Page 11 of 12 FirstFirst ... 789101112 LastLast
Results 301 to 330 of 333

Thread: Former British Colony in Downward Spiral of Ethnic Violence, State Security Impunity

  1. #301
    Senior Member Senior Member ReluctantSamurai's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    2,483

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Unfortunately, we've got nut-jobs like this calling for 'a holy war':

    https://www.dailykos.com/stories/202...tter-mocks-him

    “Now is the time for our pastors and our congregations, like this one here, like many that you represent. It's time for us to stand up and declare boldly that as men and women of faith, we have a duty to stand against tyranny, we have a duty to be civically involved, we have a duty to save this country for the next generation.” Cawthorn said in a speech delivered at the North Carolina Faith & Freedom Coalition's "Salt & Light Conference."

    “Look back at the Old Testament. Look at David, look at Daniel, look at Esther, look at all of these people who influenced the governments of their day to uphold Christian principles. It is time for the American Christian church to come out of the shadows, to say ‘No longer are we going to allow our culture to be determined by people who hate the things that we believe in! We are going to stand valiantly for God's incredible inerrant truths that predate any version of government.' Because my friends, if we lose this country today, if we bend the knee to the Democrats today, our country will be lost forever, our children will never know what freedom is,” Cawthorn said.
    Except this dip-shit has never even read the bible or he'd have known that:

    [...] even one who isn’t Christian knows that no one in the Old Testament was fighting to uphold Christian principles. Christ wasn’t even born at the time of the Old Testament—which is based on the Hebrew Bible, or the Torah.
    Unfortunately, that won't matter to right-wingers who love video's of someone punching a punky-soft, dead tree...

    Then, of course, there's this neo-nazi calling for "shock troops":

    https://crooksandliars.com/2021/10/s...-has-20k-shock

    "If you’re going to take over the administrative state and deconstruct it, then you have to have shock troops prepared to take it over immediately," Bannon said in a telephone interview with NBC News. "I gave 'em fire and brimstone."

    "We're winning big in 2024 and we need to get ready now," he said. "Right? We control the country. We've got to start acting like it. And one way we're going to act like it, we're not going to have 4,000 [shock troops] ready to go, we're going to have 20,000 ready to go and we're going to pick the 4,000 best and most ready in every single department."
    And unfortunately, there are those who will take this whacko seriously, tho' I think he might have to move the decimal point a couple of spaces to the left of 20000...
    Last edited by ReluctantSamurai; 10-08-2021 at 03:47.
    High Plains Drifter

  2. #302

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Stories like this are just insane, but it's what happens when you empower unthinking, unaccountable bureaucracy - that is, police - to wield violence and coercion at all times. TLDR some kids in a poor Black primary school in Tennessee had a baby fight, so police rolled in hard to arrest a large number of bystanders, spreading grief and terror. The juvenile court in the county has been occupied by a single elected judge for the whole existence of the office, and she sees it as her God-given mission to lock up as many kids as possible; nearly 50% of juvenile court cases in her county end in imprisonment.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  3. #303
    Senior Member Senior Member ReluctantSamurai's Avatar
    Join Date
    Feb 2008
    Location
    USA
    Posts
    2,483

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    I don't know which is worse: the traumatization of the children, or the exploitation of these kids for profit:

    Rutherford County doesn’t just jail its own kids. It also contracts with other counties to detain their children, charging $175 a day. “If we have empty beds, we will fill them with a paying customer,” Duke said at one public meeting.

    Duke reports monthly to the county commission’s Public Safety Committee. At these meetings — we watched more than 100, going back 12 years — commissioners have asked regularly about the number of beds filled. “Just like a hotel,” one commissioner said of the jail. “With breakfast provided, and it’s not a continental,” added a second. At another meeting a commissioner said it would be “cool” if, instead of being a cost center, the jail could be a “profit center.”

    When, at one meeting, Duke said “we get a lot of business” from a particular county, a commissioner chuckled at Duke’s word choice. “Business,” he said. This brought awkward laughter from other commissioners, leading the committee chair to say: “Hey, it’s a business. Generating revenue.”
    And apparently, "business" is quite profitable:

    In Rutherford County, Davenport still runs juvenile court, making $176,000 a year. (She’s up for reelection next year, and has previously said she’d like to run for another eight-year term.) Duke still runs the juvenile detention center, earning $98,000. And the system as a whole continues to grow.

    In 2005, the budget for juvenile services, including court and detention center staff, was $962,444. By 2020 it had jumped to $3.69 million.

    Earlier this year, Davenport went before the county commission’s public safety committee. “I come to you this year with a huge need,” she said. By now she had two full-time magistrates and another who worked part time. Davenport said she wanted an additional full-time magistrate. And another secretary. She wanted to increase her budget by 23%.
    So in Tennessee, it appears, indentured slavery still exists, but instead of slaves working the fields, they sit in cells, often in solitary confinement. Just so Rutherford County can profit off of their "hotel".

    Every one of those GD commissioners at the "Public Safety Committee" should be brought up on charges, and placed in a 'hotel' where the breakfast is provided, and definitely not continental...
    High Plains Drifter

    Member thankful for this post:



  4. #304

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Mexicanization in the United States of the 1870s

    The idea that the United States could become Mexicanized was pervasive in the public discourse of the 1870s, with common fears of constant civil war and governmental instability looming on the horizon for the young republic - as was the realized case for our cousin south of the Rio Grande.

    Of course, rather than reform, the temporary salve to instability happened to be, 'Hey, what if we give racist White elites everything?' And so we still have extant all the shitty Constitutional features that really are now driving polarization, inequality, unresponsiveness, and what has been dryly termed 'presidentialism' (caudillismo) in the context of Latin America.

    That the entire national identity is bound up in veneration of the Constitution as a sacralized abstraction of magic freedom paper, rather than as a collection of worthwhile ideas (where its flaws become instantly apparent), is just another potentially-fatal handicap for the country. We literally have nothing to live for as a people if we hold up (the now radically individualized and factionalized reading of) the Constitution as the locus of the American Experiment.

    (A major flaw in many European national identities is that they tend to celebrate themselves according to 'look how we killed those other people real good' - which naturally we share - but at least they almost-universally understand their constitutions to be but a provisional scrap of text.)
    Last edited by Montmorency; 10-10-2021 at 00:17.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  5. #305
    BrownWings: AirViceMarshall Senior Member Furunculus's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2003
    Location
    Forever adrift
    Posts
    5,955

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Don't know if this has featured here in the backroom yet, apologies if it has.

    Pew Research on voter demographics in the US:
    https://www.pewresearch.org/politics...ical-typology/

    I cam out as "Ambivelent Right":
    https://www.pewresearch.org/politics...ivalent-right/
    Furunculus Maneuver: Adopt a highly logical position on a controversial subject where you cannot disagree with the merits of the proposal, only disagree with an opinion based on fundamental values. - Beskar

    Member thankful for this post:



  6. #306
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Kona, Hawaii
    Posts
    2,985

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    I came out as Committed Conservative which I think I'd disagree with. Not that many questions though so I'd say not too accurate.

    I still think the Political Compass quiz is the best one out there, always curious to see how my score shifts over the years: I'm now Economic Left/Right: -2.38
    Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -1.33
    Used to be on the positive numbers of authoritarian a few years ago.

    (A major flaw in many European national identities is that they tend to celebrate themselves according to 'look how we killed those other people real good' - which naturally we share - but at least they almost-universally understand their constitutions to be but a provisional scrap of text.)
    I'd say the major flaw in Europe isn't about who they killed but the desire from the 16th Century onward for similar linguistic, cultural, and religious groups to govern themselves in what came to be Nation-States. The Poles wanting independence for hundreds of years and wanting to retain that independence and their perception of what is 'Polish' is understandable.

    It is certainly easier in the US where there is no 'American' ethnicity even though we've been and are flawed in tolerance of others from even a different part of the country or a different neighborhood.
    As for the European attitude toward their 'constitutions,' well every European government (except the UK) has gone through so many forms of government in the time period of the US constitution that it's natural that they don't venerate it that much. An EU constitution is something to be suspicious of, a new Polish constitution to replace that of the Soviet imposed communist one is also something to be wary of. The US just hasn't had any sort of experience of that kind. The US has never had the sort of totalitarian experience that Europeans have had under Communism, Fascism, and Absolute-Monarchies that it is easy for people to see the US model as better as our history and the advantage of geography have allowed for so much more relative stability and economic growth and success.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
    -Abraham Lincoln


    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

    Member thankful for this post:



  7. #307

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    The Pew test placed me in Outsider Left, I believe because I assigned only a somewhat-positive rating to the Democratic party lol.


    Always good for a laugh.

    A Republican Senate candidate in Ohio is doubling down on a controversial campaign ad, insisting voters need to be aware of an important fact: that the frontrunner in the primary is Jewish.

    Mark Pukita, an IT entrepreneur in the crowded GOP race, during a Thursday night candidate forum defended a campaign ad that questioned the faith of opponent Josh Mandel.

    A moderator at the debate, held by the Ohio Press Network at North Columbus Baptist Church, asked for Pukita to respond to claims that he is “antisemitic and intentionally divisive and inflammatory.”

    "In terms of antisemitism, all I did in an ad was pointed out that Josh is going around saying he's got the Bible in one hand and the constitution in the other. But he's Jewish,” Pukita said. “Everybody should know that though, right?"

    Pukita was referring to a radio ad created by his campaign that criticized Mandel for courting evangelical Christians and frequently visiting churches on the campaign trail.

    Are we seriously supposed to believe the most Christian-values Senate candidate is Jewish?” a voice actor asks in Pukita’s radio ad. “I am so sick of these phony caricatures.”

    “I agree,” a woman replies in the ad. “We keep electing people like this, we’ll just keep getting the same terrible results.”

    Pukita’s response was quickly condemned by Bernie Moreno, another Republican in the race who had the next turn to speak.

    “Josh, nobody should question your faith. That's not right,” Moreno said. “The Jewish religion, the Bible is the Bible. That was hard to hear. I'm sorry about that. That's not right. We're better than that, guys.”
    Mandel is the far-right Jew leading the Republican Ohio Senate primary toward the midterms.


    The US just hasn't had any sort of experience of that kind.
    It's a miracle that our system, which has basically gone out of control everywhere it's been tried, has survived so long here; relative power and wealth is a hell of a thing. A fun alternate history would be a look at US culture following reabsorption and subsequent rebellion into and against the British Empire. Maybe we could get the Slavery Question to blow up both countries (for the better).
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    Member thankful for this post:



  8. #308
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Kona, Hawaii
    Posts
    2,985

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    In terms of antisemitism, all I did in an ad was pointed out that Josh is going around saying he's got the Bible in one hand and the constitution in the other. But he's Jewish,” Pukita said. “Everybody should know that though, right?
    People think Trump was a good Christian somehow, I think a Jewish person is probably more 'christian' than Trump ever was. lol

    It's a miracle that our system, which has basically gone out of control everywhere it's been tried, has survived so long here; relative power and wealth is a hell of a thing. A fun alternate history would be a look at US culture following reabsorption and subsequent rebellion into and against the British Empire. Maybe we could get the Slavery Question to blow up both countries (for the better).
    I've always thought that the biggest miracle in the experiment that is the US is that it even lasted the first 50 years. After the debacle that was the Articles of Confederation it's amazing that everyone was brought on board for the new Constitution instead of just half the States going their own way. It's amazing that the War of 1812 didn't shatter the US and it's amazing that the civil war was delayed as long as it was, any earlier than the 1830s-1840s and the Union would surely have shattered.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
    -Abraham Lincoln


    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

  9. #309

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by spmetla View Post
    I've always thought that the biggest miracle in the experiment that is the US is that it even lasted the first 50 years.

    Yes, and as that historical essay I linked showed, there were plenty of Americans after the Civil War - so I would presume before as well - who were openly concerned that the United States might follow the exact spiral that a hundred years later we began to lovingly deride Latin American countries for.

    it's amazing that the civil war was delayed as long as it was, any earlier than the 1830s-1840s and the Union would surely have shattered.
    1830 Census:
    North: 7m
    Border (Kentucky, Missouri, Maryland, Delaware): 1.35m
    South: 4.6m

    1860 Census:
    North: 19+m
    Border (ditto + Kansas): 3.2m
    South: 9+m

    In 1830 the Northern population was barely bigger than the Southern, many (most?) Northern states had not yet completed their abolition of slavery, the immigration wave of Germans and Irish to the North had not yet begun, the settlement of the West Coast had not yet begun, the religious revivalism of the Second Great Enlightenment had not yet begun, industrialization was minimal and hardly existed outside Massachusetts, there were no rail networks (the canalization craze was only just underway), and the English and French had less of a stake in the political survival of the American polity relative to their interest in continued imports of raw agricultural goods (the UK itself was finally but on the cusp of banning slavery). The South only managed to pick the time to make their move after the North was strong enough to crush them - but also distracted enough to allow them to carry the day with "Redemption."
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 


    Member thankful for this post:



  10. #310

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    SLAVERY IN THE NORTH
    as recorded in the country’s first census, 1790





    Also a striking reminder of how thinly-settled by Europeans were the Allegheny plateau and the future Erie Canal valley.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  11. #311
    Praefectus Fabrum Senior Member Anime BlackJack Champion, Flash Poker Champion, Word Up Champion, Shape Game Champion, Snake Shooter Champion, Fishwater Challenge Champion, Rocket Racer MX Champion, Jukebox Hero Champion, My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion, Funky Pong Champion, Cutie Quake Champion, Fling The Cow Champion, Tiger Punch Champion, Virus Champion, Solitaire Champion, Worm Race Champion, Rope Walker Champion, Penguin Pass Champion, Skate Park Champion, Watch Out Champion, Lawn Pac Champion, Weapons Of Mass Destruction Champion, Skate Boarder Champion, Lane Bowling Champion, Bugz Champion, Makai Grand Prix 2 Champion, White Van Man Champion, Parachute Panic Champion, BlackJack Champion, Stans Ski Jumping Champion, Smaugs Treasure Champion, Sofa Longjump Champion Seamus Fermanagh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Latibulm mali regis in muris.
    Posts
    11,450

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Interesting, though I wonder why this isn't in the Monastery or its own thread.
    "The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman

    "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken

    Member thankful for this post:



  12. #312
    Praefectus Fabrum Senior Member Anime BlackJack Champion, Flash Poker Champion, Word Up Champion, Shape Game Champion, Snake Shooter Champion, Fishwater Challenge Champion, Rocket Racer MX Champion, Jukebox Hero Champion, My House Is Bigger Than Your House Champion, Funky Pong Champion, Cutie Quake Champion, Fling The Cow Champion, Tiger Punch Champion, Virus Champion, Solitaire Champion, Worm Race Champion, Rope Walker Champion, Penguin Pass Champion, Skate Park Champion, Watch Out Champion, Lawn Pac Champion, Weapons Of Mass Destruction Champion, Skate Boarder Champion, Lane Bowling Champion, Bugz Champion, Makai Grand Prix 2 Champion, White Van Man Champion, Parachute Panic Champion, BlackJack Champion, Stans Ski Jumping Champion, Smaugs Treasure Champion, Sofa Longjump Champion Seamus Fermanagh's Avatar
    Join Date
    Jul 2005
    Location
    Latibulm mali regis in muris.
    Posts
    11,450

    Default Re: Former British Colony in Downward Spiral of Ethnic Violence, State Security Impun

    Pew Quiz typed me as "ambivalent right." A pretty fair read on the whole, though one or two of the sixteen I would have preferred a 'gah' or 'both' choice.
    "The only way that has ever been discovered to have a lot of people cooperate together voluntarily is through the free market. And that's why it's so essential to preserving individual freedom.” -- Milton Friedman

    "The urge to save humanity is almost always a false front for the urge to rule." -- H. L. Mencken

    Members thankful for this post (2):



  13. #313

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Seamus Fermanagh View Post
    Interesting, though I wonder why this isn't in the Monastery or its own thread.
    Fair, so I'll serve up more relevant content.




    At the beginning of the week, there was a school shooting in Michigan. The boy, who had been reported as deeply troubled for a long time, was encouraged in his bad habits by his discipline-dismissive parents. They also happened to buy him a pistol for Thanksgiving, and took him training with it days before the shooting. The question of why their son, with reportedly violent and disturbed proclivities, needed or wanted a gun, do not seem to have entered the picture.

    The gun itself was kept unsecured and the shooter brought it in to school with him, attended the meeting between his family and school staff in which the parents rebuffed all concerns, and proceeded to launch a rampage.

    The parents attempted to flee to Canada but were rapidly apprehended and indicted as co-conspirators.

    The father, who has another family, prioritized buying his 15-year-old son a personal firearm (but Black Friday sale!!) over paying child support.

    The shooter's mother, besides the notes in the timeline above, is the sort of person who blogged the following after the 2016 election.

    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 
    Dear President Elect, Mr. Trump. Feels funny to even be writing your name like that, but you made history on Tuesday. I’m not going to lie. I was scared shitless to circle your name on my ballot. I have been back and forth on whether to vote for you, or not vote at all. I struggled to make myself find a way to trust Hillary as a President. I could not. You see, I am an American Woman. I value the equality of the LGBT community, in fact, I hold that in really high regards. I am a feminist. I value womens rights and want to be alive when I see the first woman become President. But as an American Woman, with a 10 year old child I could not have that first woman be Hillary.
    Up until the first debate, I was really trying to find a reason to vote for her. Pro-choice, yes, I am a believer in pro-choice, that a woman should have control over her body. That is something right? That was really the only thing that I could find to try to grasp onto as a reason to not vote for you.
    The first debate, Mr. Trump you came out like a bucking Bronco, you fell flat. You pretty much sucked at debating. If it’s one thing those Clinton’s have, is the ability to speak in public. But I am also a woman, I have a very strong intuition and I personally have always learned to go with my gut feeling (thanks mom). Hillary started speaking, I listened, I looked at her eyes, her permanent, unchanging smile, her ability to show no emotion and it was then, my heart sank, my mind became clear and I knew, absolutely knew that her intentions were not true. Her promises are false. Her voice has an evil cold. Everything she has done, whether it was proven true or not to the public, I knew in the deepest of my gut that I could not let this woman have control over my son’s future.
    Mr. Trump, I actually love that you are a bad public speaker because that showed sincerity, and humility. You changed your mind, and you said “so what”. You made the famous “grab them in the pussy” comment, did it offend me? No. I say things all the time that people take the wrong way, do I mean them, not always. Do I agree that you should of shown your tax returns? No. I don’t care what you do or maybe don’t pay in taxes, I think those are personal and if the Gov’t can lock someone up over $10,000 of unpaid taxes and you slipped on by, then that shows the corruption. I like that you have failed. I love it even more that those failures taught lessons and made you one of the most successful Business Men in my history. I love that you are not from the political spotlight, maybe you are the hope that can really uncover the politicians for what I believe they really are. I have high hopes you will shut down Big Pharma, make health care affordable for me and my MIDDLE CLASS family again. I hope you uncover the cure for cancer, because there is one, we all know it, but you are the one to prove it. I’m not scared of your big personality and quick temper. There is a whole house of representatives that still have to approve if you decide to get pissed at China and blow them up.
    The Wall. The famous Wall. See Mr. Trump, I support that wall. I am not racist. In fact my grandfather came straight off the boat in Italy. Fought, struggled and had to prove his way to be an American Citizen. He went through the great depression, he then started a successful coil company here in MI where he employed other hard working Americans and paid them a good wage. I want every non-American that wants to live in this great country to have to go through the same process. I don’t even know where we went wrong with that, but if you want to be here, work here, live here damnit, fucking earn it and prove it.
    As a female and a Realtor, thank you for allowing my right to bear arms. Allowing me to be protected if I show a home to someone with bad intentions. Thank you for respecting that Amendment.
    Thank you for wanting to put our Veterans first. Why we send so much money overseas when we have so much help we need to provide here is beyond me.
    You see Mr. Trump I can go on and on, in fact I used to think Democrat. I don’t believe in God and Im quite opposite of your typical “republican”. But now I am 38 years old. I have a family. My husband and I both work full time jobs. I have watched our insurance premiums double. I cannot afford to buy into this Obamacare. For my family its over $600 a month with deductibles. We bust our ass Mr. Trump. I pay taxes, my husband pays his child support, I donate to charities.. We are good fucking Americans that cannot get ahead. And what makes me sick, is people that come over here from other countries and get free everything.
    You see Mr. Trump, I need you to stop common core. My son struggles daily, and my teachers tell me they hate teaching it but the HAVE to. Their pay depends on these stupid fucking test scores. I have to pay for a Tutor, why? Because I can’t figure out 4th grade math. I used to be good at math. I can’t afford a Tutor, in fact I sacrifice car insurance to make sure my son gets a good education and hopefully succeeds in life. My parents teach at a school where their kids come from illegal immigrant parents. Most of their parents are locked up. They don’t care about learning and threaten to kill my mom for caring about their grades. Do you realize Mr. Trump that they get free tutors, free tablets from our Government so they can succeed. Why cant my son get those things, do we as hard working Americans not deserve that too?
    My husband suffered a stroke and a broken back and we were with just my income. Do you know how hard it is to support a family on only $40,000 a year? I couldn’t qualify for State Aid. I made to much.
    Mr. Trump, this is why I voted for you. I see the change that we so desperately need. I see jobs coming back, people having to work for their handouts, money going to who really deserve it. Big Pharma taken down, Monsanto stop poisoning us. Jobs given back to our American workers. I believe YOU are the President who will make these things happen. I have NEVER had this much belief in one person, and you are it.
    If this blog even makes it to your eyes…thank you. From the bottom of my heart.

    Yours Truly,
    A hard working Middle Class Law Abiding Citizen who is sick of getting fucked in the ass and would rather be grabbed by the pussy.


    This appears to have been her only blog post, implying she felt very strongly about her views.

    I can't understand why the parents would look 20 years younger in their mugshot.

    In part because of this shooting and subsequent threats, every public school in Michigan shut down for the next day. And it was bad enough that almost all children growing up in contemporary America have to endure routine "active shooter" (or more euphemistically, "stranger on campus") drills. To my awareness there were air raid/nuclear drills during WW2 and the Cold War, but never any "Islamic terrorism" drills disrupting children's lives...

    The Conradian heart of the country.



    In other news, though I don't know if this has been fully confirmed, according to a leak by the QAnon world, Tucker Carlson (who portrays the Biden family as satanic child predators on his program) had Hunter Biden write a college recommendation letter for his son, in 2014.

    “I can't thank you enough for writing that letter to Georgetown on Buckley's behalf,” Carlson wrote in a 2014 email to Biden. “So nice of you. I know it'll help. Hope you're great and we can all get dinner soon.”

    Biden responded: “Hey buddy, I need Buckley's CV if you have one handy, thanks.”
    Latest on Fox News Online, by Newt Gingrich: "Congress must investigate Hunter Biden – and those protecting him. Here's why"

    Uh-huh.
    Last edited by Montmorency; 12-06-2021 at 06:02.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  14. #314

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    So this is a novel one*. During the latest School Shooting, the police arrived in force minutes after the incident began just to set up a cordon around the school, keeping parents at gunpoint from entering to look for their children or confront the shooter. Meanwhile, several officers entered the school to extract their own children, while declining to engage the shooter. They make the Stoneman Douglas security guard look like a hero. It seems the local police were only convinced to confront the shooter by federals, one of whom was wounded while eliminating the shooter.

    https://twitter.com/paleofuture/stat...52093354536961 [VIDEO]

    19 students died along with their two teachers. The town where the incident occurred spends up to 40% of its municipal budget on police.

    After entering the building, the perpetrator walked down two short hallways, entered a classroom that was internally connected to another classroom, and opened fire on the children and two teachers in the room.[36] All of the victims were located in the fourth grade classroom where he locked the door.[54] According to a male student who hid in the adjoining classroom, the perpetrator came in and crouched a bit, saying "it's time to die", before starting shooting.[55] Afterwards, an officer had called out "Yell if you need help!" In response, a girl in the same classroom said "Help", the perpetrator heard the girl, entered the classroom, and shot her.[56]


    Meanwhile, just as research has found that stronger state oversight capacity reduces tax evasion, stronger state oversight capacity prevents non-reporting of killings by police.

    #Refundtheadministrativestate


    *Not novel in the aggregate of police encounters
    Last edited by Montmorency; 05-28-2022 at 07:40.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  15. #315
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Kona, Hawaii
    Posts
    2,985

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Well, it's certainly been a good example to show how arming teachers and staff is not the solution the Republicans think it is. If properly trained police can fail why would we expect a teacher to do better.

    I honestly think semi-automatic rifles of all types should only be available to citizens in a state-santioned militia, are serving or honorably discharged military or law enforcement members, with only a few exceptions for some special circumstances (movie props, controlled gun ranges, certain types of hunting, etc...).

    I'll never understand the hype against registering firearms, it's not difficult to do and is what separates legal gun owners from the criminal community. Not to mention it's hard to have a "well-regulated militia" if you don't know who to call up in the community in case of invasion.

    This kid turning 18 and buying guns super easy just blows my mind. At least in Hawaii there's some wait periods and applying for a permit to buy guns that only lasts for a year.
    Last edited by spmetla; 05-29-2022 at 04:26.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
    -Abraham Lincoln


    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

    Member thankful for this post:



  16. #316

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by spmetla View Post
    Well, it's certainly been a good example to show how arming teachers and staff is not the solution the Republicans think it is. If properly trained police can fail why would we expect a teacher to do better.

    I honestly think semi-automatic rifles of all types should only be available to citizens in a state-santioned militia, are serving or honorably discharged military or law enforcement members, with only a few exceptions for some special circumstances (movie props, controlled gun ranges, certain types of hunting, etc...).

    I'll never understand the hype against registering firearms, it's not difficult to do and is what separates legal gun owners from the criminal community. Not to mention it's hard to have a "well-regulated militia" if you don't know who to call up in the community in case of invasion.

    This kid turning 18 and buying guns super easy just blows my mind. At least in Hawaii there's some wait periods and applying for a permit to buy guns that only lasts for a year.
    Reportedly Trump has the same instinct, until the NRA reps pay him visits to quell it.

    One of the most extraordinary moments of Donald J. Trump’s presidency was an hourlong meeting with U.S. senators in the aftermath of the school shooting in Parkland, Fla., in which he forcefully argued for a litany of gun safety measures that the National Rifle Association had long opposed.

    Mr. Trump’s support for gun control measures — which he unrolled on live television from the White House on Feb. 28, 2018 — astonished lawmakers from both parties. But the next day, N.R.A. officials met with Mr. Trump without any cameras or reporters in the room, and he immediately backed down.

    That apparent surrender to N.R.A. pressure came to sum up Mr. Trump’s record on gun control in the eyes of his critics.

    Unbeknownst to the public, however, Mr. Trump again pushed inside the White House for significant new gun-control measures more than a year later, after a pair of gruesome shooting sprees that unfolded over 13 hours. Those discussions have not previously been reported.

    On Aug. 3, 2019, a far-right gunman killed 23 people at a Walmart store in El Paso. Early the next morning, a man shot and killed nine people outside a bar in Dayton, Ohio. Both assailants used semiautomatic rifles.

    At the White House the next day, Mr. Trump was so shaken by the weekend’s violence that he questioned aides about a specific potential solution and made clear he wanted to take action, according to three people present during the conversation.

    “What are we going to do about assault rifles?” Mr. Trump asked.

    “Not a damn thing,” Mick Mulvaney, his acting chief of staff, replied.
    "Take the guns first, go through due process second" - Donald Trump


    Hey, what you can say about the man is that he's a New Yorker born and bred. Among the other things that can be said about him.

    But I do think our gun culture madness is something that ironically has to be carefully taught, it goes so far against normal human psychology. Or maybe once everyone is made out as your blood enemy it's natural no one would submit to being "disarmed" by the enemy.

    So of course the statistical core of the gun problem is the level of availability and supply, with pistols being the biggest day-to-day risk factor.

    Canada's government has just proposed halting nationally the sale and transfer of handguns, which the Federalist SCOTUS would never permit here. Something that could at extremity, in theory, garner a minimum level of Republican support is another component to Canada's proposal, which is restricting firearm access to those with convictions for harrassment and domestic violence (which are in fact very prominent indicators of propensity to gun violence). And since a preponderance of gun crimes are perpetrated by young men with no or little criminal history, raising the age of majority with respect to purchase/ownership from 18 to 21 is another decen small-bore proposal (arguably needs to be even higher...).

    It's all nibbling around the edges of course, and might have been viable a decade ago, before it became a partisan consensus that any putative restriction on firearms is just a ploy by the liberal Marxists to suppress White Christian liberation.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  17. #317
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    7,978

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    Reportedly Trump has the same instinct, until the NRA reps pay him visits to quell it.



    "Take the guns first, go through due process second" - Donald Trump


    Hey, what you can say about the man is that he's a New Yorker born and bred. Among the other things that can be said about him.

    But I do think our gun culture madness is something that ironically has to be carefully taught, it goes so far against normal human psychology. Or maybe once everyone is made out as your blood enemy it's natural no one would submit to being "disarmed" by the enemy.

    So of course the statistical core of the gun problem is the level of availability and supply, with pistols being the biggest day-to-day risk factor.

    Canada's government has just proposed halting nationally the sale and transfer of handguns, which the Federalist SCOTUS would never permit here. Something that could at extremity, in theory, garner a minimum level of Republican support is another component to Canada's proposal, which is restricting firearm access to those with convictions for harrassment and domestic violence (which are in fact very prominent indicators of propensity to gun violence). And since a preponderance of gun crimes are perpetrated by young men with no or little criminal history, raising the age of majority with respect to purchase/ownership from 18 to 21 is another decen small-bore proposal (arguably needs to be even higher...).

    It's all nibbling around the edges of course, and might have been viable a decade ago, before it became a partisan consensus that any putative restriction on firearms is just a ploy by the liberal Marxists to suppress White Christian liberation.
    What's the argument against following through with the Second Amendment and requiring registering of all firearms, as per a well ordered militia?

  18. #318

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Pannonian View Post
    What's the argument against following through with the Second Amendment and requiring registering of all firearms, as per a well ordered militia?
    The SCOTUS is deciding a case on public carry licensing that may be the next landmark case in expanding the Second Amendment. Their arguments against any putative licensing would probably be similar to those espoused in the Florida law forbidding firearm registration:

    A list, record, or registry of legally owned firearms or law-abiding firearm owners is not a law enforcement tool and can become an instrument for profiling, harassing, or abusing law-abiding citizens based on their choice to own a firearm and exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed under the United States Constitution. Further, such a list, record, or registry has the potential to fall into the wrong hands and become a shopping list for thieves.
    3. A list, record, or registry of legally owned firearms or law-abiding firearm owners is not a tool for fighting terrorism, but rather is an instrument that can be used as a means to profile innocent citizens and to harass and abuse American citizens based solely on their choice to own firearms and exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed under the United States Constitution.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  19. #319
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    7,978

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    The SCOTUS is deciding a case on public carry licensing that may be the next landmark case in expanding the Second Amendment. Their arguments against any putative licensing would probably be similar to those espoused in the Florida law forbidding firearm registration:
    What are the arguments against a well ordered militia? It's an integral part of the Second Amendment, but the above makes no mention of it at all. I don't think I've ever seen any Second Amendmenters mention it either.

    Member thankful for this post:



  20. #320
    Coffee farmer extraordinaire Member spmetla's Avatar
    Join Date
    Sep 2002
    Location
    Kona, Hawaii
    Posts
    2,985

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    The gun lobby likes to ignore the "well-regulated militia" portion. I've always loved arguing with fellow gun fans by pointing out that 2nd and 3rd words of the second amendment are "well-regulated" with no mention of needing to stockpile to fight against government tyranny or anything looney like that.

    Crazy thing is that the NRA was actually pro-regulations in the 30s and 40s, the same time period people love looking back to with its "greatest generation."
    1934–1970s
    After the passage of the National Firearms Act (NFA) of 1934, the first federal gun-control law in the US, the NRA formed its Legislative Affairs Division to update members with facts and analysis of upcoming bills.[36][37] Karl Frederick, NRA president in 1934, during congressional NFA hearings testified "I have never believed in the general practice of carrying weapons. I seldom carry one. ... I do not believe in the general promiscuous toting of guns. I think it should be sharply restricted and only under licenses."[38] Four years later, the NRA backed the Federal Firearms Act of 1938.[39]

    The NRA supported the NFA along with the Gun Control Act of 1968 (GCA), which together created a system to federally license gun dealers and established restrictions on particular categories and classes of firearms.[40] The organization opposed a national firearms registry, an initiative favored by then-President Lyndon Johnson.[39]
    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nation...%E2%80%931970s

    Over the last half century though it transitioned from being something for responsible gun ownership into a cult of zero regulations.

    As a firearm owner I think that in the US with its massive quantity of firearms around and often poorly stored that firearms safety should be one of the many things added to High School civics classes. Hundreds of americans die annually just from gun accidents, I'd also like there to be stronger regulations for firearms storage, especially for households with children. A loaded revolver in a bedstand drawer should not be acceptable. If you live in a place where you feel the need to really need gun access that quickly there are quick-access pistol safes available. Yes, the costs are prohibitive, but is it worth not having your kid accidently kill themselves or something else when rooting around in dad's drawer.

    "Am I not destroying my enemies when I make friends of them?"
    -Abraham Lincoln


    Four stage strategy from Yes, Minister:
    Stage one we say nothing is going to happen.
    Stage two, we say something may be about to happen, but we should do nothing about it.
    Stage three, we say that maybe we should do something about it, but there's nothing we can do.
    Stage four, we say maybe there was something we could have done, but it's too late now.

  21. #321

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Another choice reference to present:

    Quote Originally Posted by II Amendment
    A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.
    Quote Originally Posted by Constitution of Virginia, 1776
    SEC. 13. That a well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defence of a free State; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided, as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.
    Quote Originally Posted by Constitution of Pennsylvania, 1776
    XIII. That the people have a right to bear arms for the defence of themselves and the state; and as standing armies in the time of peace are dangerous to liberty, they ought not to be kept up; And that the military should be kept under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power.
    [...]
    SECT. 5. The freemen of this commonwealth and their sons shall be trained and armed for its defence under such regulations, restrictions, and exceptions as the general assembly shall by law direct, preserving always to the people the right of choosing their colonels and all commissioned officers under that rank, in such manner and as often as by the said laws shall be directed.
    Quote Originally Posted by Constitution of Pennsylvania, 1790
    That the right of the citizens to bear arms, in defence of themselves and the state, shall not be questioned.
    Note both the overlap and contrast of the Virginia and Pennsylvania state constitutions, and to the federal constitution. Some people want us to pretend that the federal constitution says what the Pennsylvania constitution says.

    If they all mean the same thing, why don't they say the same thing? 18th-century statesmen were very deliberate with their phrasing, as SCOTUS jurisprudence has always recognized in principle.

    But the "debate" in the US has come far beyond such abstractions as textualism and enumerated vs. unenumerated vs. common law rights. We as individuals and a society have a significant rights-based interest in defending ourselves from guns and the assholes who love them for the sake of the violence they can unleash against "domestic enemies." This interest is rejected by a vehement minority that stands in consistent revulsion towards all liberal values, and an industrial lobby that in (inadvertent) collaboration with Hollywood and others has convinced much of the general population that the mere availability of firearms could enhance their personal security.

    Private guns are not permitted in the presence of former or current presidents, and this restriction is broadly without challenge. The common folk do not dare hope to be conferred with such a level of security I guess.
    Last edited by Montmorency; 06-01-2022 at 04:55.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  22. #322
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    7,978

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Has anyone suggested that gun owners should pass physical and tactical tests? Surely anyone who can't run or fight worth a damn isn't part of a well regulated militia.

  23. #323

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    In Missouri:
    1. Gunman A is open carrying his rifle at the store
    2. He is accosted outside by gunman B who robs A of the rifle
    3. A retrieves another gun from his car and fires at B, who is struck. A flees.
    5. Unknown gunman C arrives, shoots B, flees.
    Booker was shot several times. Two innocent bystanders, both women, had just pulled up to the market and were also shot, Martin said. Their injuries were not life-threatening.
    Fucking degeneracy.





    Run... they say it's Armageddon
    Hide... we're very near the end
    Fear... the promise of a nation
    That's getting harder to defend

    Come in, come in
    Relax, relax
    There's no secrecy
    Please take more than I have
    I know, I know
    You are, you are
    Trying to scare me
    I've got nothing to spare
    Save all, save all the shit about spreading freedom
    It sounds like a scam to me

    Holy war...
    Show me what you've been concealing
    All in the name of peace and love
    What are we fighting for?
    I thought the point was healing
    Clearly I was dead wrong

    Truth... beyond your comprehension
    Lies... above and far beyond
    Have faith that every execution
    Will be televised onto your phone

    Come in, come in
    Relax, relax
    There's no privacy
    'Cause I am what I am
    I know, I know
    You are, you are
    Trying to shock me
    I don't easily scare
    Spare all, spare all the shit about spreading freedom
    It's a shameless lie to me

    Holy war...
    Show me what you've been concealing
    All in the name of peace and love
    What are we fighting for?
    I thought the point was healing
    Clearly I was dead wrong
    Last edited by Montmorency; 06-02-2022 at 00:56.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  24. #324
    Headless Senior Member Pannonian's Avatar
    Join Date
    Apr 2005
    Posts
    7,978

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Quote Originally Posted by Montmorency View Post
    Fucking degeneracy.



    Sounds like one of those GTA videos you'd see on youtube showcasing some particularly puzzling AI interactions. Typically Franklin harassing some random in the presence of police, until the random loses patience and pulls out a gun, upon which the police pull their guns, and the resultant shootout ends with several bystanders dead and the rest running screaming.

  25. #325

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    There aren't many franchises more quintessentially American than GTA. Though I suppose one could invent an analogous sandbox for Mexico or Brazil.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  26. #326

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Rockstar should do that in their next GTA game. Add in the ability to travel back and forth from an American city by plane.
    Wooooo!!!

  27. #327

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    In one recent poll, 31% of Democrats and 3% of Republicans felt the country would be safer if there were no guns, compared to 3% and 21% respectively for everyone having guns. 85% of Democrats believe we could stop mass shootings if we really tried, compared to 56% of Republicans (the other option was "Mass shootings are unfortunately something we have to accept as part of a free society").

    A friendly reminder that American arms proliferation is a global problem.

    The U.S. has a long history of exporting firearms and ammunition to support its security partners. Yet few citizens are fully aware of the sheer scale of this trade and the central role the U.S. government plays in brokering these deals. It works mainly through two federal mechanisms: Foreign Military Sales, in which the Defense Department facilitates arms deals with foreign governments, and the recently created Direct Commercial Sales, in which other U.S. agencies issue export licenses to industry vendors so they can sell directly to foreign customers.

    As a result of these programs, U.S. arms sales have quickened in recent years. One example of this is the Merida Initiative, a U.S.-Mexico counternarcotics program launched in 2008, which quadrupled exports of U.S. military firearms, parts and ammunition to Mexico from less than $10 million annually to roughly $40 million per year. This expansion has been criticized for lacking the oversight needed to help ensure that weaponry was not being diverted to Mexican security forces involved in human rights violations or criminal activity. Over the past 10 years, lethal violence has also exploded in Mexico, and the proportion of homicides involving firearms soared.

    Mexico’s gun violence epidemic is complicated by a steady flow of illegal firearms coming across the border from the United States. While legal firearm purchases in Mexico can only be made in a single gun store located on a Mexico City army base, an average of 212,000 firearms are trafficked illegally into Mexico each year as a result of straw-man purchases in the more than 52,000 federally licensed dealers in the U.S. It is for this reason that, after determining that more than 70 percent of the firearms recovered in crime scenes in Mexico could be traced back to the U.S., the Mexican government filed a lawsuit against major U.S. gun manufacturers and distributors in 2021 seeking punitive damages of at least $10 billion.

    Arms sales from the U.S. got another boost more recently, during the administration of former U.S. President Trump. Domestic gun production fell sharply between 2016 and 2018—the so-called Trump Slump—owing to diminished fears of gun restrictions during a Republican administration. This incentivized U.S. gun manufacturers to scale up sales to foreign markets. They exported a record-breaking 488,000 firearms in 2017 and another 554,000 in 2018, along with tens of millions of rounds of ammunition, including to countries affected by conflict and systemic human rights abuses. That year, the U.S. authorized the transfer of more than 117,000 Sig Sauer pistols to Thailand, the United Arab Emirates and other countries. In 2018, more than 86,000 semi-automatic handguns, mostly Glocks, went to the Philippines. And in 2020, overseas sales of semi-automatic pistols more than doubled, with many going to Brazil and Mexico, countries with some of the highest levels of homicide and police violence in the world.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  28. #328

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Not much new, but deserves to be reposted:

    I think about guns, because our country is addicted to guns.

    I live in rural Kentucky, in a county with a population of 23,000 people, and I have been told half a dozen times lately that I should be carrying a gun when I jog at the local park. What kind of gun? I wonder, as I lie there in the soft, predawn dark. What size gun? How often would I need to practice to remember how to use it? Where, in my spandex running clothes, would I carry a gun? I tripped on a tree root back in December and fell flat on my face. Would the gun go off if I fell? What if I shot myself? What if I shot someone else? Could I shoot someone?

    I think about guns because guns are what I talked about most for the last several months as I ran in our local Republican primary for county magistrate. Not gas prices. Not the “stolen” election. Not caravans at the southern border. Not abortion. Not the mundane, budget-related duties of the seat I was running for. I talked about guns.

    I am a Democrat who ran for local office as a Republican because in Anderson County, Kentucky, right down the road from the state capitol, Democrats no longer have a prayer of winning a partisan election, even if it is to serve in a nonpartisan job. This is die-hard Trump country now. Donald Trump won the county in both 2016 and 2020 with more than 70 percent of the vote. I figured that running on the Republican ticket, talking neighbor to neighbor with Republicans in a sensible manner about issues like guns would give me a fair shot.

    I was wrong. I not only lost, I lost spectacularly. No matter how I tried, I could not convince voters that I was not going to show up at their door one day with a checklist, authorized by either our Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, or Democratic president, Joe Biden, and seize their guns. And when I was honest in telling them I believe AR-15-style guns are weapons of war and should be banned altogether? Voters laughed.

    The term “gun culture” gets tossed around. But what does it mean to live in a place rooted in Trumpian (angry, unabashed, aggrieved, armed-to-the-teeth) 2022 gun culture?

    I think about guns because, two days before our May 17 primary, a friend removed my campaign signs from his yard. Around 9:30 that morning, while I was driving to Sunday school and church, he had heard the pop-pop of gunshots as men in trucks drove by, randomly yelling my name and Hillary Clinton’s and cursing about liberals.


    I think about guns because, in mid-April, it was rumored that a local machine parts shop had a doormat in the store with the face of a longtime female magistrate on it. It read “Wipe Your Feet Here.” I wanted to see this doormat for myself and ask some questions: Did they have a supply? Was it for sale? Who created it? The first two friends I told begged me not to go. Did I know the owner carries a gun? If I went, they each cautioned independently, would I take a law enforcement officer with me. I thought this sounded ridiculous. “Just have the officer wait for you in the parking lot!” one insisted. When I arrived at the shop, without the police, I pulled in behind a grayish gold truck with a “Let’s Go Brandon” sticker on the back window, and sat there thinking, “I don’t belong here. What am I doing?” I left.

    I think about guns because, later the same day, I made myself go back to the shop. The owner was not there, so I asked the woman behind the counter my questions. She was angry. She went in the back to get a man. What man? Would he be armed and angry? I left as fast as I could.

    People here openly carry their guns. Whether I am stopping by Kroger to pick up ice cream, grabbing a coffee on Main Street or stocking up on household supplies at Walmart, I am constantly aware that there are people around me carrying guns.


    Who are the good guys with guns? Who are the bad guys with guns? How do you know?

    I think about guns because, in the March 23 issue of the Anderson News, our weekly newspaper, there was a front-page story about a Republican state senator, Adrienne Southworth, who lives in my town, headlined, “Southworth bill would alter guns in school law.” Southworth’s bill proposed that citizens be allowed to carry guns in school buildings when students are not present.

    I think about guns because I believe the Southworth bill was in response to the man who came to our school board meeting a few months earlier wearing a gun on his person. I was the citizen who pointed out the gun to the superintendent, after which the man was led outside to put his gun in his vehicle before returning to speak during the public comments section of the meeting.


    I think about guns because the editor of our weekly newspaper regularly voices his full-throated support for guns. On June 14, he wrote, “Even in a nation so thoroughly divided by the 2nd Amendment, it’s nearly impossible to find anyone who doesn’t think schools need to be protected by trained professionals with guns and hardened as well as possible against intruders.” Nearly impossible? Really?

    I think about guns because, in the previous week’s newspaper, the same editor wrote that when we reelected our county attorney “in last month’s primary, there isn’t a question that his pro-gun campaign messaging had something to do with it.” The county attorney won his primary handily. He will face no Democratic opposition in the general election.

    Gun culture in the United States is like kudzu, often called “the invasive vine that ate the South” because of the way it systematically, over time, suffocated and destroyed native grasses, trees and plants until they became extinct. We can no longer go to school, parades, shopping malls, restaurants, concerts, night clubs, the grocery store, without wondering whether this is where we will get shot.


    Guns culture is destroying our lives. And the solution most often proposed? More guns.

    I have been waking up thinking about guns because, suddenly, there is a suspicious man hanging around the park trail where I jog. One day he drove up to talk to me. I thought he was trying to sell me drugs. A few days later, he tried to get a woman to go home with him. One morning I was running my last lap and spotted the man in a dark corner of the park, under some trees, as if he was lying in wait for me. I called law enforcement. As I stood next to the police car giving a description, I wondered, Would I feel safer here with a gun?

    I think about guns, because thinking about guns in 2022 America is part of our all-day, everyday lives. When I warned a woman who often walks her dogs at the park about the suspicious man, she said as casually as if she were offering me a mint, “Oh, I’ll start carrying my gun. Do you have a gun?”
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  29. #329

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    Good thing this fellow had cultural capital.

    Last summer, Nathan Connolly and his wife, Shani Mott, welcomed an appraiser into their house in Baltimore, hoping to take advantage of historically low interest rates and refinance their mortgage.

    They believed that their house — improved with a new $5,000 tankless water heater and $35,000 in other renovations — was worth much more than the $450,000 that they paid for it in 2017. Home prices have been on the rise nationwide since the pandemic; in Baltimore, they have gone up 42 percent in the past five years, according to Zillow.com.

    But 20/20 Valuations, a Maryland appraisal company, put the home’s value at $472,000, and in turn, loanDepot, a mortgage lender, denied the couple a refinance loan.

    Dr. Connolly said he knew why: He, his wife and three children, aged 15, 12 and 9, are Black. A professor of history at Johns Hopkins University, Dr. Connolly is an expert on redlining and the legacy of white supremacy in American cities, and much of his research focuses on the role of race in the housing market.

    Months after that first appraisal, the couple applied for another refinance loan, removed family photos and had a white male colleague — another Johns Hopkins professor — stand in for them. The second appraiser valued the house at $750,000.
    The professor's best-known work:

    Many people characterize urban renewal projects and the power of eminent domain as two of the most widely despised and often racist tools for reshaping American cities in the postwar period. In A World More Concrete, N. D. B. Connolly uses the history of South Florida to unearth an older and far more complex story. Connolly captures nearly eighty years of political and land transactions to reveal how real estate and redevelopment created and preserved metropolitan growth and racial peace under white supremacy. Using a materialist approach, he offers a long view of capitalism and the color line, following much of the money that made land taking and Jim Crow segregation profitable and preferred approaches to governing cities throughout the twentieth century.

    A World More Concrete argues that black and white landlords, entrepreneurs, and even liberal community leaders used tenements and repeated land dispossession to take advantage of the poor and generate remarkable wealth. Through a political culture built on real estate, South Florida’s landlords and homeowners advanced property rights and white property rights, especially, at the expense of more inclusive visions of equality. For black people and many of their white allies, uses of eminent domain helped to harden class and color lines. Yet, for many reformers, confiscating certain kinds of real estate through eminent domain also promised to help improve housing conditions, to undermine the neighborhood influence of powerful slumlords, and to open new opportunities for suburban life for black Floridians.
    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



  30. #330

    Default Re: Trump Thread

    LAPD officer who reported colleagues for rape was accidentally beaten to death during a training exercise.

    Vitiate Man.

    History repeats the old conceits
    The glib replies, the same defeats


    Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 



Page 11 of 12 FirstFirst ... 789101112 LastLast

Bookmarks

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  
Single Sign On provided by vBSSO