The all things Poltical topic - We bear our banners aloft, boots like Drums Our Cadence quick, our countenance dire.

[Gorth]

49 minutes ago, BruceVC said:

Gorthfuscious !!!! Im shocked....where is that famous Danish patriotism that led to your Viking ancestors being the first to really reach northern America ? Of course you Danes like refugees ....that is why you pillaged and terrorized Europe for hundreds of years, you guys contributed towards the refugee crisis for centauries   

Refugees? No. Kidnapped young virgins fresh from a raid? Yes

 

[BruceVC]

18 minutes ago, Gorth said:

Refugees? No. Kidnapped young virgins fresh from a raid? Yes

 

Dammit....you right, its not the same thing. Your ancestors really didnt care about refugees, okay you off the historical hook in this case 

[HoonDing]

Put all refugees on Greenland, plenty of room there.

Plus if you put enough coloured people there, USA will never want to buy it ever again.

[BruceVC]

19 minutes ago, HoonDing said:

Put all refugees on Greenland, plenty of room there.

Plus if you put enough coloured people there, USA will never want to buy it ever again.

Its a not bad idea and I appreciate you thinking about solutions and suggesting  Greenland  but I am not sure the immigrants will want to live in  Greenland because its so cold and I dont think Greenland has the resources to integrate hundreds of thousands of people from ME countries ?

Also Greenland is part of Denmark so I assume Denmark would have to agree to this, remember integration  costs real money which becomes an economic burden for any country that integrates people so you always have to consider that burden

And also we talking about immigrants from the ME which are not coloured\black but they Arabs. They are their own ethnic group. Dont be fooled by the generalized, inaccurate view  that their are only 2 ethic groups in the world  " white and black " and everything can be characterized on this simplistic view . Their are  many different types of ethnic groups in the world who all have their own unique cultures  so when you say coloured people that is normally how people refer to black people which again is inaccurate considering we talking about Syrian  immigrants 

[Guard Dog]

I hope nobody messes with Iceland or Greenland. They are number one and number two on the list of countries I plan to flee to if that ever becomes a necessity. Ireland is a distant third.

[Gfted1]

If things go sideways I was planning on bugging out to your place. Can you leave behind a can of sterno and a couple 5 gallon water jugs before you leave?

[Gorth]

I always wanted to flee to Mauritius for some reason. It looks so pretty out there all by itself in the ocean

 

@BruceVCGreenland is an autonomous area, leaving mostly defense and foreign relations to Denmark to administer. Hypothetical solution, Denmark wants to go all "Australian" in their immigration policy, they could probably strike a deal with Greenland similar to what Australia has with Papua New Guinea.

 

Edit: For those curious about Greenland, from the internet: "Greenland is the world's largest island and an autonomous Danish dependent territory with limited self-government and its own parliament. Denmark contributes two thirds of Greenland's budget revenue, the rest coming mainly from fishing"

Mostly, they just mind their own business these days, supported by Denmark (probably also feeling a bit of guilt about how the land and the Inuits were treated in the past)

[BruceVC]

1 minute ago, Gorth said:

I always wanted to flee to Mauritius for some reason. It looks so pretty out there all by itself in the ocean

 

@BruceVCGreenland is an autonomous area, leaving mostly defense and foreign relations to Denmark to administer. Hypothetical solution, Denmark wants to go all "Australian" in their immigration policy, they could probably strike a deal with Greenland similar to what Australia has with Papua New Guinea.

That is interesting so are people who live  their Danish citizens in regard to EU access  and how does the government in Greenland  generate revenue to pay for public services, do they tax people only who live  their or does Denmark support them  financially?

Mauritius is an amazing and beautiful  country with very friendly people. The unspoilt beaches and general stunning wildlife  makes it  well worth visiting 

[Gorth]

Just now, BruceVC said:

That is interesting so are people who live  their Danish citizens in regard to EU access  and how does the government in Greenland  generate revenue to pay for public services, do they tax people only who live  their or does Denmark support them  financially?

Mauritius is an amazing and beautiful  country with very friendly people. The unspoilt beaches and general stunning wildlife  makes it  well worth visiting 

They don't. That's why the Danish government is footing 2/3 of the budget for Greenland.

The Faroe Islands were considering full independence a few years ago... until they realized that if they declared themselves independent, Denmark would no longer pay their bills for them (why would one sovereign country pay all the expenses of another sovereign country?), so they agreed that independence could probably wait a century or two

[Guard Dog]

Why Militias Are So Hard To Stop

Interesting article. I have a hard time taking the whole notion of militias being a threat seriously. A bunch of overweight and overage adolescents dressing up in camo and playing soldier on the weekends with overpriced semiautomatic rifles is more absurd that fearsome. More pathetic than dangerous. Then a couple of them thought it would be a good idea to kidnap the governor of Michigan. Stupid. 

Now all the groups who did nothing wrong that day are a target. As the article points out you are running down a rabbit hole if you are policing ideology. Start cracking down on different groups who may or may not be doing something wrong and you’re going to breed radical groups. You have a handful of people telling everyone the government is a monster that wants to take everything away from them. The absolute worst way to respond to that is to become that monster.  That is why BLM has been so effective. The things they were protesting against were actually happening. Every one could see it.
 

The best way to go is what the FBI has been doing: recruiting informants. Any kind of collective crackdown only proves the radicals were right. 

Edited May 26, 2021 by Guard Dog

[rjshae]

7 hours ago, Guard Dog said:

I hope nobody messes with Iceland or Greenland. They are number one and number two on the list of countries I plan to flee to if that ever becomes a necessity. Ireland is a distant third.

Greenland is emitting toxic levels of Mercury. Sounds like a fine place.

Greenland’s ice sheet is releasing huge amounts of mercury into rivers

[Raithe]

Arizona's Secretary of State 'stripped' of duties after criticizing election audit (msn.com)

After publicly expressing "grave concerns" over Arizona's audit of the 2020 election results, Secretary of State Katie Hobbs (D) was "stripped" of her ability to "defend election lawsuits" by the state's Republican-led House Appropriations Committee, reported Arizona's ABC 15 on Tuesday. The duty was transferred "exclusively" to Attorney General Mark Brnovich (R) through the end of the 2023 fiscal year.

[Guard Dog]

1 hour ago, rjshae said:

Greenland is emitting toxic levels of Mercury. Sounds like a fine place.

Greenland’s ice sheet is releasing huge amounts of mercury into rivers

Well my list just got a little bit shorter

[rjshae]

1 hour ago, Raithe said:

Arizona's Secretary of State 'stripped' of duties after criticizing election audit (msn.com)

Soft coup in progress. We're making our elections "secure". Nothing to see here folks; move along now.

[Amentep]

GA in addition to their recent voter stuff also passed a finance reform that allows incumbents to raise unlimited money, while same party challengers and the opposing party candidates through the primaries are still required to cap at the old limits (and allegedly rules independent parties as legally non-entities if a local libertarian candidates is to be believed...)

[PK htiw klaw eriF]

25 minutes ago, Amentep said:

GA in addition to their recent voter stuff also passed a finance reform that allows incumbents to raise unlimited money, while same party challengers and the opposing party candidates through the primaries are still required to cap at the old limits (and allegedly rules independent parties as legally non-entities if a local libertarian candidates is to be believed...)

Are GA Republicans trying to look like supervillains? 

[Bartimaeus]

36 minutes ago, Amentep said:

GA in addition to their recent voter stuff also passed a finance reform that allows incumbents to raise unlimited money, while same party challengers and the opposing party candidates through the primaries are still required to cap at the old limits (and allegedly rules independent parties as legally non-entities if a local libertarian candidates is to be believed...)

Uh, wow. That's...a new low. I'm only surprised that they didn't instead code it to be explicitly Republicans only, but that probably would've been illegal someway...

[Gromnir]

ga, tx, fl, az, etc.

is nothing surprising. red state republicans is embracing a rational transactional approach.

covid resulted in more people voting as 'posed to fewer. states, recognizing the need for easing of voting restrictions during a pandemic, passed legislation to make voting easier. also, numerous states which pre-covid had instituted automatic voting registration laws, saw spikes in minority voting, though is worth noting the percentages o' minorities voting for biden were often worse than those who voted for clinton four years earlier. still, the overall numbers were a boon for democrats in the Presidential race.

so, how does republicans react? tentpole party is not gonna be the approach as long as trump is the face o' the party. if you are selling grievance and fear, you are gonna have a difficult time expanding the base further than it is today. so, if you cannot increase your base, then the obvious approach is to handicap your opponent's efforts.

is rational even if is kinda despicable. however, is easy to sell despicable to your constituents (again, you aren't trying to increase popularity with democrats or independents at this point) when virtual every poll shows that republicans has since november 2020 become more convinced the election were stolen/rigged. way more than 50% republicans believe the ga republicans is the heroes as 'posed to the villains. however, there is ~30% o' republicans who is, at the very least, tending to believe the election were fair, but keep in mind some % o' those folks is nevertheless convinced the democrats represent an existential crisis... a crisis which is protean in nature and shifts depending on what tucker carlson or others is current blathering on 'bout on fox. is republicans who know trump were lying 'bout the election and that republicans manufactured the hate which led to the storming o' the Capitol, but as 'tween the insurrectionists and the democrats, the hardcore republicans will remain true to their party no matter what.

30% o' republicans don't give a damn 'bout the republican party, but they follow trump. drop support o' the big lie alienates the folks who were attacking lindsey graham in an airport after he were critical o' trump following january 6.

rational. lindsey response were cowardly and despicable, but rational. republicans cannot win w/o the 30% o' republicans who is diehard trump faithful. lindsey's constituents want the voting restrictions 'cause they either believe the lies 'bout election fraud, or they don't care 'bout fraud and are more convinced the democrats need to lose no matter what the price.

again, none o' this is surprising. is rational and were predictable. more people than Gromnir were doing cassandra impressions as we made guesses 'bout how republicans would react to the november election. of course there were gonna be an effort to make voting more difficult. worse, we also predicted how disappointed people would be when they realized those heroic conservative judges and republican state officials who stood up to trump when they were asked to commit or support outright fraud in 2020 would nevertheless be part o' the effort before the next elections in 2022 and 2024 to limit voting rights. the trump campaign lost many cases and the standing issues which were so common part o' predictable auto-fails is gonna be obstacles to minority groups attempting to bring cases against the ga, tx, fla, az legislatures and republican secretaries o' state. 

HA! Good Fun!

 

Edited May 27, 2021 by Gromnir

[Darkpriest]

This will be interesting, it might even sweep dems and give ground back to Trump for 2024.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/facebook-stops-removing-posts-claiming-covid-19-man-made-after-lab-leak-hypothesis-finally

It will also damage the media and social media tech in their credibility even further. 

[Gorth]

1 hour ago, Darkpriest said:

This will be interesting, it might even sweep dems and give ground back to Trump for 2024.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/facebook-stops-removing-posts-claiming-covid-19-man-made-after-lab-leak-hypothesis-finally

It will also damage the media and social media tech in their credibility even further. 

One of the few conspiracy theories I probably would buy. Ok, maybe not outright, but would definitely like to know more about. I remember all the humorous pictures of that level 4 "institute of virology" with the Umbrella Corporation logo. No kidding, the same as the company that made the zombie virus in Resident Evil, making you wonder where the game developers got their inspiration from???

The Wuhan lab was only one of the planned five to seven similar labs throughout China. I do remember my very first thought in late 2019 was "Oh no, they didn't!" (and cursing the usual sloppy quality assurance on all things Made in China) when reading about a dangerous virus escaping from the city from the Umbrella Corporation memes.

Still could just be a bat with Dracula ambitions... let's make the humans miserable.

 

edit: Maybe Biden reads Washington Post too?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57260009

"US President Joe Biden has ordered intelligence agencies to investigate the emergence of Covid-19, amid growing controversy about the virus's origins."

[Zoraptor]

Eh, I don't think there's any doubt that intelligence agencies were already investigating the emergence of covid-19 given that this whole thing kicked off again because of a report from US Intelligence about workers being sick at that Wuhan Lab.

At the moment Giorgio Tsoukalis has an equally well supported alternative hypothesis. An institution with hundreds to thousands of people working there having some people off sick is not exactly proof absolute.

[BruceVC]

1 hour ago, Gorth said:

One of the few conspiracy theories I probably would buy. Ok, maybe not outright, but would definitely like to know more about. I remember all the humorous pictures of that level 4 "institute of virology" with the Umbrella Corporation logo. No kidding, the same as the company that made the zombie virus in Resident Evil, making you wonder where the game developers got their inspiration from???

The Wuhan lab was only one of the planned five to seven similar labs throughout China. I do remember my very first thought in late 2019 was "Oh no, they didn't!" (and cursing the usual sloppy quality assurance on all things Made in China) when reading about a dangerous virus escaping from the city from the Umbrella Corporation memes.

Still could just be a bat with Dracula ambitions... let's make the humans miserable.

 

edit: Maybe Biden reads Washington Post too?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-57260009

"US President Joe Biden has ordered intelligence agencies to investigate the emergence of Covid-19, amid growing controversy about the virus's origins."

But Gorthfuscious we getting distracted by this debate in the sense why spend resources and time on something that is irrelevant and we will never be able to confirm

I say irrelevant because the virus came from China irrespective  if it came from a lab or the Wuhan animal market.

And I say we will never be able to confirm the truth because the CCP has already started denying it came from China and they will always restrict full access to their labs and obfuscate pertinent virus source  information anyway?

All that matters is stopping the pandemic globally and getting vaccines to everyone

I am sorry ZeroHedge is aggrieved but this is just theater to me and doesnt matter to the real objective of ending the pandemic 

[Darkpriest]

1 hour ago, BruceVC said:

But Gorthfuscious we getting distracted by this debate in the sense why spend resources and time on something that is irrelevant and we will never be able to confirm

I say irrelevant because the virus came from China irrespective  if it came from a lab or the Wuhan animal market.

And I say we will never be able to confirm the truth because the CCP has already started denying it came from China and they will always restrict full access to their labs and obfuscate pertinent virus source  information anyway?

All that matters is stopping the pandemic globally and getting vaccines to everyone

I am sorry ZeroHedge is aggrieved but this is just theater to me and doesnt matter to the real objective of ending the pandemic 

It's a matter of accountability, and also a matter that the pandemic's narrative was driven politically and spwcifically denied narrative about a lab leak etc to harm Trumps chances of re-ellection. 

Imagine if the narrative was, that Trump was right about China's fault and that it was a bio-engineered agent, which harmed lives of american citizens  and he was right going strong arm in relation with them. 

You might have seen a vastly different political labdscape throughout the 2020-2021

[BruceVC]

8 minutes ago, Darkpriest said:

It's a matter of accountability, and also a matter that the pandemic's narrative was driven politically and spwcifically denied narrative about a lab leak etc to harm Trumps chances of re-ellection. 

Imagine if the narrative was, that Trump was right about China's fault and that it was a bio-engineered agent, which harmed lives of american citizens  and he was right going strong arm in relation with them. 

You might have seen a vastly different political labdscape throughout the 2020-2021

Okay I see your argument but how much did Trumps view of the origin of the virus hurt his reelection campaign?

What did hurt his reelection was the mismanagement of the pandemic within the USA ....not so much the real and unfair misinformation from his campaign

And I support Trumps criticism of China on most issues and the trade war....but I dont support how he blamed the spread of the virus within the USA on China. That was because of failed policy 

Edited May 27, 2021 by BruceVC

[Gorth]

2 hours ago, BruceVC said:

But Gorthfuscious we getting distracted by this debate in the sense why spend resources and time on something that is irrelevant and we will never be able to confirm

I say irrelevant because the virus came from China irrespective  if it came from a lab or the Wuhan animal market.

And I say we will never be able to confirm the truth because the CCP has already started denying it came from China and they will always restrict full access to their labs and obfuscate pertinent virus source  information anyway?

All that matters is stopping the pandemic globally and getting vaccines to everyone

I am sorry ZeroHedge is aggrieved but this is just theater to me and doesnt matter to the real objective of ending the pandemic 

Don't underestimate the PR damage and the propaganda value. Both are currencies that means a lot to the Beijing leadership and countries have been "preemptively" bombed before when doing things that poses a significant threat, whether nuclear or chemical weapons. Only few countries in the world have biological weapon capability (China and the US being two of them). I don't think Russia and the US would nuke Wuhan or similar if they locate more of those bio weapon facilities, but as said, don't underestimate XI going all apoplectic and red faced (complete with sweat drops and burst veins) if it comes out that China was just being careless with one of their test subjects. Not to mention the lawsuits and compensation claims they would subject to (not that they would pay, but Xi is a nationalist and ridiculing his country is something he reacts very badly to)