Politics & Stuff

[robsblubot 3,496]

1 hour ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Classic doc right now on Trump on UK TV

John Bolton - says Trump never read any briefing notes, has the attention span of a fruit fly, and before meeting Putin, Trump asked his advisor ''is Finland in Russia ?''

The number of people who actually *worked* with or for him who say the same thing is staggering.

[cosmicway 1,313]

Hamas gives the victory to Trump with a calculated move as the deluded demonstrators won't vote.
They don't care if Trump is more hardline pro-Israel.
Like they did n't care about Gaza when of course they knew very well it was going to happen when launched the 7 of October.
Gaza they think piles up the pressure towards an all out jihad war.
Also groups like red brigades, Baader Meinhoff -wherever they are hiding- are for Trump.
 

Edited September 10 by cosmicway

[KEVINAA 90]

This singer from the rock band called dead sara has now joined and replaced the dead singer Chester

Bennington who died on July 20, 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Armstrong_(musician)

Emily Armstrong.

So far things I heard about her she's in scientology and a LA DODGERS fan because has a baseball shirt on.

In the past week she joined them.

A lot of people angry with this change.

Edited September 10 by KEVINAA

[Vesper 28,725]

5 minutes ago, KEVINAA said:

This singer from the rock band called dead sara has now joined and replaced the dead singer Chester

Bennington who died on July 20, 2017.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Emily_Armstrong_(musician)

Emily Armstrong.

So far things I heard about her she's in scientology and a LA DODGERS fan because has a baseball shirt on.

In the past week she joined them.

A lot of people angry with this change.

Wrong forum.

[Fulham Broadway 16,804]

10 hours ago, robsblubot said:

The number of people who actually *worked* with or for him who say the same thing is staggering.

He lives in a triplex apartment, this sort of garish, triplex apartment. It'd be like if [King of France] Louis the 14th smoked crystal meth and then decorated," Scaramucci 😅

Scaramucci points to a report by The Washington Post's Fact Checker team that Trump made more than 30,000 false or misleading claims over his four-year term.

"Mr Trump has practised the big lie for five decades, and it works for him," he says.

"We're living in a … post-truth society … and he represents that"

Miles Taylor isn't so eloquent in his assessment of Trump.

"He's just a fucking idiot," he says. Taylor was chief of staff at the Department of Homeland Security.

We would often find him in meetings completely distracted. He would go off on tangents and tirades. He would often repeat himself."

Taylor says Trump's office was "like a crowded New York bagel shop". "You might be talking about a classified issue and someone who doesn't have a security clearance comes walking through

"And he goes off on this tangent talking about how we should actually get snakes and alligators and fill this 2000-mile moat on the border so that if someone falls into the moat … they're facing the threat of snakes and alligators who might come after them."

"He's just a complete fucking idiot." 

[Vesper 28,725]

JD Vance’s racist, cat-eating conspiracy theory, explained as best we can

Apparently, when you are a Republican political candidate you can say literally anything.

https://www.vox.com/2024-elections/370760/jd-vance-racist-cat-eating-haitian-immigrants

Republicans at the highest levels of government are pushing a bizarre message: that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating pets.

 

 

One of the most high-profile spreaders of this strange claim is JD Vance, the Republican vice presidential nominee. On Monday morning, Vance posted on X the false claim that “reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.” In the same tweet, he claimed that “Haitian illegal immigrants” are “causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio.”

For the record, there is no evidence that any Haitian immigrant ate a cat in Springfield, Ohio, or anywhere else in the United States, for that matter. But the lack of factual evidence hasn’t stopped the GOP from pushing the nativist narrative, which seems designed to play off bigotry and suspicion against the mostly Black population of Haitian immigrants.

More than 300,000 previously unauthorized migrants from Haiti received temporary protected status in June, which means these Haitian immigrants are now — despite Vance’s suggestion otherwise — legally present in the United States. Still, Vance and other Republicans’ attacks on these immigrants come at a moment when more Americans have grown skeptical of immigration.

Shortly after President Joe Biden took office, the United States experienced a surge of migrants at its southern border — much of it fueled by unrest in several Caribbean and Latin American nations following the Covid-19 pandemic. Republicans used this wave of migration to attack Biden’s border policies, and to claim there was a crisis at the border. Meanwhile, busing efforts by Republican leaders in border states sent large groups of migrants to cities and towns across the country, putting many Americans face to face with migrants for the first time.

All of this comes amid a competitive 2024 presidential race, where both candidates have rushed to frame themselves as tough on immigration. Former President Donald Trump has long campaigned on restricting immigration, while Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris has touted a strict border security bill that she supports — and which Trump pushed his fellow Republicans to kill.

These factors — perhaps most of all the rise in anti-immigrant sentiment — probably explain why a sitting senator felt it was wise to share a meme claiming that if Americans don’t vote for former President Donald Trump, immigrants will eat your cats.

Where the hell did the false claim that Haitian immigrants are eating pets come from?

The idea that Haitians are roaming the streets kidnapping pets seems to have emerged from Vance’s state of Ohio.

Springfield’s Police Division said on Monday that there have been no reports of any pets being stolen or eaten in that city. However, there apparently was an incident in Canton, Ohio — a nearly three-hour drive from Springfield — where a woman was charged with cruelty to animals for allegedly killing and eating a cat. But there’s no evidence that this woman is an immigrant or of Haitian descent.

Despite that lack of evidence, the woman appears to have been identified as of Haitian descent in far-right tweets.

In recent days, the completely unsubstantiated slur against Haitian immigrants began to spread outside of far-right spaces after several prominent right-wing figures credulously tweeted it out. On Sunday, provocateur Charlie Kirk tweeted the claim, including a screenshot from a pseudonymous Facebook post suggesting that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are butchering and eating dogs. Shortly thereafter, billionaire Elon Musk chimed in to claim that “people’s pet cats are being eaten.”

By Monday morning, the claim had spread to Vance — before being picked up by other prominent elected Republicans and official Republican Party accounts.

Republicans want nativist sentiment to be front and center in this election

Vance has long sought to stoke anti-Haitian sentiment in Springfield, a small Ohio city that recently attracted as many as 20,000 Haitians seeking jobs in newly opened factories and warehouses. Tensions grew between the new immigrants and some of the city’s more longtime residents after a Haitian immigrant was convicted of involuntary manslaughter for a fatal bus crash in 2023. Vance has claimed that the city is “overwhelmed” by the new residents.

Meanwhile, skepticism of immigration spiked nationally in recent years as the amount of migration at the southern border grew.

So it’s not surprising that many prominent members of the Republican Party, a party that frequently flags isolated crimes committed by immigrants to fuel nativist sentiment, latched onto an unfounded internet rumor about Haitians and cats as “proof” that immigrants present a problem (that Republicans can fix).

Still, none of this context changes the fact that Republicans at the pinnacle of the party, including sitting US senators and even one of the party’s two nationwide candidates, see no downside to spreading racist, completely unfounded rumors based on random social media posts spread by far-right trolls.

[Vesper 28,725]

Republicans spread unsubstantiated slurs about Haitian migrants in Ohio city

Police reject suggestion by Trump campaign and JD Vance that Haitians in Springfield are eating pets and local wildlife

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/article/2024/sep/09/republicans-haitian-migrants-pets-wildlife-ohio

Prominent Republicans including the Trump campaign and JD Vance are sharing false and unsubstantiated claims that Haitian migrants in an Ohio city are eating pets and local wildlife.

The salacious and often racist social media posts claim, without evidence, that migrants from Haiti to Springfield, Ohio, are stealing pets and local wildlife such as ducks and geese and are butchering them for food. Many of the posts, including one shared by the X account for the Republicans on the House judiciary committee, use images generated by artificial intelligence to show Donald Trump holding and protecting cats and ducks, casting him as a savior to the town. Ted Cruz, the Republican senator from Texas, shared a meme of two cats hugging one another that said, “Please vote for Trump so Haitian immigrants don’t eat us.”

The Springfield News-Sun reported on Monday that police have “received no reports related to pets being stolen and eaten”.

The claims appear to have originated from a commenter at a local city meeting, who said migrants were grabbing ducks from the park to kill and eat, and from local crime-watch Facebook groups. They were then shared on other social media platforms and made it into a headline in the Daily Mail.

The misinformation about migrants in Springfield comes as the Trump campaign has sought to make immigration a key issue, tying Joe Biden and Kamala Harris to the towns unprepared for migrants arriving via the southern border. Springfield’s mayor, Rob Rue, went on Fox to say the Biden administration was to blame for “failing cities like ours and taxing us beyond our limit”.

The city has seen a large number of migrants from Haiti, which has both helped the economy there with staffing concerns while also stretching the capacity of some services like clinics and schools, the New York Times reported. A Biden administration policy provided temporary protected status to hundreds of thousands of Haitian migrants, who have left their home country because of ongoing violence. Some estimates say as many as 20,000 people from Haiti have come to the city, the Times said.

Last year, a migrant driving a van outside Springfield crashed intoa school bus, killing one child, which added fuel to the concerns some residents have had with migration. Housing costs have also increased, which has led to fewer options for low-income residents of all backgrounds, the paper reported.

Residents at recent council meetings have appealed to their elected officials to better manage the new stream of residents. In now viral testimony, one woman said she and her husband might need to move from their home because of ongoing problems with “men that cannot speak English in my front yard screaming at me” and throwing items in her yard.

Some have also tried to tie a woman who was charged recently in Canton, Ohio, for allegedly killing and then eating a cat to the influx of migrants in Springfield, a different city more than 150 miles (241km) away. She does not appear to be a Haitian migrant.

Vance, the Republican vice-presidential candidate, has spoken against Haitian migrants in Ohio for months and again posted about it on Monday. “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country. Where is our border czar?” he wrote, referring to Kamala Harris.

The Trump campaign sent out an email on Monday blasting the vice-president for the unrest in Springfield, saying: “It’s all coming to your city if Kamala Harris is elected in November. It doesn’t have to be this way. Beginning on day one, President Trump will begin the largest mass deportation operation in U.S. history – because he’ll always put America, and Americans, FIRST.”

On Monday, the Ohio attorney general, Dave Yost, a Republican, announced he would use his office’s resources to “research legal avenues to stop the federal government from sending an unlimited number of migrants to Ohio communities”. He said his office would “exhaust all possibilities” to address the migrants. Among other complaints from residents, he said that the migrants were reportedly “killing wildlife for food”.

[IMissEden 19]

I literally had a Haitian threaten to butcher me last year before someone sorted him. The Haitian stuff isn’t made up. Most are lulled in by Zoe Pound as well as their offshoot. The majority of Haitians in US refer to “bone”, a cultural idea that they’re the most alpha men to hit the land, to not be disputed. I KNOW THESE PEOPLE lol. Can show you if want. It’s not made up. Yes many Haitians are fine. But the incoming Haitian migration as long as it’s been occurring, has imported far more bad than good actors. A spot in Miami is now called Little Haiti of course. I assure you the culture is not American. On average there’s a lack of integration — all offered, not taken. 

Edited September 10 by IMissEden

[IMissEden 19]

 

[Vesper 28,725]

The ascendant far right: the lust for cruelty

After the elections in eastern-German Länder and ahead of those in Austria, Robert Misik casts an unsentimental eye on far-right voters.

https://www.socialeurope.eu/the-ascendant-far-right-the-lust-for-cruelty

 

Harald Vilimsky, lead candidate for the FPÖ in the European Parliament elections—’patriotic: what else?’—has since labelled the heads of three EU institutions ‘witches’ (bwagner99/shutterstock.com)

In the German-speaking world, the election season began just in time for the start of September. Nerves are on edge. In the regional elections in Thuringia and Saxony, two eastern-german Länder, the far-right Alternative für Deutschland (AfD) won over 30 per cent of the votes and even became the strongest party in Thuringia.

Although this was anticipated, the shockwaves hit hard, their impacts going far beyond those of peripheral elections. The ruling centre-left, three-party coalition in Berlin no longer knows how to help itself and is dragging itself into the last year of its term, while the ultra-right—including barely camouflaged Nazis—has been able to win relative majorities on the local scale and a significant share of support on the national level.

Elections are now also due in Austria at the end of this month. Here the far-right Freedom Party (FPÖ) is in first place in practically all polls, followed by the conservatives (ÖVP) and the social democrats (SPÖ). In reality, the three parties are neck and neck.

Polarisation and hatred

The postwar order with which we were all once familiar was of liberal democracy, moderate parties in government (turning from centre-right to centre-left), modest compromises, pluralism, media and artistic freedom and the rule of law. That order is everywhere embroiled in a defensive struggle that is becoming increasingly desperate.

As they achieve such electoral success, the ultra-right parties can no longer be dismissed as fringe phenomena. Not so long ago, the general perception was that they would have to moderate themselves to have a chance of winning majorities or entering governments. No longer.

Indeed, the opposite seems true: these parties have significantly radicalised themselves in recent years. The more they engender polarisation and hatred, the more insanely the escalation screw is turned, the broader their fan base becomes. The polarisation entrepreneurs of ‘social media’ fuel resentment and bitterness, while the audience has its feedback effect on the party line and rhetoric, in a spiral of narcissistic self-aggrandisement.

Thuringian voters made a party number one whose regional leader, Björn Höcke, openly daclares that ‘well-tempered cruelty’ is needed, for example to drive migrants and refugees out of Germany again. He has been convicted of repeatedly shouting Alles für Deutschland (‘Everything for Germany’)—banned slogan of the NSDAP Sturmabteilung (SA).

Violent language

The Austrian FPÖ, in its election manifesto, demands the homogenisation of the people: cultural and ethnic differentiation and heterogeneity are purportedly bad for the nation. Its candidate for the office of federal chancellor, Herbert Kickl, even considers a plebiscite on the introduction of the death penalty (however incompatible with Austria’s membership of the Council of Europe) worthy of consideration.

At its rallies, the party increasingly resorts to violent language. The openly fascist ‘identitarian’ campaign group, which uses conspiracy theories such as the ‘great replacement’ (ostensibly of white Christians) to stir up panic, has effectively taken over its apparatus in many places. Top party officials—including state functionaries such as the deputy governor of Salzburg—openly display the ‘white supremacy’ hand sign. The party leader, Kickl, boasts that he wears the accusation of ‘right-wing extremism’ like a medal.

The party’s leading European politician, Harald Vilimsky, recently described the trio of female presidents of European Union institutions—Ursula von der Leyen of the European Commission, Roberta Metsola of the European Parliament and Christine Lagarde of the European Central Bank—as three ‘witches’, who would be ‘made to feel the whip’. And the Vienna regional leader of the FPÖ, Dominik Nepp, wants to deploy the federal army against migrants—not at the borders, but in the streets of the capital.

‘Rhetoric could not be more anti-democratic and openly National Socialist,’ said an artists’ open letter, led by the Nobel Prize winner Elfriede Jelinek and the star director Milo Rau, published last week.

Poison of authoritarianism

The poison of authoritarianism has penetrated deep into our societies. Extremism is loud and dominant, and too many of us have become too accustomed to it, while resistance is often rather defensive and cowered.

The abnormal is far too readily accepted as normal, while some reassure themselves with nice-sounding self-deceptions. The voters for fascist parties have ‘legitimate concerns’ about ‘immigration’—connotatively connected with youth criminality and Islamist violence. They are frustrated with a political system controlled by remote ‘elites’. Sections of the working classes have been ‘left behind’ by globalisation.

These rationalisations are not totally wrong. But by portraying those who vote for extremist parties as doing so for rationally comprehensible reasons, reality is painted in rose-tinted colours.

Alternatively, it is suggested that people simply fall for the misinformation of right-wing agitators. As if these voters were just deluded, dim, infantile people who don’t know what they are doing—voting for fascist parties almost by mistake.

The ‘conformist rebel’

Painful as it may be, it is advisable to face the bitter reality. What if the ultra-right has a dedicated electorate that wants exactly what it gets? Carolin Amlinger and Oliver Nachtwey, two German sociologists, have taken a close look at the milieu in which it resonates, attracting what they call the ‘conformist rebel’—on whom we owe important insights to the legendary postwar study of the ‘authoritarian personality’ by Theodor Adorno and others.

Such an individual is defined exclusively over against society—not as a member of it. If something goes wrong, he (it primarily is) is quickly offended and blames the state, the ‘elite’. A not-unmerited scepticism towards power escalates into destructive opposition. Anti-authoritarian rebelliousness morphs into authoritarianism, the cult of the leader and the desire to torment the weaker.

This type has ‘numerous characteristics of the authoritarian personality’, the sociologists write, such as ‘authoritarian aggression, power-mongering, destructiveness, cynicism’. A ‘paranoid relationship to the outside world’, as well as indifference and coldness towards other individuals, is also characteristic, as the researcher Leo Löwenthal noted almost 90 years ago.

If those of this ilk on the political stage lie quite obviously, their audience cheers. Not because it doesn’t recognise the lies but because it admires the brazenness—the followers would like to be like that too.

‘Embitterment disorder’

The French philosopher and psychoanalyst Cynthia Fleury recently caused a stir with a study on deep-seated bitterness. Through it she discovers a ‘subject in love with resentment’ who becomes more and more embittered, is increasingly triggered by authoritarian propaganda and suffers a ‘loss of judgement’. She speaks of an ‘embitterment disorder’.

Fleury also knows how to interpret the desire for violent language and obscenity:

One of the most explicit and audible manifestations of resentment is the obscene use of language … One must strike, hurt the other, and since this cannot be achieved with physical violence, it is a matter of using language as violence … Nowadays, it’s almost always possible to throw up in social networks.

In the daydreams of the followers, things are ‘tidied up’, cleared out of the way and the fantasy of finally ‘silencing’ the others is aroused.

Cult of cruelty

In any case, it’s time to stop lying to ourselves. We are not dealing with parties which just exaggerate a little or turn up the volume to generate attention. And we are not dealing with generally well-intentioned, just frustrated, people who vote for these parties somehow in error.

As Sigmund Freud noted as early as 1921 in Group Psychology and the Analysis of the Ego, agitation fuels a regressive loosening of self-control, with a legitimised loss of superego constraint. The audience for the far right escalates through self-reinforcing acts of psychological affect, developing impulses of cruelty and cowardice while feeling itself exalted.

We are confronted with fascist mass parties grasping for power and with a followership that derives pleasure from the cult of cruelty, a language of contempt and a rhetoric of violence. The followers would not tip over into full-blown fascism without the leaders to agitate them; the leaders would not escalate into full-blown fascism without the followers to encourage them. It is a feedback loop of horror.

Or, to put it more simply: people who could be good people in other circumstances are turning into monsters.

This is a joint publication by Social Europe and IPS-Journal

[cosmicway 1,313]

Magas against James Mason:
 

 

[Vesper 28,725]

7 minutes ago, IMissEden said:

I literally had a Haitian threaten to butcher me last year before someone sorted him. The Haitian stuff isn’t made up. Most are lulled in by Zoe Pound as well as their offshoot. The majority of Haitians in US refer to “bone”, a cultural idea that they’re the most alpha men to hit the land, to not be disputed. I KNOW THESE PEOPLE lol. Can show you if want. It’s not made up. Yes many Haitians are fine. But the incoming Haitian migration as long as it’s been occurring, has imported far more bad than good actors. A spot in Miami is now called Little Haiti of course. I assure you the culture is not American. On average there’s a lack of integration — all offered, not taken. 

You posted extremist right wing disinformation about Haitians eating cats in Ohio that is being used and pushed by malevolent forces (including the Republican presidential ticket) in the US to futher weaponise xenophobia-driven memes in order to frighten voters into voting for the christofascists and/or white nationalists in the coming US elections.

Also, if you have Haitians threatening to butcher you and you are running in the same circles that Zoe Pound and/or their spin-off gangs hold sway over, you might want to re-think your life activities.

Just a thought.

 

 

 

 

[IMissEden 19]

7 minutes ago, Vesper said:

You posted extremist right wing disinformation about Haitians eating cats in Ohio that is being used and pushed by malevolent forces (including the Republican presidential ticket) in the US to futher weaponise xenophobia-driven memes in order to frighten voters into voting for the christofascists and/or white nationalists in the coming US elections.

Also, if you have Haitians threatening to butcher you and you are running in the same circles that Zoe Pound and/or their spin-off gangs hold sway over, you might want to re-think your life activities.

Just a thought.

 

 

 

 

No, it’s not extremely right wing, nor is extremely right wing inherently cemented as bad as times tend to change. 
Music industry. Zoe Pound manage many acts, who refuse to pay for label or consultation services, well renowned. 
 

You tend to jump the gun, make assumptions, sweeping statements, and deny reality lol. 

Edited September 10 by IMissEden

[IMissEden 19]

Worth adding that the Haitian mentioned, called BirdmanZoe, can find him on Instagram, isn’t even from down there, and isn’t part of Zoe Pound it ended up. Yet he threatened, to utilise them. Showing that even the spread out diaspora retains its very unique culture, even millionaires still lean into it. 
 

If I moved to Sweden, Australia, China, and in came lots with me because we feel the UK is in a bad state, would we set up BritainTown, and constantly emphasise our different values. Or integrate. 
 

By and large, the influx of Haitians choose not to integrate. They started The most violent gang in America, and from south to north, lean into it. Facts. 

[Vesper 28,725]

Just now, IMissEden said:

No, it’s not extremely right wing, nor is extremely right wing inherently cemented as bad as times tend to change. 
Music industry. Zoe Pound manage many acts, who refuse to pay for label or consultation services, well renowned. 
 

You tend to jump the gun, make assumptions, sweeping statements, and deny reality lol. 

False, you posted right wing disinformation, end of story.

Your claims (that you have now made multiple times) that I am denying reality are laughable.

[IMissEden 19]

No, you’re deflecting via false statements and rhetoric. Anyway, next time someone tells you they were personally threatened with being butchered, don’t go oh that’s a you problem. No, it’s them. See how you’re thinking. You sound essentially violent, and wanting wars of words, as most who Pick A Side do, which as I said, is fundamentally stupid, if you want any sort of resolution. 

Edited September 10 by IMissEden

[Vesper 28,725]

1 minute ago, IMissEden said:

Haitians choose not to integrate. They started The most violent gang in America

The most violent gang?  Proof please, especially when you have hyper-violent, systemically embedded criminal entities like MS-13, The Bloods, The Crips, and the different US arms of the Mexican narcotraficante cartels (The Sinaloa Cartel, The Gulf Cartel, Juarez Cartel, etc etc), not to mention other assorted ethnic 'mafias' from around the globe, operating at massive levels on US soil.

[Vesper 28,725]

9 minutes ago, IMissEden said:

No, you’re deflecting via false statements and rhetoric. Anyway, next time someone tells you they were personally threatened with being butchered, don’t go oh that’s a you problem. No, it’s them. See how you’re thinking. You sound essentially violent, and wanting wars of words, as most who Pick A Side do, which as I said, is fundamentally stupid, if you want any sort of resolution. 

I am not posting false statements, that is a pure fabrication.

I have backed up my statemenst with a shedload of documented evidence.

I provide receipts.

You provided a lunatic fringe CT/RW troll X account that platforms bad actors galore.

Also, you saying I 'sound essentially violent' is just ludicrous.

Pro tip: debunking your dross is not 'a war of words'.

It is you being exposed as a purveyor of disinformation.