Messages

226

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 08, 2020, 09:05:39 PM »

Great post I found on reddit concerning continued Russian attempts (and successes) at dividing us politically and pitting us against one another:


https://www.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/ffkoqh/twitter_puts_manipulated_tag_on_faked_biden_video/fjz4im7/

227

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 08, 2020, 08:48:26 PM »

Haha, what even is this timeline?


https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/1236501057192316928

Deceptively cut off before he finishes his thought/sentence:


https://twitter.com/i/status/1236521896709152769

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/dev/random / Re: The Fight Thread

« on: March 08, 2020, 07:53:49 PM »

The Jedrzejczyk/Zhang fight was epic - definitely the best women's fight I've ever seen, and one of the best MMA fights I've ever seen regardless of gender.

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Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 08, 2020, 07:41:50 PM »

If you can't see blind devotion to democrats, perhaps you are blindly devoted to them. I'm not saying you are, I'm not calling people dirty names, I'm just asking you to consider that possibility and ruminate upon it. Because I would assert that "partisan" in total favor of either party should be considered a dirty word and a label no one should aspire to anymore.

I imagine some people are blindly devoted to Bernie to a similar level as some are to Trump. I don't know any of them personally, though, unlike Trump supporters.

Neither side seems to genuinely give a shit about anyone but themselves anymore, so it's our job to use what tools we have to do the best job of taking care of ourselves FOR ourselves. And sometimes we're gonna have to vote for shitheads to get that done, especially when ALL the choices are shitheads.

I totally disagree here. I truly believe that Bernie in particular, AOC, and many in that circle truly do care for the average American citizen (which is what I consider all of us here). The major policies they promote would help each of us, in some way or another (either directly or indirectly), and some of us in very big ways.

What is it about Bernie's vision for the country that leads you to believe that he doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself? I mean, that honestly comes across as borderline crazy talk to me. Help me understand why you think Bernie doesn't give a shit about anyone but himself - what proposed policies of his tells you that?

Btw, Focalor, are you a religious person? I kind of assumed you were an atheist, or not religious anyway. What are you thoughts about how much Trump tries to appease evangelicals? You're pro-choice too, right? Does that not concern you that that right could be taken away, or at least seriously altered? Does it bother you that evangelicals are the primary group that Trump is trying to appease in that regard?

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Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 08, 2020, 06:42:35 PM »

Disclaimer: I'm sharing something I didn't read (beyond the headline):

"Donald Trump Shook Hands with CPAC Chairman Exposed to Attendee Infected with Coronavirus"

https://people.com/politics/donald-trump-shook-hands-cpacp-chairman-exposed-coronavirus/

Edit: I've since read the article.

231

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 08, 2020, 05:46:32 PM »

I think it's highly likely that a number of outlets understood what Trump meant, but took advantage of the appearance of him suggesting the virus itself was a hoax (or at least focusing on the word "hoax" and implying things he didn't imply). That's dishonest journalism and I don't support such things. Thanks for the supporting evidence from other points in that rally speech where he's clearly acknowledging his administration's substantial efforts to confront the virus.

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Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 08, 2020, 05:11:56 PM »

Typical waffle when Trump does't have the details.

A polite way of saying he doesn't know what he's talking about, but speaks about the topic anyway.

For me it boils down to Trump suggesting he could do a better deal with Iran than prior presidents.

It'd be great if we didn't have to take our best guess at what he's trying to say, but he'd have to communicate differently for that to be a reality.

233

Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 08, 2020, 03:55:00 PM »

Trump's messaging is often not clear (particularly at his rallies or when he goes off script). In those situations, he frequently breaks focus on the topic at hand, branching off to talk about something else he was just reminded of, only to come back to what he was talking about a moment or two later. You can't blame people for misunderstanding what he's trying to say when's he's so incoherent.

Example of what I'm talking about attached here.

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Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 08, 2020, 12:16:38 PM »

Really? You're saying you're not sure you understand what I'm saying here? I read this last night, and decided to just go to bed from how silly this reply was.

Perhaps I didn't understand what you were saying because you implied that Trump's trigger for saying something is "fake news" has anything at all to do with the topic's legitimacy. This implies that if something, anything, painted Trump in a negative light there is the potential of him conceding that it was true and that he failed, screwed up, or the criticism was justified. That's not how his brain works.

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Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 08, 2020, 12:46:42 AM »

"politicizing" an event is in common parlance. When we talk about someone politicizing a mass shooting, that's never meant that they doubt its historicity.

Maybe I'm not being charitable enough with how intelligent your typical Trump supporter or rally attendee is. I see so many seemingly uneducated ones on various social networking platforms that it has me questioning their ability to understand what he's saying sometime. Again, that lady had to have gotten the idea that the Coronavirus didn't exist from somewhere, and her being at a Trump rally leads me to believe it very likely came from Trump's unclear messaging.

I don't think his messaging was very clear, but I'll agree/admit that he doesn't explicitly say that the Coronavirus itself is a hoax.

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Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 07, 2020, 08:25:33 PM »

Your standard of what-acknowledges something's-existence is very strict considering we're referring to someone who calls anything lacking the tiniest bit of validity "fake news" on a whim.

I'm not sure I understand what you're saying here. Trump's declaration of "Fake News" has little to nothing to do with something's validity, from my perspective, it has way more to do with how it will affect his image.

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Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 07, 2020, 06:43:48 PM »

It's clear he wasn't calling the virus itself a hoax, since the very next thing he does is to take credit for handling the initial 15 cases quickly, saying if he hadn't acted early we'd have had a lot more cases than that.

I disagree; I don't think it's clear at all.

He says, "Now the Democrats are politicizing the Coronavirus, you know that, right? Coronavirus. They're politicizing it". This isn't a clear acknowledgement of its existence - it could easily be interpreted as something the Democrats are making up to attack him. He then says, "We did one of the great jobs, you see...", on what? He then says, speaking as a hypothetical reporter asking a Democratic congressman (my guess) a question - "How's President Trump doing", again, on what? With his stream-of-consciousness style of speaking, he could have easily been talking about his general peformance. He trails off so much, and has such a penchant for rambling and changing his train of thought mid-sentence that it's not clear that "we did one of the great jobs" is on tackling the actual Coronavirus threat. He then says, "We have(?) 15 people in this massive country".

Anyway, it's a lot to manually transcript, but I don't know how anyone can say it's clear what he's talking about. If any of his supporters watched that and came away with the notion that the Coronavirus was a hoax being perpetuated by "The Democrats", what are the odds they watched that clip more than once to clarify they fully understood exactly what he was saying? I had to watch it multiple times to feel like I understood what he's saying.

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Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 07, 2020, 02:15:53 PM »

She claims she'd only trust news about coronavirus deaths if it came directly from Trump or other Republicans.

She didn't expressly say that - she said she wouldn't trust anything that came from a Democrat.

But why is she unaware that Trump held a press conference on the morning the first U.S. death was reported, in which Trump and other officials at the podium each acknowledged the death as being the result of the virus.

That occurred on Saturday, the 29th, right? This interview seems to have taken place on the morning or afternoon of the 2nd, a couple days later. Was that conference broadcast on Fox News? Maybe she didn't see it, or hadn't seen it yet. We'd just be guessing as to why she wasn't aware of it (if that's even the case).

There's something else going on here, and it's a human problem, not confined to a particular political ideology.

I think it's linked to Trump's cavalier manner of speaking on important topics and how that translates to what his followers believe. We have to assume a bit here, but where do you think she might have gotten the idea that this virus was not real, or a "hoax"? Maybe they just happened to interview a person that denies all supposed illnesses that are claimed to be spreading?

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Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 07, 2020, 10:57:09 AM »

I'm a tad surprised this wasn't posted for everyone to get a kick out of it.

It's more sad/concerning than funny to me - I wonder how much of an outlier this woman is in regards to general support of Trump. I see people (friends of my mother), and friends of friends on Facebook, that seem to show a similar blind devotion to Trump.

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Politics / Re: Current Politics & History Only Thread

« on: March 07, 2020, 08:48:19 AM »

Trump supporter doesn't believe the Coronavirus exists. Couldn't possibly be due to Trump's poor messaging, seemingly referring to the Coronavirus as a hoax:


https://twitter.com/i/status/1234653765724246019 - Skip to 2:55 mark.