Politics & Stuff

[robsblubot 3,595]

10 hours ago, Vesper said:

What????

Of course not, that type of talk is against every fibre of my being.

I just want to defeat their anti-human laws and policies poltically.

They are free to BELIEVE what they want, but there are not entitled to force anyone to hew to their religious beliefs, especially where their beliefs, when put into law, involve the abuse, discrimination, imprionment, torture, and even the killing of other people (directly or indirectly) who do not share their extremist religion-based beliefs.

The far RW in the advanced nations are the biggest hypocrites in those nations. They scream and rant about 'freedom' and how the government needs to stay the hell out of their lives, yet they now want to use the very same powers of governance and brute state force to take away freedoms, rights, and even the lives of others who they hold be worthy of legal sanctions up to and including the most heinous forms of punishment (including the ultimate sanction of death itself).

Agreed, but my point is that people who *believe* a woman commits *murder* with *any* abortion won't ever "let it be." The "do your thing" will never work here, unless the mindset changes.

[robsblubot 3,595]

4 hours ago, Fernando said:

But I want to ask a question. Okay your against the rw policy, but how can the group that you identity with support Hamas? 

I see them marching in the parade with Hamas stuff when they are the one that kill gays. 

Can people from the LGBT community live freely in Gaza (well not right now because of the war) or Saudia Arabia ? Iran? And other Muslim countries? As opposed to telaviv in Israel? USA in general? 

Like if for equality I think we should see more fight for other countries that have less freedom then Israel and USA. 

 

Maher also talks about this in the video I posted 

His account for who did what also matches what I remember. 

 

Edited October 12, 2024 by robsblubot

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

26 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

anti-christian, anti-islam, anti-jewdaism, anti-hinduist, anti-buddhist, anti-Japanese emperor, t

Well thats six great reasons right there. Whats not to like ?

[cosmicway 1,333]

6 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Well thats six great reasons right there. Whats not to like ?

What makes you a better judge ?

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

14 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

What makes you a better judge ?

Me ? nah, well maybe not getting 'rules for life' from some fairy story helps, but primarily I'd leave it up to the woman

[cosmicway 1,333]

5 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Me ? nah, well maybe not getting 'rules for life' from some fairy story helps, but primarily I'd leave it up to the woman

Women have no different views.
I 'd be talking nonsense if I was writing from a ... male perspective.

[NikkiCFC 8,334]

12 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

I 'd be talking nonsense if I was writing from a ... male perspective.

Guess what...

 

2 hours ago, cosmicway said:

CosmiC Junior will go to Sandhurst god willing and will become a brigadier general.

You never know. What would you do if he comes to you and says: dad, I'm a commie. 

[cosmicway 1,333]

1 hour ago, NikkiCFC said:

You never know. What would you do if he comes to you and says: dad, I'm a commie. 

He could become gay - I can't control sex.
But commie ? How and why ?

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

6 minutes ago, cosmicway said:

He could become gay - I can't control sex.
But commie ? How and why ?

Teens always rebel against their parents. She might think her dad is a reactionary old racist and decide Socialism and lesbianism is a better path. Who knows ?

[cosmicway 1,333]

12 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Teens always rebel against their parents. She might think her dad is a reactionary old racist and decide Socialism and lesbianism is a better path. Who knows ?

Teens rebel because their parents don't treat them like adults like they should.
When I was a teenager I knew my family could not afford a Rolls Royce Silver Club. But a Fiat Berlina why not ?
Kids can't reason but adults by showing absolute despotism also don't reason properly.
Now communism or non-communism is an intellectual process.
And what model Fiat will the youngster see in a communist regime ?
 

Edited October 12, 2024 by cosmicway

[Vesper 30,224]

7 hours ago, cosmicway said:

The real iron maiden

 

[Fulham Broadway 17,333]

1 hour ago, cosmicway said:

And what model Fiat will the youngster see in a communist regime ?
 

Fiat Stalin, Fiat Che Guavera, Fiat Fuckcapitalista.....?

[cosmicway 1,333]

21 minutes ago, Fulham Broadway said:

Fiat Stalin, Fiat Che Guavera, Fiat Fuckcapitalista.....?

No, I 'm afraid only one of those:

[Vesper 30,224]

1 hour ago, cosmicway said:

decide Socialism and lesbianism is a better path

Except we in the LGBTQ community did not 'decide' to be queer, we were born that way.

Political orientation, yes, that is 100 per cent a choice.

[cosmicway 1,333]

15 minutes ago, Vesper said:

Except we in the LGBTQ community did not 'decide' to be queer, we were born that way.

Political orientation, yes, that is 100 per cent a choice.

No you were not born, that's impossible.
For some reason you developed a liking.
Unless we talk of rare medical conditions.

[Vesper 30,224]

1 hour ago, cosmicway said:

No you were not born, that's impossible.
For some reason you developed a liking.
Unless we talk of rare medical conditions.

bullshit

I am not going to stand-by and listen to homophobic, unscientific claptrap.

It is NOT a choice, it is our biological nature from birth.

You see the same thing throughout the animal kingdom, and they lack the sentientness needed to make that sort of choice.

It is simply a biological fact.

You stating that it is a mere choice opens up the doors to all sorts of wickedness, pain, torture, and death, the very things that have been visited upon us queer folk for millennia.

I, and hundreds of millions of others, be they queer or straight, stand in the breach to close those doors of despair and death still open, and we shall keep the ones that are shut, shut.

We will never again allow those erroneous ways of thought, so often (but not always) forged out of selective interpretations of religion (aka the wilful suspension of disbelief, aka magical thinking), to subjugate us, to take away our inherent humanity and strip us of our manifest rights as human beings to live our lives as we were biologically fashioned.

We will never go back to the ways of darkness, ignorance, fear, torture, and death, NEVER.

[Vesper 30,224]

6 hours ago, robsblubot said:

Agreed, but my point is that people who *believe* a woman commits *murder* with *any* abortion won't ever "let it be." The "do your thing" will never work here, unless the mindset changes.

There are millions of Americans who think that non-whites are subhuman or at least inherently inferior to the white population, yet the laws prevent them (at least as of today) prevent them from again enslaving some (or even all) non-white peoples.

The US should not be governed by a tyranny of an extremist religious minority, which is exactly what the christofascists are now attempting (and have been for decades) to do in terms of abortion.

 

https://www.pewresearch.org/religion/fact-sheet/public-opinion-on-abortion/

 

 

 

 

[Vesper 30,224]

Trump amplifies falsehoods about immigrants in closing appeal

As his edge on the economy fades, the Republican nominee campaigned Friday in Aurora, Colo., promoting false claims about Venezuelan gangs taking over residential buildings there.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/10/11/trump-turns-immigration-closing-appeal-edge-economy-fades/

Donald Trump is leaning into a nativist, anti-immigrant message in the final stage of his third presidential campaign, advancing a closing argument centered on fearmongering, falsehoods and stereotypes about migrants as polls show his edge on economic issues fading.

In recent days, the former president has suggested that “bad genes” are to blame for people in the country illegally who have committed murders, reprised his warnings about a migrant “invasion” and suggested Vice President Kamala Harris’s handling of border issues shows she is “mentally impaired.”

Trump held a rally in Aurora, Colo., on Friday, after repeatedly promoting false claims about a Venezuelan gang taking over residential buildings in the Denver suburb.

He said an influx of violent Venezuelan prison gang members from Tren de Aragua have “invaded and conquered” and blamed Harris for importing “an army of illegal alien gang members and migrant criminals from the dungeons of the Third World.”

Local officials, including Aurora’s Republican Mayor Mike Coffman, have said the claims are false and a gross exaggeration.

Standing before signs that read “deport illegals now” and “end migrant crime,” Trump said the United States is “occupied by a criminal force.”

If elected in November, Trump said that he will launch a deportation program, “Operation Aurora,” under the Alien Enemies Act of 1798 to dismantle “illegal migrant criminal networks” operating in the United States.

The law was last invoked during World War II to intern immigrants of Japanese, German and Italian descent.

Several Republicans were present at the rally to support Trump, but Coffman was not in attendance. He has been vocal in disputing Trump’s claims about Aurora while stopping short of criticizing the former president.

“The overstated claims fueled by social media and through select news organizations are simply not true,” Coffman said Friday in a joint statement with council member Danielle Jurinsky, head of the public safety committee.

The Aurora Police Department “has now linked 10 people” to the gang, the statement said.

Democratic leaders in Colorado, including Gov. Jared Polis and Sens. Michael Bennet and John Hickenlooper, held a news conference ahead of Trump’s rally on Friday, criticizing the former president for spreading false claims about Aurora for his own political gain.

“Donald Trump has invited himself to Aurora to do what Donald Trump does best, which is to demonize immigrants, to lie, and to serve his own political purposes. And we can’t let him divide us anymore,” Bennet said.

Polis said Harris would fight for communities like Aurora, “not try to tear them down for a political stunt.” Trump attacked Polis by name during the rally, calling him “weak and ineffective.”

Illegal crossings at the U.S.-Mexico border are down significantly this year after the Biden administration imposed sweeping restrictions on asylum, and most experts say that immigration has boosted the U.S. economy.

But polls show Trump has a clear advantage on the issues of immigration and border security, and the former president and his allies are wagering that his false and exaggerated claims about migrants will excite his base and propel him to victory.

Trump also reiterated several of his false claims about immigrants during a rally in Reno, Nev., later Friday night, including showing a montage of news clips of migrants in various cities who have been arrested on criminal allegations.

He also baselessly claimed that America is an “occupied country” and asserted that the nation is known as such “all throughout the world.”

He then said that Election Day “will be liberation day in America.”

Trump’s critics are alarmed by his tactics and warn that they stoke racial divisions and fear of migrants.

“He doesn’t even respect us,” Marisela Sandoval, 39, a unionized Las Vegas hospital worker who was born in Dallas and grew up in Mexico, said in a recent interview when asked about Trump’s rhetoric. “It’s just so much hating against immigrants. It’s dangerous. So disrespectful.”

His base, however, is elated.

“Today I make you this promise: I will liberate Wisconsin and our entire nation from this mass migration invasion of murderers, child predators, drug dealers, gang members and thugs. It’ll be liberated,” Trump said before a crowd of thousands at a rally in Juneau, Wis., over the weekend.

The crowd roared. “Trump! Trump! Trump!” they cheered, offering the loudest standing ovation of the rally.

Trump has frequently used dehumanizing language to describe migrants, referring to them as “savage criminals” and “animals.”

He has said undocumented immigrants are “poisoning the blood of our country,” and he has promoted false claims about migrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, and bankrupting the small Pennsylvania town of Charleroi.

His ads mentioning immigration frequently refer to migrants as “illegals” and include ominous imagery of people flooding the U.S.-Mexico border.

The ex-president has long relied on incendiary rhetoric against immigrants as a political tactic, dating to the launch of his first presidential campaign in 2015.

Since then, he has further sharpened those attacks and leaned even harder on immigration — which has been a centerpiece of his 2024 campaign, as it was in 2016 — as polls have shown that he is losing his edge on the economy.

Trump has suggested the border is a bigger issue than the economy.

“I know they do all these polls, and the polls say it’s the economy,” he said at the recent rally in Wisconsin. “And the polls say very strongly it’s inflation, and I can understand it a little bit. To me, it’s the horrible people that we’re allowing into our country that are destroying our country.”

Karoline Leavitt, a Trump campaign spokeswoman, said in a statement that Trump remains focused on both the economy and immigration, which poll as top-of-mind for voters.

“Day in and day out, President Trump focuses on the issues that matter most to Americans: inflation hurting their pocketbooks and illegal immigration invading their country,” Leavitt said. “He will continue to discuss both issues over the next 26 days.”

At recent campaign stops, Trump has distorted official Homeland Security Department statistics on undocumented immigrants with homicide convictions, falsely claiming that the Biden administration “released” them when, in reality, the government numbers Trump is citing span decades and include people who are serving time in state and federal prisons.

His promises to expel undocumented immigrants — and many people who are legally present in the United States — have drawn some of the largest cheers at his rallies.

During the Juneau rally, cheers erupted again as Trump promised to end “the invasion of savage criminals” and begin “the largest deportation in American history” on his first day in office.

He repeatedly leaned on fear tactics in his remarks, saying that Harris, if elected, will “inundate your towns with illegal alien criminals” and “even if they haven’t arrived yet, they will be.”

Greg Fredrick, 57, who attended the Juneau rally, agrees with the former president’s concern about migrants spreading across the country.

“In Dodge County, we’re not feeling it, but other spots are, and it will come this way,” said Fredrick, a contractor in the township of Lebanon. “We need to seal the border up. It’s horrible.”

Fredrick raised concern over the number of illegal border crossings by migrants coming from China and other nations not typically known to come to the United States through the southern border.

“Something’s fishy with that. It’s not right,” he said, adding he’s worried another terrorist attack could be coming without more border security. “Something bad’s going to happen,” he said.

Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), often blame immigrants for the country’s problems.

Trump has claimed that migrants crossing the U.S.-Mexico border are taking “Black and Hispanic jobs,” a characterization that many Americans have found offensive and economists said was false.

And Vance has called illegal migration “one of the most significant drivers of home prices in the country,” arguing that migrants are competing with Americans for limited homes — a claim that has been debunked by economists and housing experts.

“If Kamala is reelected, your town, and every town just like it, all across Wisconsin and all across our country — the heartland, the coast, it doesn’t matter — will be transformed into a third-world hellhole,” Trump said during an event in Prairie du Chien, Wis.

A Fox News poll last month found that 51 percent of registered voters favor Trump on the economy, compared with 46 percent who favor Harris. That’s compared with a 15-point advantage that Trump had over Biden in March.

Inflation dropped in September to its lowest level in more than three years, and the Federal Reserve cut interest rates last month for the first time in more than four years. But many Americans continue to express concerns about the cost of living.

[Vesper 30,224]

Yes, this is what Donald Trump really sounds like. No, you cannot ignore it.

The former president’s rallies and interviews in recent weeks should remind voters what he really represents.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2024/10/13/trump-rally-interview-immigrants-lies/

By the Editorial Board

October 12, 2024 at 12:48 p.m. EDT

 

In her “60 Minutes” interview last week, Vice President Kamala Harris asked voters to watch Donald Trump’s rallies, particularly because Mr. Trump chose not to follow custom (surprise) and ditched appearing on the show. For those who can sit through the rally exercise, it’s revealing.

But if you haven’t been able to take Ms. Harris up on her suggestion, here is some of what you would have heard. It’s a useful reminder of what the Republican candidate for president has been saying.

Last month in Wisconsin: “They will walk into your kitchen,” Mr. Trump said of undocumented immigrants. “They’ll cut your throat.” Later, he called the same people “animals.”

This week in Scranton, Pa., he claimed (impossibly) that he would pay off the national debt despite his promises of massive tax breaks and new expenditures. After sniping at “stupid” Mitt Romney, whom he said attendees should be glad to be getting “the hell out of here,” he took aim at his opponents. Ms. Harris, he claimed, is a “radical left Marxist” — a tame attack in comparison with another contention: that she was born “mentally impaired.” In Reading, Pa., he called “The View” co-host Whoopi Goldberg “demented” as well as “filthy dirty, disgusting.

Then there is Mr. Trump’s latest crusade, to re-rename North Carolina’s Fort Liberty by dubbing it Fort Bragg once more, so that the base will again honor a Confederate general. This reignites a fight he waged as president, when he vetoed a bipartisan military spending bill over the issue — and saw that veto, also in bipartisan fashion, overridden.

On Thursday at the Detroit Economic Club, he returned to the matter of immigrants: “We allowed them to come in and raid and rape our country. ‘Oh, he used the word rape.’ That’s right, I used the word rape. They raped our country.”

Mr. Trump has acquitted himself no better in the various radio and podcast interviews he has given these past few weeks. To conservative commentator Hugh Hewitt, he conjured a fantastical statistic on global warming: “The ocean will rise one-eighth of an inch in the next 500 years.” (Mr. Hewitt is a Post Opinions contributor.) In the same conversation, he embraced discredited theories of eugenics. Returning to the theme of illegal immigration, he again called immigrants murderers — asserting that “it’s in their genes.” He continued, “We got a lot of bad genes in our country right now.”

It’s hard to discern degrees of bad, but the former president’s lies about the Federal Emergency Management Agency in the wake of two major hurricanes pummeling the Southeast have been particularly insidious. On Fox News, he insisted: “They’re being treated very badly in the Republican areas. They’re not getting water, they’re not getting anything.” Elsewhere, he declared that “Kamala spent all her FEMA money, billions of dollars, on housing for” — you guessed it — “illegal migrants.” These allegations of a politically motivated emergency response are false, but they have discouraged people in need of aid from going to the agency for help. (And, as it turns out, Politico reports, it was Mr. Trump who as president hesitated to give disaster relief to blue parts of the country.)

Sometimes, Mr. Trump’s rhetoric is harmless, and, to be sure, he does not follow through on every outlandish thing he says. There’s arguably ridiculous entertainment in his invocation of “the late, great Hannibal Lecter” or in business leaders inquiring of the candidate, “How do you get up in the morning and put your pants on?” Yet the line between amusing and discomfiting cuts too close for comfort, and irresponsible rhetoric on a rally stage would make for a bleak reality in the Oval Office. Mr. Trump’s chaotic term as president showed that he often means what he says. Certainly, voters should examine Ms. Harris’s record and rhetoric. But they should also take seriously the words expressed by her opponent.

The Post’s View | About the Editorial Board

Editorials represent the views of The Post as an institution, as determined through discussion among members of the Editorial Board, based in the Opinions section and separate from the newsroom.

[Vesper 30,224]

Analysis

Officials Can’t Go Rogue on Election Certification

Partisans are trying to undermine the vote count in key states.

https://www.brennancenter.org/our-work/analysis-opinion/officials-cant-go-rogue-election-certification

 

A classic 19-century Thomas Nast cartoon of New York’s William “Boss” Tweed shows him leaning on a ballot box with the quote, “As long as I count the Votes, what are you going to do about it? say?” Joseph Stalin, for his part, once said, “I consider it completely unimportant who in the party will vote, or how; but what is extraordinarily important is this — who will count the votes, and how.”

Crooked counting of votes is a hallmark of a failed democracy. One of the things our country has gotten right over its centuries of development is vote counting. In the 20th century, the counting of the votes became a noncontroversial part of elections. There is no national election, and not even 50 state-run elections, but hundreds of elections run by counties. There are layers upon layers of protections to ensure that elections are clean — free, fair, and without fraud. It all depends on trust and impartial election officials doing their jobs. 

One of those steps is among the least controversial: having the results certified. It is, to use a technical term, “ministerial.” No judgment is supposed to be involved. Two plus two equals four. 

But since 2020, in their frenzy to undo the voters’ will, election deniers have tried to upend that process. That year, Donald Trump lobbied Detroit County board members to get them to reject the votes of their own constituents. In 2022, officials in Cochise County, Arizona, broke from tradition and voted against certifying the election results based on some vague worries about voting machines. A judge eventually ordered them to certify, putting an end to their little rebellion.

This year, around the country, rogue local election officials are increasingly threatening to withhold certification of results, based on no evidence of impropriety whatsoever, cheered on by hordes of online election deniers.

The statewide Georgia election board has a new majority of ardent Donald Trump supporters. He hailed them as “pit bulls” at a rally. State officials ordered country boards to refrain from certifying unless they undertake investigations. Most recently, they ordered local officials to count the number of ballots by hand. Republican Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger warned, “What they’re talking about is breaking open the ballot boxes.”

Can officials really withhold certification?

The Brennan Center recently published a pair of resources thoroughly answering this question.

The first is a series of state-by-state guides laying out the legal protections for election certification in each battleground state and the process to ensure that officials carry out that duty. The law is clear: Certification is not a discretionary act. Election officials are legally obligated to do it. 

In the second, my colleague Derek Tisler lays out in detail the checks, double checks, and triple checks that all occur well before election certification. That’s why certification is obligatory. If there are doubts about the accuracy of the count or the validity of ballots, there is ample opportunity to raise those flags before election certification. Refusing to certify is an act of partisan petulance — the last tantrum of sore losers — not the heroic stand of a conscientious objector.