Politics XXXIV (Politics never changes)

[Gromnir]

fake news: wh edition

Trump’s baffling coronavirus vaccine event

anthony fauci, the head of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, the guy the wh is not allowing to speak to the public directly, lost patience after making multiple attempts to enlighten the president 'bout the temporal proximity o' a coronavirus vaccine deployment, and stated the following while cameras were rolling and reporters were recording:

“Would you make sure you get the president the information that a vaccine that you make and start testing in a year is not a vaccine that’s deployable,” Fauci said. “So he’s asking the question, ‘When is it going to be deployable?’ And that is going to be, at the earliest, a year to a year and a half, no matter how fast you go.”

again, fauci said the 'bove while he were sitting at the same table with the president after the doctor made  multiple attempts to educate the chief executive 'bout the time frame for a vaccine release.

HA! Good Fun!

ps any bets on when the President next public claims the vaccine is only a few months away from being released for public use?

Edited March 3, 2020 by Gromnir

[ShadySands]

7 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Biden's endorsements are stacking up. The former candidates, big name former office holders, even Barack Obama today according to the WaPo. I have to say it's pretty commendable for Pete B & Klobuchar, who both still had paths to victory, to step aside. If in fact it was done to unite the party behind Not Bernie Sanders. Had the Republicans been so wise in 2016 we likely would not have the Orange Menace in office today. 

I dunno, that assumes the voters will fall in line with what the party wants. No real way to know if it would have stopped Trump or not and it'll be hilarious if Bernie wins the nomination despite the party trying to rally against him.

I expect some damage to the party either way

Edited March 3, 2020 by ShadySands

[Volourn]

Knowing the Dems they wouldjn't hesitate to take the nomination away from Sanders and claim 'it's best for the party'. They are the anti Democratic party. Repubs got stuck with Trump because for some reason they let the votes decide things. Something dems won't do h3ence why the love it when illegals/non Amerikans/dead people vote. LMAO Not to mention how racist theya re in their assumptyion that (only) minorities can't seem to get (photo) ID because, you know, low expectations. L0LZ

[BruceVC]

7 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Interesting piece from Atlantic: https://www.theatlantic.com/ideas/archive/2020/03/youngs-dont-care-about-ussr/607249/

The gist of it is, young people who were not around when the Soviet Union was a thing don't have first hand knowledge of how communism has been used by governments to do terrible things. So they are nYbot afraid of it. 

I have one simple question: Do you trust your government? 

If the answer is anything other than "NO" then you are probably not paying attention to it. And if the answer is "NO" then how could you support any economic system that empowers it so?

This article summarizes the underlying problem with some young people and possibly many of Sanders supporters 

They dont understand or dont care about the true insidious nature of Communism. They have created there own definition of Communism, if they had any real inclination they really could even rent an historical movie to see the true nature of Communism.....the real problem with this view is  you will start being blocked by normal financial regulations and Constitutional laws if you go too extreme to the left

But I just dont see how Bernie will beat Trump, I feel Trump will manipulate him into some crisis 

 

 

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Volourn said:

Knowing the Dems they wouldjn't hesitate to take the nomination away from Sanders and claim 'it's best for the party'. They are the anti Democratic party. Repubs got stuck with Trump because for some reason they let the votes decide things. Something dems won't do h3ence why the love it when illegals/non Amerikans/dead people vote. LMAO Not to mention how racist theya re in their assumptyion that (only) minorities can't seem to get (photo) ID because, you know, low expectations. L0LZ

Volo since when do you support Sanders ?

[BruceVC]

2 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I dunno, that assumes the voters will fall in line with what the party wants. No real way to know if it would have stopped Trump or not and it'll be hilarious if Bernie wins the nomination despite the party trying to rally against him.

I expect some damage to the party either way

Shady what does your wife feel about Communism...I imagine coming from Baltic states she must be very concerned ?

[ShadySands]

Why would she be concerned?  Nobody is talking about communism except for people trying to turn the conversation into such. Our system is rife with socialism which is why I find all the new red scare stuff so manufactured. Like we need to line people up and shoot them to get better healthcare and we need to gulag people to get a better social safety net.

It's a difficult conversation to have with cold warriors and red scarers. I don't mean to single you out specifically but I'm just frustrated with the level of discourse around this topic, my apologies.

To answer your question, she's not fond of communism and she supports Warren and Sanders (she just voted for him today). As someone from Europe, a better safety net and healthcare don't evoke the same knee-jerk reactions.

Edited March 3, 2020 by ShadySands

[Hurlshort]

But we are just one health care reform away from the gulags!

[BruceVC]

3 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

Why would she be concerned?  Nobody is talking about communism except for people trying to turn the conversation into such. Our system is rife with socialism which is why I find all the new red scare stuff so manufactured. Like we need to line people up and shoot them to get better healthcare and we need to gulag people to get a better social safety net.

It's a difficult conversation to have with cold warriors and red scarers. I don't mean to single you out specifically but I'm just frustrated with the level of discourse around this topic.

To answer your question, she'd not fond of communism and she supports Warren and Sanders. As someone from Europe a better safety net and healthcare don't evoke the same knee-jerk reactions.

I imagine it must be frustrating,  but you also not helping because you allowing yourself to buy into the chaos and general political bedlam , its not like there is real persecution of Communism

This is just questioning of the policies that seem difficult to understand how they will be funded and or implemented. And remember this will strengthen the Sanders campaign because this is nothing compared to Trumps media onslaught if Bernie wins ....which is why I question his candidacy against such political tactics of Trump

 

 

[Gromnir]

3 hours ago, ShadySands said:

I dunno, that assumes the voters will fall in line with what the party wants. No real way to know if it would have stopped Trump or not and it'll be hilarious if Bernie wins the nomination despite the party trying to rally against him.

I expect some damage to the party either way

am thinking after the clinton and sanders debacle in 2016, the party hierarchy lining up behind biden will hardly convince the bernie bros that there isn't a fix in the works for 2020. American politics is extreme divisive at the moment and everybody appears to be looking for an excuse to be angry at them, whoever them might be. will be all kinda conspiracy theories and complaints o' foul play if you got a two-horse race 'tween bernie and biden... and add bloomberg ain't helping. if bloomberg somehow wins, then is forever gonna be the stigma o' a democrat candidate who, it will be claimed, bought an election.

charlie fox

were gonna be a charlie fox no matter who were chosen. biden is moderate and will appeal to those independents who got trump elected in 2016. 'course biden is not a candidate who is gonna excite democrats, and the single biggest obstacle to democrat victory in any recent Presidential election has been the typical democrat indifference on vote days. bernie, for all his issues, mighta' been able to motivate young voters and other democrats to actual cast a ballot as 'posed to doing naught but complain on social media. warren refuses to quit and like her or hate her, she has been the consistent best debater save for perhaps new hampshire, which we would give to klobuchar. warren is gonna be in a position to continue to undermine bernie, biden and bloomberg, none of whom need much help being undermined btw. great debater don't count much btw. trump had a few historic terrible debates including one o' the last confrontations with clinton. 

trump can win with a divisive America 'cause while his base isn't particular large, they vote. all trump needs to do to win is to solidify his base (which is a forgone conclusion despite all reason and circumstance) while the democrats fumble at finding a unifying voice or issue. 

the threat o' another four years o' trump should be enough to get democrats to vote in battleground states. doesn't look likely. worse, bass ag rural wisconsin voters, regardless o' party affiliation, is solidly aligned with trump in spite o' the utter devastation the current admin has wrecked on farmers these past few years. biden or bernie or bloomberg needs to pretty much live in michigan and pennsylvania for the rest o' the year. bernie sponsors neighborhood bikini car washes? bernie in a bikini might not be the best idea after all. biden does the rocky run in philadelphia every week for the year? is it possible for bloomberg to buy all the advertising time during primetime in PA and MI 'tween now and november? might need to if he wants a win. 

heck, for trump to win all that need happen is for a relative small % battleground independents to be convinced to follow gd's suggestion and vote 3p as a kinda protest. 

HA! Good Fun!

[ShadySands]

Bruce, I love that line of argument because it disregards the current situation of the last past however many years. How're we paying for anything?

 

Edited March 3, 2020 by ShadySands

[ComradeYellow]

5 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

Nope. I saw we go back to barter. I'll trade you 48 eggs, 20 coyote pelts, 2 gallons of sourmash 'shine, and a bushel of watermelons for 100 gallons of heating oil and two bottles of good maple syrup!

FYI some progressives are calling for some kind of rollback to a resource based economy and getting rid of the Dollar completely.  

See Peter Joseph for more information, he's an economic leftist who's not a Marxist and is advocating for such a system.  You might dig him.

[BruceVC]

1 minute ago, ShadySands said:

Bruce, I love that line of argument because it disregards the current situation of the last past however many years. How're we paying for anything?

 

But also I must be clear, I am not suggesting Sanders represents old school Communism and his old pro-communist comments are not relevant. He represents what is called Social Democrats ....is this really something that can be implemented in the USA? Apparently this is linked to how Sweden is governed, if this is true then surly that must mean high taxes? Anyway the reality is it confusing to understand how he will achieve his political goals but maybe we need to wait . But then someone said to me " why do you think Bernie will implement his perceived anti-capitalist policies " ....which is also true and I could be jumping the gun  

Also Trump wants Bernie  to win over Biden,  certain Republican strategists really believe Bernie will be the easier candidate to  beat, this worries me because Trump normally has these views because he has an advantage in some way

 

 

[ComradeYellow]

52 minutes ago, ShadySands said:

 

It's a difficult conversation to have with cold warriors and red scarers. I don't mean to single you out specifically but I'm just frustrated with the level of discourse around this topic, my apologies.

 

 

Yes it's gotten so bad here in America especially amongst Trump supporters that they think that anything, literally anything the government does = Socialism.  If the government does something, it is Socialism.  Which is strange because the government did a lot of stuff in the 1950's when the Red Scare was fever pitch, but nobody ever called that Socialism...

What the bloody green Hell is going on in this country?  It's enough to drive you insane.  Makes me literally wanna Storm Berlin or something.

Edited March 3, 2020 by ComradeMaster

[BruceVC]

5 minutes ago, ComradeMaster said:

 

Yes it's gotten so bad here in America especially amongst Trump supporters that they think that anything, literally anything the government does = Socialism.  If the government does something, it is Socialism.  Which is strange because the government did a lot of stuff in the 1950's when the Red Scare was fever pitch, but nobody ever called that Socialism...

What the bloody green Hell is going on in this country?  It's enough to drive you insane.  Makes me literally wanna Storm Berlin or something.

Yes but this is exactly the Trump strategy and this will become intensified if he wins....and also be prepared for those irritating political communist adverts 

But its design is targeted to create annoyance and frustration and add to the real and perceived political friction. They will also hope to weaken Sanders support by positioning Sanders in an extreme way

However Trump  may be the architect of his own doom, there is a real view that Bernie supporters will ignore any anti-Bernie views especially nowadays when you have to face Trump as this is to be expected from the Trump propaganda .....Trump has written the book in this so I doubt many Bernie supporters will be moved

So in summary the normal Trump media attacks will be irrelevant to the Bernie success.  And  I tend to agree with this 

 

[ShadySands]

35 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

But also I must be clear, I am not suggesting Sanders represents old school Communism and his old pro-communist comments are not relevant. He represents what is called Social Democrats ....is this really something that can be implemented in the USA? Apparently this is linked to how Sweden is governed, if this is true then surly that must mean high taxes? Anyway the reality is it confusing to understand how he will achieve his political goals but maybe we need to wait . But then someone said to me " why do you think Bernie will implement his perceived anti-capitalist policies " ....which is also true and I could be jumping the gun  

Also Trump wants Bernie  to win over Biden,  certain Republican strategists really believe Bernie will be the easier candidate to  beat, this worries me because Trump normally has these views because he has an advantage in some way

I'm already convinced that Trump is going to win. Too much division in the Democratic ranks and I feel like they're overall less likely to fall in line than the Republicans were.

Many of Bernie's policies have broad popular support but even then I don't believe he will be able to get many of them passed but that's not a deal breaker for me because I just want someone who will try to make some of the changes that I feel we need and also put the spotlight on more issues that I care about.  I'm not trying to convince anyone else and as I said earlier, I just find the discourse about him disingenuous in a very obvious way that seems to be treated seriously. 

Edited March 3, 2020 by ShadySands

[ComradeYellow]

20 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Yes but this is exactly the Trump strategy and this will become intensified if he wins....and also be prepared for those irritating political communist adverts 

But its design is targeted to create annoyance and frustration and add to the real and perceived political friction. They will also hope to weaken Sanders support by positioning Sanders in an extreme way

However Trump  may be the architect of his own doom, there is a real view that Bernie supporters will ignore any anti-Bernie views especially nowadays when you have to face Trump as this is to be expected from the Trump propaganda .....Trump has written the book in this so I doubt many Bernie supporters will be moved

So in summary the normal Trump media attacks will be irrelevant to the Bernie success.  And  I tend to agree with this 

 

Another misconception:  If you are vehemently against Trumpism that means you are a Bernie supporter.

I've never been a Bernie supporter, he doesn't have the clout or the vision to take on Trump or the 2 party corporate dictatorship.

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, ComradeMaster said:

Another misconception:  If you are vehemently against Trumpism that means you are a Bernie supporter.

I've never been a Bernie supporter, he doesn't have the clout or the vision to take on Trump or the 2 party corporate dictatorship.

Not sure what "Trumpism" is... seen from this place, he's nothing but your typical 2 bit demagogue thriving on chaos and sabre rattling. No different from any other demagogue/warmonger. No different from Berlusconi, Modi, Netanyahu, Bolsonaro or even our own little Pauline Hanson, which I cross my fingers and hope nobody outside Australia has ever heard about, as she's even worse than Scott Morrison (who is just hopelessly incompetent and corrupt).

Populists always need a bogey man. Whether they be Jacobites, Huguenotes, Jews, Immigrants whatever. Something that the gullible can be manipulated into venting their frustrations against.

Trump is if anything typical of his kind, nothing exceptional. I guess the US public just never had one of their own before? Disclaimer, not familiar with US presidents before Jimmy Carter.

 

@BruceVC Face it, Banks are more universally hated, feared and distrusted than communism these days

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

For a second there I thought you caod cenobites were a boogeyman and I'm now disappointed.

[ComradeYellow]

2 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Not sure what "Trumpism" is... seen from this place, he's nothing but your typical 2 bit demagogue thriving on chaos and sabre rattling.

But there's a lot of stupid mother****ers here who support him, which leaves me no choice but to brand him.

Then there's liberal idiots who try to claim he's a puppet of Putin or Kim, which makes them look JUST as bad as he is.

Which leaves me stuck between a rock and a hard place.  Progressives want cozier relations with eastern countries but at the same time we have to battle right wing lunatics and liberal centrists don't make it easy when they label Trump as something he isn't.

[ShadySands]

VA called for Biden and Vermont for Sanders

[Bartimaeus]

Looking like it'll be a tough night for Bernie, as Biden is overperforming in the South - he'll have to overperform elsewhere to make it up (aka bigger than expected margins of victories in California and Texas), which probably isn't terribly likely. About what I expected after SC, and especially after everyone that dropped out and endorsed Biden. Biden has been weak with white voters when there were other moderate options, but his strength with black voters became quite the edge when the rest of the moderates dropped out and enough of the white voters came back to him. Looking to be a very similar situation to Hillary vs. Bernie in 2016, only perhaps closer this time.

(e): Yeah, things are even worse than I feared, with Minnesota, Massachusetts, and Maine (to a lesser degree) all turning against Bernie. Bernie would need to have an absolutely crazy California to reverse this damage, which can't really be expected.

Any bets on a Biden VP? Klobuchar unfortunately makes the most sense to me.

(e): I revise my earlier statement: based on what I've seen so far, I think Bernie quite probably will do worse this primary cycle against Biden than he did against Clinton. The difference two days makes, eh? The Democratic Party saw how Trump won the Republican nomination with a heavily splintered field and wanted to make sure that didn't happen to them, and it seems they have succeeded. It's a better plan than arriving at the convention with Bernie having the most delegates and denying him the nomination if your #1 goal was to absolutely make sure Sanders didn't win, but it's still going to super depress youth turnout in the general...which they probably weren't counting on to begin with anyways, as unreliable as it is.

Edited March 4, 2020 by Bartimaeus

[BruceVC]

 

Gorthfuscious this is exactly my concern in both a real and figurative way

I dont believe or support any modern  conspiracy theory for several reasons , they all attempt to obfuscate the truth or create distractions  of peoples attention. So for example I would honesty hate the thought of you spending even 1 hour but imagine 5 days researching and possibly believing the classic " 9/11 was performed by the USA  and or Jews " conspiracy theory

Someone could say " but why would you hate the thought of Gorth choosing to research his own views on 9/11 and even have a different opinion on this topic. He can believe what he wants ....isnt this freedom of speech " ......of course he can in most topics and views but this is one of those conspiracy theories that has been so heavily rejected and refuted it cannot be reasonable or rational for anyone who has been following any general ME news and updates over the last 20 years to believe this  

There are always anti-Bank conspiracy theories that exist and thrive and  people who sometimes target banks through cyber-piracy endeavors like Ransomware and advanced hacking techniques like phishing. But there are many ways to target or attempt to target corporations in the modern world using the Internet as we all know 

Now you can literally find examples where people  seem to support " Communist\Socialist ideas "  over your normal hard working bank that has always existed and supported the city where we live. It seems ........unfair and biased or rather very selective on our criticism 

 

 

[BruceVC]

5 hours ago, Gorth said:

Not sure what "Trumpism" is... seen from this place, he's nothing but your typical 2 bit demagogue thriving on chaos and sabre rattling. No different from any other demagogue/warmonger. No different from Berlusconi, Modi, Netanyahu, Bolsonaro or even our own little Pauline Hanson, which I cross my fingers and hope nobody outside Australia has ever heard about, as she's even worse than Scott Morrison (who is just hopelessly incompetent and corrupt).

Populists always need a bogey man. Whether they be Jacobites, Huguenotes, Jews, Immigrants whatever. Something that the gullible can be manipulated into venting their frustrations against.

Trump is if anything typical of his kind, nothing exceptional. I guess the US public just never had one of their own before? Disclaimer, not familiar with US presidents before Jimmy Carter.

 

2 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

 @BruceVC Face it, Banks are more universally hated, feared and distrusted than communism these days

Gorthfuscious this is exactly my concern in both a real and figurative way

I dont believe or support any modern  conspiracy theory for several reasons , they all attempt to obfuscate the truth or create distractions  of peoples attention. So for example I would honesty hate the thought of you spending even 1 hour but imagine 5 days researching and possibly believing the classic " 9/11 was performed by the USA  and or Jews " conspiracy theory

Someone could say " but why would you hate the thought of Gorth choosing to research his own views on 9/11 and even have a different opinion on this topic. He can believe what he wants ....isnt this freedom of speech " ......of course he can in most topics and views but this is one of those conspiracy theories that has been so heavily rejected and refuted it cannot be reasonable or rational for anyone who has been following any general ME news and updates over the last 20 years to believe this  

There are always anti-Bank conspiracy theories that exist and thrive and  people who sometimes target banks through cyber-piracy endeavors like Ransomware and advanced hacking techniques like phishing. But there are many ways to target or attempt to target corporations in the modern world using the Internet as we all know 

Now you can literally find examples where people  seem to support " Communist\Socialist ideas "  over your normal hard working bank that has always existed and supported the city where we live. It seems ........unfair and biased or rather very selective on our criticism 

 

 

 

 

[Bartimaeus]

Gee, I really hate it when I get a notification for a new post in a thread I'm following but then I check and nobody's posted since I did. Really annoying bug - wish the forum software developers would fix it.