Politics is Stupid

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In America black people are only 14% of the population. Exactly how many did they expect to see? It’s race baiting, from the selection of the photo to cut out and/or obscure the minorities, to the quote, and the comment that almost everyone is white. No shit. It would be kind of odd if they were mostly Asian wouldn’t it? Not to mention the racism inherent in assuming you can tell someone’s ethnicity by glancing around at a party.

I mean compared to the staff, not talent, at most major media companies it’s damn near a multicultural smorgasbord. It’s implied racism, and people read it and it feeds their belief system.

I know I am doing the same thing they are in reverse, taking a couple things and building them into a whole story. Political packaging used to be the domain of career politicians, now everyone is into it. It’s become something of a pet peeve. Everyone has to win every narrative.

In other news, while I’m not sure about Kennedy’s fitness for anything, the people yelling at him the most seem to have some sort of conflict of interest here, just maybe.

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Also, why is yelling at the candidate during a confirmation hearing the standard now?

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So our preciouses SANDF is in the DRC.

Apparently troops from Rwanda have fired on our troops.

Cue Ramaphala “Please don’t fire on our troops”… and Rwanda saying something to the effect of “Come and get it”.

Apparently this was enough to spark some heavy animosity, and the ANC, in order to try and not lose face, will be sending in more troops to the DRC.

I have the feeling the DRC may just well become our Vietnam.

And the state of our army is shocking. In 1988/90 it was world-class, now today it’s but a shadow of its former self, leaving the country undefended.

Bloody cocksucking politicians.

Apparently the SANDF is there to protect some of their investments under the guise of a “peacekeeping force”…

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Ahh, code for people are going to die for years because no one has the balls to actually throw down and fight. Billions wasted and many times the actual deaths that a real war would cause, just spread out over a socially acceptable time period.

The concept of peacekeeping is what has made so many conflict zones so deadly for so long. If Bob and Joe hate each other, what causes more damage? Letting them do everything in their power to mess up everything each of them does, with occasional bouts of complete violence that damages everyone around them. Or just letting them go at it and one of them dies.

I feel for any nation that has natural resources in greater quantities than they can defend themselves.

Also see, Hamas, Hezbollah, Afghanistan, Vietnam. Korea was close to real war, most of the wars in Africa and South America. As much damage as wars do, multigenerational conflicts do much worse.

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There’s been a lot of misfires in the first two weeks of Trump’s second term. Things that are not thought out and are pushed through, then halted and reversed when the unintended consequences immediately appear.

The situation with Colombia that lasted a few hours before they agreed to accept deportees was hailed as a sign that America was respected again. But when it came to what you might call the signature portion of Trump’s tariffs against Canada, Mexico and China, he’s hesitated twice.

First, it was going to be “these are going in on Day One”, which got changed to February 1st. On January 31st, a reporter asked him if there was anything those countries could do to prevent the tariffs from happening, could they negotiate, Trump said no. He was going to push them through and did the following day. “Promises made, promises kept” is how his press secretary announced it. But after Canada, Mexico and China announced the tariffs they would impose in response, the start of Trump’s tariffs were delayed again.

Another misfire came when a memo was released that halted government spending and the unintended consequence was government websites that people rely on for getting benefits went offline. One woman who gets SNAP benefits recorded a video where she had a meltdown over losing them. It stated off with her repeating, “Please tell me your f****** kidding me!” about fifteen times before she got to where she could talk about how she depends on them and how she goes hungry at the end of the month so she can make sure her kids have food. The memo was retracted.

Another misfire occurred when Trump issued an directive that included instructions that government agencies could not do business with any company that supports DEI (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion). The Department of Defense had to put purchases of military items on hold because of it.

Another misfire came when the executive orders and executive actions Trump issued where analyzed and found to have characteristics of AI-generated content: vague wording and numbered lists having the same number of 1 for each of the points in the list. Both of these work against carrying out Trump’s directives. “Okay, on page two, item one. No, not that item one. The other item one. Third in the list. Yeah, that item one.”

Another misfire is a four-fold misfire that is pure coincidence in its timing and you really can’t blame Trump for it, but it’s an example of his short-sightedness and/or an example of how he is deliberately causing chaos. For the latter, the theory behind it is he’s deliberately causing damage so he can play the savior and make America great again, again. “Only I can save you” is what he said during the 2024 campaign, in one form or another.

He fires the heads of the Transportation Security Administration and the Coast Guard, disbands the Aviation Security Advisory Committee, froze hiring all air traffic controllers and fires 100 top FAA security officers. And now, in the span of about a week, there’s been three airplane crashes. Again, pure coincidence and as much as you want to blame him for it, you can’t. But Trump made up for the lack of sources to blame by blaming Biden and Biden’s initiatives. No surprise there. But you might be surprised that the crashes, according to Trump, are the result of people with mental disabilities, physical disabilities, missing limbs and dwarfism. That evil DEI is to blame for the crashes.

So much for MARA (make America respected again).
 

But one of the biggest misfire comes from a different kind of fire: the California wildfires. Trump had been saying that they have all this water, so why aren’t they using that to put out the fires?

The wildfires are happening in southern California. On the day officials announced that certain fires were under control and had been 100% contained, Trump directed the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers to open the floodgates on two dams in northern California.

One report said the normal output from those dams is about 53 cubic feet per minute. Another report said when local officials found out, they convinced the Corps to not release as much as they were told to. It’s a good thing they did, because what was released was about 1000 cubic feet per minute, 1887% of normal.

Areas in northern California hundreds of miles away from Los Angeles where the fires are were almost flooded. The water didn’t magically teleport to L.A. to put out the fires that were already out. The water that farmers will need for their crops is gone. The reservoirs are not going to fill back up to the same level in the next four months. It would take massive snowstorms to put snow on the mountains that will then melt in the spring and massive rainstorms to refill those reservoirs. Both of those would be catastrophic while they are happening.

But no one know firefighting better than Trump and no one knows how water works better than Trump and no one knows geography better than Trump, and this is what we got. His answer to high food prices is a lack of oil, so “Drill, baby, drill” has been his mantra. His mantra for solving this problem was “Flow, baby, flow”.

And now we wait until summer to see the new problem his short-sightedness has caused: food shortages by crops that can’t be harvested due to a lack of water, in a state that provides about 60% of the produce for the nation.

It’s a good thing migrants are still showing up to work now that Trump is going forward with his deportation plans and ordered agents to “dress for the camera”. There isn’t going to be a shortage of workers to pick the crops this year.

Oh, right.

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Actually, a lot of people are blaming Trump, and I can see why. Fire a lot of air traffic controllers*, then have crashes because the remaining controllers are overworked? Yeah, that looks like a direct line to me.

There’s also the fact that the DEI initiative that Trump is blaming was actually from Trump’s first term in office. That one is complete nonsense anyway, but it’s still a self-foot shooting.

* Yes, I’m aware that the controllers were induced to quit rather than being fired, but it amounts to the same thing

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Yeah, and a lot of those workers still showing up to work actually voted for Trump :roll_eyes: .
There are also multiple stories going around about how people who voted for Trump have had their spouses deported “I didn’t think the leopards would eat my face”.
FAFO - they are now at the finding out part.

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Oh for goodness’ sake.
There is a guy called Greg Palast who has recently written an article stating that Trump stole the election and that Harris actually won.
You know - the exact same claim that Republicans made and that Democrats have been mocking them for for the last 4 years :roll_eyes:. A lot of people are taking his “evidence” at face value instead of looking at it critically - another thing that Democrats mocked Republicans for (my eyes are almost facing backwards at this point)

Trump won!
I don’t like that Trump won, but that still doesn’t alter the facts.
I like David Pakman’s take on this. He did the same thing as he did with Trump’s “evidence”. He looked at it objectively and critically, and concluded that the evidence just doesn’t stack up - exactly as he did last time.

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Haven’t seen a confirmation on any of them. They are all my friend’s sister’s cousin’s housekeeper, or my Uber driver, or my neighbor. And no details on any of them. There are people being detained for being brown and speaking Spanish, but that’s not exactly a new problem. It is a problem, but it’s inherent in the Border Patrol, and they should sure as hell be better at this shit than that.

Not saying it hasn’t happened, but I haven’t read a confirmed story yet.

Same thing Hillary did for years. She was on record pretty recently saying the 2016 election was stolen. Apparently no one can just lose any more.

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As much as I might not like having to say this, it turns out everything Rudy Giuliani was doing was worth it. Right after he was found in contempt of court a second time (and given a paltry penalty of $200 a day if he kept it up), he didn’t show up for his next court appearance. His lawyers were there, wondering where he was.

The reason he skipped it is he worked out some kind of settlement with Freeman and Moss. Some amount of payment that they agreed to, which won’t be made public, and he gets to keep all of his property. The only real concession is he had to agree to never defame them ever again. Well, ladies, whatever you agreed to, now I hope it was worth it for you.
 

There’s a whole lot going on as Trump bulldozes the U.S. Government. There’s court orders suspending the different actions, and there will obviously be appeals from the Trump side, which is his M.O. The goal seems to be do this as fast as they can so that by the time it actually reaches the courts, the damage has been done and can’t be reversed.

Elon Musk is in the White House almost daily, if not daily. He brought one of his kids with him during a press conference in the Oval Office, and the kid said to Trump’s face, “You’re not the president. You need to go away.” Pro tip, Donald: When Musk was standing and you were sitting and hunched over, Musk looked like he was in control and you were just there taking up space. It reinforces the idea that Musk is the actual President and you’re just the figurehead.

The DOGE website became a laughingstock when it was discovered it was unsecured. People from the outside were able to get into the database the website uses and make changes. They had fun with those changes. I guess it’s just the level of competence to be expected from Musk’s team, who now have access to the financial records of US citizens. But, don’t worry. They are only supposed to have read-only access, which could never be copied and used for personal gain, and certainly isn’t a massive privacy breach for everyone in the US.

There’s been firings of the staff that are in charge of the nuclear arsenal. Pretty much every one of Trump’s picks were approved, including RFK Jr. as Director of the Dept. of Health and Human Services, just in time for a measles outbreak in Texas. Bunches of “retire or be fired” offers.

Trump already went back on his promise to lower food prices and is, of course, blaming Biden for the cost of eggs and whatnot. Because that’s what Presidents really do all day: cause flocks of chickens to contract bird flu, which requires killing the flocks to contain it, leaving less chickens to produce eggs.

Listen up, roosters! A few years ago, you were not performing good enough in the snu snu department. Many of you met the chopping block as a result. Don’t let it happen to you again. Get out there and get cozy with the hens, stat!
 

And of course, Trump is going full steam ahead with his beloved tariffs, with a few pauses as to when they will happen. He’s also saying it’s unfair that some countries have more tariffs on our products than we do on theirs, so he’s going to set matching tariffs.

There’s been two new effects of this.

The first is the head of the Ford Motor Company has said the tariffs could decimate the American car industry. No car or truck made here in the US is 100% made in the USA. There is always something that’s imported to make them, and auto parts from Canada and Mexico are a big portion of them.

He may be biased, but he isn’t wrong. If a consumer has a choice between a US-made car that has 25% tariffs attached to it and a car from Japan, China or elsewhere that only has 10% tariffs attached to it, they’ll go with the 10% tariffs.

Decreased sales will lead to layoffs, which will lead to ripple effects in the cities the laid-off people live in. Will the government have to bail out the US auto industry yet again after the tariffs tank it? How many times will it make they’ve had to do this over the years?

The second effect is a tourism boycott. Since Trump has his sights set on Canada for not just tariffs, but because he wants to make the entire country the 51st US State, Canadians are starting to cancel or move their vacations from the US to other countries like Mexico.

One travel agency in Canada says they lost 30% of their business. Tennessee is a big tourism state, with Nashville and Memphis, and other places like Dollywood near Knoxville. They’re already expecting a decline of tourists from other countries. Other states will, too, very shortly.
 

Finally, one gem of brilliant insight from Trump: He recently said that bullies are always the weakest people. But of course, he’s speaking about other people, not himself.

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On this day in 1942, Executive Order 9066 was signed. How many people who remember Pearl Harbor day also remember this day?

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Govt want to raise VAT because of a shortfall of revenue.

So they’ll try a 2% raise, somebody block it, they’ll go back and forth a bit, then raise it by 1%…

Lots of businesses will close down as they will not be able to weather the 1% increase.

Really dumb politicians.

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Political adjacent.

Buddy of mine is a 20+ year veteran of the NY correctional system. The facility he is at is down more than 20% of it’s recommended manning, and many are worse. Overtime needs are causing 24 hour shifts, with return to duty of the next shift. So 24 up and 8 down. New hires are from NYC, and woefully undertrained and underprepared.

So, they lose control of some facilities, oddly enough he spoke about three or four places losing control of dorms, while the news only mentions one. And then the guards illegally start striking. What’s interesting is that the news is focusing on asks for more pay and benefits, while he is more interested in upping staffing and returning protections to guards. Apparently if a prisoner spits on a guard there is nothing the guard can do about it, so many of them are getting spit on on a regular basis. Which also encourages other attacks.

Hochul has called out the National Guard, and some of the units are refusing to enter the facilities because they are too dangerous. They released a training class a couple weeks early and while they were going through orientation the training SGT got stabbed when he bent over too near a cell. My buddy is betting that caused most of those unprepared dudes to quit on the spot.

Meanwhile AP is reporting about how the prisoners chasing the guards out of the dorms reduces their access to amenities and legal aid. Or how the strike is illegal and the prisoners are suffering due to the lack of guards. Forget the fact that people with decades of experience are finally fed up enough that they can’t take it any more. 30 prisons have some sort of strike going on now.

According to my buddy the prisoners have more freedom than the guards, which might be OK, if there were also repercussions for bad behavior, which seems to be missing. Add into this a bad use of force that caused a death and everyone is on their toes holding their breath.

It’s always wild to get an inside view of news stories like this and it’s hard to remember almost every story we read is barely recognizable to the people involved. Gell-Man Amnesia in action. Mix in a healthy dose of selection bias and it turns out none of us know anything.

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I have “Escape from LA” vibes right now after reading that… :skull::skull::skull::skull::skull::skull:

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I think I know what that is without looking it up because there was a story on an NPR station a few days ago about the forced internment of Japanese-American citizens. George Takei has first-hand knowledge of those camps.

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One of the things I enjoyed about his autobiography, To The Stars, was that it was less about his Star Trek experience and more about how he got there, including a fairly substantial segment on his experience in the camp.

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I actually live fairly close to the Tule Lake internment camp now, where George Takei was interned. I visited last summer, and it was really worth the visit.

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In High School my best friend had a mother who was in a camp. They lost a huge strawberry plantation in CA, with 24 hours to clear out, and spent the war in a camp in the plains. I don’t remember which one. No compensation, no recourse, men with guns loaded them up on trucks. From wealthy land and business owners to tent living in a couple days. It was a horrific action that I believe was motivated more by the success of those immigrants than any sort of danger. Some of this can be proven by the different treatment of Japanese immigrants in Hawaii, where 30% of the population was of Japanese descent.

It might have made sense to send children of immigrants to the European front rather than the Pacific, maybe, but that’s the most that is excusable. I believe some of this was done to German and Italian immigrants, but nowhere near the same as the Japanese and I can’t remember where I read that, so it may be bullshit. (The theater of war part at least)

He did a speech on it in our speech class and so many people had no idea, despite us just covering it the prior year in Social Studies. This is a good touch point whenever some idiot starts spouting off about “They should teach X in schools”. Listen dipshit, they did, and you didn’t listen.

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My CO buddy has been mentioned by name in something the Governor published. He’s lawyered up now, still striking. The law they are protesting has removed solitary confinement as a punishment, which is the only level of administrative punishment they had. They can’t take their cable, Switch, or anything else away, but putting them in solitary can do that. So now anything less than filing more charges, on someone already in prison for life, has no response at all.

Also on the 70% staffing levels, some prisons are making the case that that is fully staffed and trying to do metrics based off that number. Despite some COs pulling 48 hour shifts. My buddy has pulled a couple, then gotten 12 off and gone back in. They are using their loyalty to each other to force them to do this. If you don’t do it then Bob is on shift alone.

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He got fired along with everyone else on the line a couple days ago. Insurance cancelled back to date they last showed up for work, no COBRA, instant gone, even if on leave apparently.

Today the state came to the table to start negotiating, apparently no one came back to work, or at least not enough to matter.

And boy is this article an interesting walk through sludge.

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Well, this is interesting. Canada’s fighting back and Trump blinked. For the second time.

Trump says Monday there’s nothing Canada or Mexico can do to prevent the tariffs. They’ll go in effect at midnight.

Canada: Bring it on. How about a 100% tariff on Tesla imports? Oh, and those batteries they need from us. Yeah, about that… Oh, and that electricity we export to the Great Lakes states. Be a real shame if we had to cut that off. Or the oil you get from us. And we’ve got tariffs mapped out on all $155 billion of goods we import from you.

Ontario Premiere Doug Ford: We’re canceling our Starlink contract and all US companies are banned from doing business with our province’s government. The Liquor Control Board of Ontario will no longer buy any US-made alcohol and we’re removing it from the shelves immediately.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average sank about 1200 points from the moment the US tariffs went into effect until the close on Wednesday. The Wall Street Journal deliberately used “Great Depression” as part of their headline on the front page.

Trump on Thursday: We’re gonna pause this for 30 days.

It’s also being pointed out that the tariffs Trump is enacting are illegal. It’s Congress that sets tariffs. The President can only set them for national defense reasons and he hasn’t said what he’s doing is because of that. He’s pointing at fentanyl coming across the border as the reason why. Last time they counted, it was around 50 pounds. Not exactly a flood there, buddy.

However, if Canada were to start cutting off electricity or the oil they export to the US, that might give Trump the excuse he needs to legally impose tariffs on national defense reasons.

For those who don’t know, the type of oil the US is producing isn’t the kind that works well for making gasoline. What Canada produces is, and that’s why the US imports oil from there.

Another reminder: Trump now says the USMCA is a really bad deal. That’s why he wants tariffs. The fact that he proposed it in 2019 to replace NAFTA because NAFTA bad and the USMCA was the bestest thing ever when it was finalized is irrelevant.