CHOULO19

I'm trying my best man, but it's really hard to debate seriously the notion that the Southern Poverty Law center and Breitbart news are the same. One has spent more than 40 years defending and protecting the civil rights of marginalized groups people, the other lies all the time and unapologeticly spouts racist and islamophobic nonsense. That's not say that everything that the SPLC says should be accepted uncritically, but to compare them to a fearmongering propaganda machine is illogical to say the least. Hate crime does have a very simple and unanimously agreed on definition: It's a criminal act against persons or property "motivated in whole or in part by an offender’s bias against a race, religion, disability, sexual orientation, ethnicity, gender, or gender identity" (to quote the exact definition by the FBI). Again these tactics of muddying the water around a discussion to create an illusion of uncertainty is created by people who know that the data is true but that it is their interest for people to doubt. Exxon knew how climate change will impact the word since the 70s and still poured millions into climate denial campaigns. You think the media is over-reporting on neonazi hate crimes? Well there was a terrorist attack by a right wing extremist that killed 6 muslims in a mosque and the fact that Fox purposely lied about it made more headlines than the actual attack. If it were a Muslim extremist that had shot up 6 christians in a church you'd have rolling coverage about it for days and half of US people on facebook would have the flag of Canada as their profile picture. I mean you don't need a conspiracy theory to explain the increase in reported hate crimes when you have more and more people publicly inciting violence against minority groups. Don't you think it's possible that the vast majority of people reporting hate crimes are not making it up and that the typically right wing media has not suddenly turned into pro-muslim/Jewish/LGBT lefty propaganda machines but instead that the US is racist but you are just refusing to see it that way?

Genuine question and I'm not trying to be clever or condescending: Do you honestly see no irony in (rightly, imo) criticizing people who see Saudi Arabia as a monolith and then saying in the very next paragraph that Islam is at war with the west as if Islam is a single rigid thing with just one interpretation?

Free speech and giving someone a platform are complete different things. Everyone has a right for free speech, within it's known limits. But no one has a right to get a platform to spread their ideas. When you legitimize fascists by allowing them to fearmonger and play on insecurities, then you're conceding that the human rights and even personhood of entire groups of people is up for debate. Call me a radical, but I don't think whether or not Jews ought to be considered people should be up for debate!

No, I'm talking about the record number of threats and attacks on Jewish centers. Those are definitely YOUR guys. Do you genuinely believe that it could all be conspiracy or that it's all made up(yes I know that that is not exactly what you said)? Knowingly or not you are pertuating right wing tactics of muddying the water enough to create the illusion that it is up for debate. They use this with climate change. There are plenty of groups who document such attacks like the southern poverty law center. Or you can go by the info the FBI release. No matter what set of data you look at the trend is undeniable. But even if you want to forget stats, just go out and talk with people in those minority groups about what they experience. Talk to a hijab wearing muslim girl and she will almost certainly have several stories for you. The emboldening of fascists as a result of Trump is also undeniable. A year ago you did not have white supremacist advising the president, you didn't have neonazis featured in mainstream media and papers and you definitely wouldn't have seen nazi salutes in a conference in the middle of DC.

That's largely due to your pal Trump empowering neonazis and white supremacists. This is what liberals don't get when they make the false equivalency between "alt-right" speech and other political speeches. It's not hypothetical, we are seeing the result of allowing people to incite hate freely right now. Hate crimes against Jews, Muslims, LGBTQ and all vulnerable minority groups has gone through the roof in the past year. Free speech is guaranteed by the state and I certainly don't want the state to decide what speech should be allowed and what not. But I would be deeply disappointed if my community does not do everything in its power to block, through protest, people who are inciting violence against some of its members from speaking publicly DON'T give fascists a platform.

An absolute legend of the game not just Chelsea. Hope the club are already working on his testimonial.

We didn't lose, Arsenal did, and Totteham drew. We've actually extended our lead at the top of the table to 9 points. I'm a happy man!

WHY the fuck did Costa take that?! Surely Pedro and Willian and even Luiz should be ahead of him in the order.

erm...the goal actually came from his side?! Anyway, I meant poor on the ball. He's been decent defensively and Hazard has helped him well.

Alonso has been so poor today... Also, that commentator needs to shut the fuck up.

Eden is doing so incredibly well to try to create something for us but he's practically on his own in attack at the moment.

Just take Luiz off, he's clearly not right!

Better...

You'd think blue would be distinguishable from red...

Not a very relaxing start, is it?

Surprised Antonio went with Willian over Pedro..

That was beyond hilarious!

So true, But then you have Fox on a level of their own just flat out lying. They falsely claimed that the attacker was a Moroccan. I mean, how low can you go?!

Also, the lack of media coverage for the terrorist attack on a Mosque in Canada seemingly by a white supremacist is shocking even by my incredibly low expectations of US media.

That's the danger of having an establishment Democrat in the white house; it just silences any resistance. Obama was on a completely different level because of 'charisma', but it's basically true everywhere that centrist politicians usually get less scrutiny and end up doing far worse right wingers. We've experienced it here first hand. The worst atrocities committed by the Israeli army in Lebanon are almost always under supposedly left wing Israeli governments.

There are PLENTY of people and activists who opposed Obama's immigration actions (in terms of South American refugees his record is worse than any US president in history). The main difference is that only people who pay very close attention knew what Obama was doing while now every single thing Trump does gets hours upon hours of coverage because he gets ratings. Other differences is that Trump is doing this literally in his first week in office when the vast majority of US citizens are still highly involved in politics, He also did it so suddenly and without prior notice so you ended up with loads of people stuck at airports not knowing what to do which never makes for good PR. Then you have movements like BLM and Occupy who are now very experienced in organizing and getting people to show within a few hours notice on social media. Many more factors.

The ban has absolutely nothing to do with safety and security, if anything it will only make the US more hated in the world. Even if you ignore human rights and follow Trumps bigoted logic (which you shouldn't) the countries banned don't make any sense: Trump did not select the countries, Obama did and his thinking was not to protect US citizens but to put political pressure on those countries that were not conforming to US policies and imperial interests. It's very simple why Trump and many republicans support such insane ideas as extending Obama's bans onto everyone including green card holders: first it feeds into the fear-mongering and usvsthem mentality that they can't exist without and secondly immigrants consistently vote left wing. I can't be arsed to find the stats now but a higher percentage of Muslim Americans consistently vote Democrat than any demographic (Jews, Hispanic...etc.) except black. There is no logical way that this ban is about anything to do with terrorist attacks. The existing system of background checks after 9/11 already more than covers the dangers. Here is the terrorist attack threat by immigrants on US soil in context:

Incredibly heartening to see all the people that came out to protest against discrimination and to challenge bigotry. A much needed dosage of hope for everyone. Also, great job by the ACLU to get the stay so quickly. They're going to quite busy in the next four years by the looks of it, I hope that anyone who cares about such issues and is able to donates to them because are we going to need them!

Still a bit like the devil himself telling you you're being a jerk..

How far south of hell must you be when even Dick fucking Cheney thinks you have no morals?! http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/dick-cheney-donald-trump-muslim-ban-extreme?utm_content=buffera0f4d&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter.com&utm_campaign=buffer