some time, typically between the hours of midnight and 5 a.m.,” said lead researcher Petra Driscoll.
I'm going through the Cap Public Radio voting guide, and... for some reason, I feel I should at least glance at the republican candidates.
This guy... might be tolerable? Like, I had to look him up on Ballotpedia, because I couldn't believe he was actually a republican. He seems too sane.
Is he just bullshitting really well, and actually as terrible as other republican candidates? I mean, I'm not voting for him, but he's leagues ahead of the four other republican candidates I've gone through so far, and I still can't quite believe he's actually a republican.
Edit: And then there's Massie Munroe, with the following "Top 3 Priorities"
Massie Munroe wrote:
Restore, strengthen, update, protect, defend the United States Constitution and extend America's constitutional principles to the United Nations
Establish a U. S. Citizen's Bank to serve as America's central bank empowered to create Government Created Money to pay down our national debt
Hold Congressional hearings, investigate and put an end to electromagnetic human behavior and cognitive Mind Control and energy weapons
Emphasis mine.
Wow. This person is more insane than the person who included "replace our capitalist system with a Workers and Farmers Government" in their top 3.
Last edited by Prak on Fri Jun 03, 2016 4:14 am, edited 1 time in total.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
I'm not sure what she means by the first, and I don't know enough about economics or politics to gauge the insanity of the second. But the third is obviously insane.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
Prak wrote:I'm not sure what she means by the first, and I don't know enough about economics or politics to gauge the insanity of the second. But the third is obviously insane.
The second one is literally "Create an Organization we already have, then tell it to pay off the debt with new money, which will probably cause an inflationary panic, which is the only reason we don't already do it."
Prak wrote:
Edit: And then there's Massie Munroe, with the following "Top 3 Priorities"
Massie Munroe wrote:
Restore, strengthen, update, protect, defend the United States Constitution and extend America's constitutional principles to the United Nations
Establish a U. S. Citizen's Bank to serve as America's central bank empowered to create Government Created Money to pay down our national debt
Hold Congressional hearings, investigate and put an end to electromagnetic human behavior and cognitive Mind Control and energy weapons
Emphasis mine.
Wow. This person is more insane than the person who included "replace our capitalist system with a Workers and Farmers Government" in their top 3.
It's possible he's talking about this, but who knows.
Apparently, if you target a very specific part of the surface of the brain with an electromagnet pulse, you can alter people's perception of morality. They stop focusing on intent and lean more toward effect. So... maybe he thinks this has way broader applications than what it really does, and he's leaped from the findings of that study to "mind control"?
That is literally the only benefit of the doubt I can give him. Other than that, who knows? Maybe chem trails are yesterday's news, now.
I guess to be charitable point 1 isn't crazy so much as incoherent given that half the words are opposed to the the other half (with a loopy cherry on top of pushing whatever the fuck it means on the UN).
erik wrote:I guess to be charitable point 1 isn't crazy so much as incoherent given that half the words are opposed to the the other half (with a loopy cherry on top of pushing whatever the fuck it means on the UN).
No, see, they want to strengthen the restorations and update the protective defenses. Particularly of the parts banning mind control and energy weapons - our founding fathers never would have stood for psionics and laser beams.
I actually went to the NRA's website to check the rating they gave Massie Munroe and it turns out she doesn't have one. Get your priorities straight, NRA. First they came for the lasers, and I did not speak out -- because I'm a fucking idiot who has no idea how cool lasers are.
So the AP did a horse race checkup of how many delegates the candidates had on the eve of the California vote so that they could rant about how many delegates she needed to clinch the nomination. And after a good showing in Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands this weekend, the total she needs is... negative one.
Both the Sanders and Clinton campaign are pissed off, because the end of the horse race is expected to suppress voter turnout for team blue. California has a jungle primary, so that could be quite bad for downticket Democrats.
If you live in CA, MT, NM, ND, NJ, or SD, vote today. The race for the Democratic nomination is over, but there are still important measures on those ballots. Clinton does not need your vote and Sanders will not benefit from it, but Kamala Harris needs your vote and should get it.
I think Harris is who I decided to vote for, but I'd be interested in hearing your arguement for voting for her specifically, Frank.
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
Prak wrote:I think Harris is who I decided to vote for, but I'd be interested in hearing your arguement for voting for her specifically, Frank.
The two democrats with the highest profiles are Kamala Harris and Loretta Sanchez. Reasonable chance that it's going to be those two in the general, because Republicans don't do well state wide in California. But while we will send Harris and/or Sanchez to the senate race. If either one of those don't get into the runoff, the spoiler will be a Republican, not some hypothetical third liberal.
Sanchez is... pretty much fine. She's a Democrat and from a policy standpoint she'd support stuff we want supported. However, she'd be both less liberal and less effective than Boxer (unsurprising, because the retiring Boxer is well to the left of Bernie Sanders and also an awesome legislator). The big issue is that she's said some douchey things about various ethnic groups and shit. She wouldn't be a major gain for the Obama coalition and would never advance past the senate.
Harris is actually kind of a rock star and is very telegenic in her press conferences. She's also good at pandering to the various distinct groups that are the leftist coalition. So not only would she probably be a better replacement for Boxer than Sanchez, but putting her in the senate gives us a deeper bench for future president/vice president bids.
Bottom line is that we aren't talking about running in Texas or something. We don't have to accept a slightly left of center Democrat. This is the senate seat of Barbara fucking Boxer. We could nominate the ghost of Leon Trotsky. The only reason to not just go for the full Al Franken here is if we want someone who made a good impression at a previous Democratic National Convention and we might want to tap for President or the Supreme Court some time in the future.
Interesting. Yeah, Kamala Harris was my pick, and I think the thing that actually made me pick her over Sanchez was that, if I recall, Sanchez debated really terribly when NPR had some of the candidates on. I'm glad that Harris has other things going for her beyond "Is a democrat, understands how to follow debate rules."
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
Koumei wrote:Obama endorsed the candidate who won the popular vote (aside from the actual delegates thing), of course Trump doesn't understand or like that.
That isn't what happened. Obama endorsed that candidate that won the nomination. Now yes, that's also the candidate that won the popular vote, but that's not why he did it. He's a Democratic President who knows that the Republicans will destroy everything he did, he's endorsing whomever wins the nomination, regardless of anything else.
Oh, I know he endorsed the candidate who won the nomination through the process of being nominated by the most delegates and that winning the popular vote is also a separate thing. I don't wish to imply he endorsed her for winning the popular vote.
I just wanted to reference the big old tantrum Trump threw when Obama was re-elected, first because "He didn't win the popular vote (which is still being counted)!" and then because "He didn't win MY vote and that's what matters on my TV show damnit!"
In retrospect I could have just said "Obama endorsed the winner, of course Trump doesn't understand or like that."
Count Arioch the 28th wrote:There is NOTHING better than lesbians. Lesbians make everything better.
I think Trump doesn't care for one, and his strategy going forward is just going to be convincing as many people as he can that Hillary is just a crook that stole the primary. It's not about facts. Just narrative.
Last edited by MGuy on Sat Jun 11, 2016 8:04 am, edited 1 time in total.
The first rule of Fatclub. Don't Talk about Fatclub..
If you want a game modded right you have to mod it yourself.
Donald Trump is trying to force the meme of "Crooked Hillary" the way he got "Lyin' Ted" to stick to Ted Cruz, "Little Marco" to stick to Marco Rubio, and "Low Energy" to stick to Jeb Bush.
My impression is that for whatever reason, juvenile name calling does not work as well against Hillary Clinton. But Donald Trump's response to that has been to just use the phrase "Crooked Hillary" more. It comes off as a tired and desperate way to try to force a meme, to be honest.
Mechalich wrote:The Hillary email scandal is so frustrating. The whole thing only happened in the first place because the IT situation of the federal government is so impossibly horrible. It's so horrible that everyone outside the government fails to even imagine how horrible it actually is. Every single federal employee who logs on to a computer on a daily basis from lowly ticket booth operator all the way up to the President is violating the accepted policy in some way if they're doing pretty much anything more than staring at the screen blankly.
Did Hillary commit a somewhat greater number of technical violations than the average employee? Sure, she's a hard charging person in a high powered position. Complying with the minutiae of federal records law as it applied to email is probably not something she cared about and, importantly, not something any of her subordinates were prepared to call her on. Aside from the fact that she that she chose to run for President, none of this is meaningful at all.
The real story is not any wrongdoing by Hillary Clinton, but that government IT is so bad the Secretary of State needed to use a private system to feel confident her email would work when she needed it too!
So, exactly how bad was email's private server thing? I know that the whole "confidential stuff on a private server!!!!1!!1!!!1!" thing is bullshit, because it was made confidential after she'd left the position. And I know that it's come out that she violated some specific act. But how bad are we actually talking in real legal terms?
Cuz apparently I gotta break this down for you dense motherfuckers- I'm trans feminine nonbinary. My pronouns are they/them.
Winnah wrote:No, No. 'Prak' is actually a Thri Kreen impersonating a human and roleplaying himself as a D&D character. All hail our hidden insect overlords.
FrankTrollman wrote:In Soviet Russia, cosmic horror is the default state.
You should gain sanity for finding out that the problems of a region are because there are fucking monsters there.
Prak wrote:So, exactly how bad was email's private server thing? I know that the whole "confidential stuff on a private server!!!!1!!1!!!1!" thing is bullshit, because it was made confidential after she'd left the position. And I know that it's come out that she violated some specific act. But how bad are we actually talking in real legal terms?
She violated the federal governments terms of computer use. Which is basically that thing you agree to that means, if you are a federal employee, you agree to say, not surf the internet and post on TGD. And not to download porn. And stuff like that. (I personally TGDed plenty when I was a federal employee.)
No one ever even reads those, no one ever cares if you break them, and the worst possible punishment even imaginable is that you are fired. Now, obviously, only the President can fire the Secretary of State, and he really doesn't need cause, so this means that basically her violation is totally meaningless and has no consequences whatsoever.
Basically, no one would ever give even the slightest shit, and truthfully, no one does now, except people who have bought into the lies of assorted people who also don't give a shit, except that they are still trying to paint her with bullshit scandals, as they have for the last 30 years.
Yeah. In many cases it would have been literally impossible for Hillary to do her job if she followed the rules.
For example, one of her jobs was to approve CIA drone strikes. These are cases where they had a very limited window of time to blow up people, and often Hillary wasn't in her office when they came up. If she delayed an hour to get to a secure government computer then it would all be over by the time she made a decision and no one would get blown up.
Now, we can debate the morality of blowing people up in foreign countries, but the fact is that telling the CIA if they can blow people up right now or not was part of her job. And since it was a time-sensitive job that would often come up when she was away from her office, requiring that she use government email systems to do it would just be absurd.
Edit: Oh sorry, I got it backwards. Hillary's job was to stop drone strikes. The CIA would give her two hours notice that they were going to blow up someone, and if she didn't want that person to be blown up she could object. Objecting through secure channels is a process that takes seven hours. So if you want to save lives and avoid some political embarrassment, you have to use unofficial channels.
Last edited by hyzmarca on Sat Jun 11, 2016 2:58 pm, edited 1 time in total.
Granted, Trump would say this if Wisconsin won the Rose Bowl. But it's galling to me that people so blatantly let fear rule them that they'd vote for Trump.
It's an outcome of game theory for simple human interactions that we should almost all be nice to each other almost all the time. But not all of us, and not all the time, or one person who flips to being terribly mean and selfish will win all social interactions and take over the local group, so everyone has to be mean to them to keep things nice.
So when faced with a harmful bad person doing big things, the correct response is to set your own more tame bad person on them and have the mob follow along. Someone who should basically support you and yours as you continue to be nice to each other all the time, but also be terrible to those bad people who might mess that up and take over the place. Just do what they say for a while, it's good tactics.
If Islamic terrorism was actually a massive flood impacting on the everyday life of a large portion of the population, then a colossal self-interested draconian asshole like Trump would be a fair way to deal with it. See also Assad in Syria.
But the game theory fails by a long way in real people, whose social monkey-sphere is all based around there being about 150 people in the tribe. When 50 people get killed from a population of 325,000,000 people, they think that's about a third of the tribe, or at least the neighbouring tribe, and shit just got real. Which, really, it didn't at all.
There's 10,000 USians die every day, 50 once every ten years isn't even a thing, but it sure sounds like a thing when it's wall-to-wall news for a few days and all the "leaders" are talking about how to respond.
PC, SJW, anti-fascist, not being a dick, or working on it, he/him.
On the level of personal interaction, you can make someone love you by alternately beating the shit out of them and giving them nice presents. Unfortunately, this does no work on the level of nations. If it did, the Middle East would already love us like a battered wife.
hyzmarca wrote:On the level of personal interaction, you can make someone love you by alternately beating the shit out of them and giving them nice presents.
Somehow, I don't think thats an winning strategy. Yes there are cases, where it happens, I still would expect to go to jail (or get beaten myself) if I tried it on an random person.
Red_Rob wrote:
I mean, I'm pretty sure the Mayans had a prophecy about what would happen if Frank and PL ever agreed on something. PL will argue with Frank that the sky is blue or grass is green, so when they both separately piss on your idea that is definitely something to think about.
