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Resident_Hazard
Possessed by Starscream's Ghost

Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2004 2:33 pm
Posts: 2905
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 11:10 am 
 

NSA documents leaked show the depth of the hacking quite a bit worse than it seemed, and it ran right up until the election. No full evidence on just how much damage was caused, but Russians clearly had their hands in this, and it has been traced to the Russian General Staff Main Intelligence Directorate, so this was a government operation to destabilize another government.

Putin's aim has evidently largely been to diminish confidence in the democratic electoral process, and he is winning on that front. When the popular vote is so completely ignored for the Electoral and with this level of undermining. It makes me wonder why we're even talking impeachment when we should be looking at basic legitimacy of the presidency. We should just hold a new fucking election.
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~Guest 21181
The Great Fearmonger

Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 3:44 am
Posts: 3987
PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 1:34 pm 
 

Yes, let's counter Putin's play for de-legitimizing our centuries-old electoral process by hastily preparing a one-time fix.


WaPo reporter Bob Costa has been tweeting that the president intends to live-tweet responses to James Comey's testimony on Thursday. For everyone else it's just popcorn, but I'm sure Trump's personal & White House counsels want to smack him in the face, since basically anything he says in response can be used as evidence against him and/or his associates in a trial (impeachment or otherwise).

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Resident_Hazard
Possessed by Starscream's Ghost

Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2004 2:33 pm
Posts: 2905
Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 2:50 pm 
 

Earthcubed wrote:
Yes, let's counter Putin's play for de-legitimizing our centuries-old electoral process by hastily preparing a one-time fix.



The electoral college has been problematic for a while. In a sense, Putin has already handily shown that the system is deeply flawed. Just because it's old and tradition doesn't mean it's still particularly relevant or valid, insert snide comment about how slavery was historical or tradition here. Mostly, I'm curious if the continued escalation of this shit gradually delegitimatizes the presidency. I mean, more than he does every time he picks up his phone. Then, do we stick with an illegitimately elected leader just because he's there? This is the exact kind of shit that causes civil wars whenever the US plants their own figurehead in charge of other countries. Do we just "go with the flow" of the puppet in charge and expect things will work themselves out with the same system that was clearly broken in the first place? I don't have any answers here.

And to be frank, as shitty as this administration is and with the sheer amount of bullshit, illegal activity, lies, and backdoor dealing that created this mess, it's becoming difficult to tell when we're slipping into hyperbole, and when we're past some tenuous point of no return.

In any dictatorship, when did "things will work themselves out, we have have a system in place" turn into, "oh shit, they're digging mass graves?" At what point does normalizing this stuff edge into real horror? How many things need to go wrong for us to say the system is broken, and moreover, are we even in a place to recognize it now, or does it require hindsight after things have gotten really bad?

What was the tipping point for Venezuela to fall into a complete apocalyptic nightmare? Few people support Trump, the media constantly reports and mocks him. Yet he is not being stopped. He and his administration are not being curbed. He does whatever whim strikes him with seemingly no fucking consequences.

I realize I'm rambling here, and the hyperbole is probably a bit much, but that's kind of my point--is it really? How do we actually know that?
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GTog
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Joined: Sun Dec 03, 2006 8:35 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 3:26 pm 
 

Well, he's not technically doing anything... Anything legislatively anyway. His healthcare shitpile went nowhere, tax reform seems like it's already off the table for this year at least, no anti-Mexico wall is being built. His travel ban keeps failing, and the pie-in-the-sky $1 trillion infrastructure idea elicits only chuckles from congress. Mainly, he's just embarrassing.
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Resident_Hazard
Possessed by Starscream's Ghost

Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2004 2:33 pm
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Location: United States
PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 5:13 pm 
 

GTog wrote:
Well, he's not technically doing anything... Anything legislatively anyway. His healthcare shitpile went nowhere, tax reform seems like it's already off the table for this year at least, no anti-Mexico wall is being built. His travel ban keeps failing, and the pie-in-the-sky $1 trillion infrastructure idea elicits only chuckles from congress. Mainly, he's just embarrassing.


Okay, so for right now, there is a good argument that some of this is hyperbole.

Valid point.
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BastardHead
Worse than Stalin

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 7:16 pm 
 

Just gonna throw out there that I think this electoral college thing is really overblown. Something like 37% of the entire country lives in ten cities (and surrounding metropolitan areas), and yeah it's not a perfect ratio since California has over 66x the amount of people as Wyoming but is only 18.3 times more powerful in terms of the electoral college, but at the same time that still means it would take nineteen Wyomings to overpower one California. If it was perfectly proportional then we might as well just do a popular vote, which I'm not exactly against but I do understand why we keep the confusing and arcane electorate system intact. It does prevent massive geographical swaths of the country from being completely neglected in terms of policy because they aren't nearly insignificant like they would be in terms of raw population. There are still millions of people who live there who need some sort of a voice without being completely drowned out by the biggest cities, and this gives them some sort of a voice without artificially making them the ruling party in terms of general elections (you could make the argument that it works that way in the senate since every state gets two representatives no matter what but that's not what I'm talking about right now).

Even if all of my math and civics are wrong here, the point is that Hillary didn't lose because Trump won all the podunk rural states, she lost because she lost the key swing states that could have gone either way. She didn't lose because Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, and the Dakotas went to Trump, she lost because Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Ohio did. If she would have flipped those four states (which she feasibly could have), she would have won 291-240. Flip Florida's 29 votes and it would have been even more dominant. But no, she spent most of her time preaching to the choir instead of showing the fence sitters what the right choice was while Trump went out and converted them. Granted, he was saying openly fallacious bullshit and ten seconds of fact checking should have amounted to a humiliating defeat on his end but people are stupid and that's not what happened. She could have at least made an effort.
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Morrigan
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 7:35 pm 
 

Barack Obama was in town (Montreal) for a speech today, near my workplace. Lots of police cars around. I'm curious to see a video of the speech.

I miss presidents that could form coherent thoughts and analyze and process things with his mind. :(
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~Guest 226319
President Satan

Joined: Tue Apr 20, 2010 4:41 am
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 8:39 pm 
 

BastardHead wrote:
There are still millions of people who live there who need some sort of a voice without being completely drowned out by the biggest cities, and this gives them some sort of a voice without artificially making them the ruling party in terms of general elections

This is the argument in favor of the system, but it does not seem sufficient to me for us to controvert the principle of "one man, one vote". It was more useful in ye olde times when people in the rural areas were truly isolated and had no voice in city politics, but that is no longer the case. Most people "in the country" actually live in cities, not on little homesteads as they are romanticized to do, and they are not isolated and voiceless the way they used to be.

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failsafeman
Digital Dictator

Joined: Wed Sep 01, 2004 8:45 am
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 8:54 pm 
 

BastardHead wrote:
She could have at least made an effort.

Well she did literally have pneumonia during the election, so there's that.
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theposega
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Joined: Tue Mar 11, 2008 9:42 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 9:14 pm 
 

Earthcubed wrote:
Yes, let's counter Putin's play for de-legitimizing our centuries-old electoral process by hastily preparing a one-time fix.


WaPo reporter Bob Costa has been tweeting that the president intends to live-tweet responses to James Comey's testimony on Thursday. For everyone else it's just popcorn, but I'm sure Trump's personal & White House counsels want to smack him in the face, since basically anything he says in response can be used as evidence against him and/or his associates in a trial (impeachment or otherwise).


jesus christ i hope he actually does this. what an absolute fucking dolt

also apparently trump asked the director of national intelligence in march to intervene on the russia probe
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Subrick
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 9:27 pm 
 

http://thehill.com/homenews/administrat ... -for-trump

I would love to see a Trumper attempt to spin this into some absurd defense of the guy.
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~Guest 282118
Argentinian Asado Supremacy

Joined: Sat Dec 24, 2011 2:16 pm
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 10:01 pm 
 

They won't even try. They go real quiet whenever something like that is waved in their face. They don't acknowledge things such as truth or reality.

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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

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PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 10:55 pm 
 

Subrick wrote:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336564-trump-foundation-funneled-100k-in-donation-into-revenue-for-trump

I would love to see a Trumper attempt to spin this into some absurd defense of the guy.


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OzzyApu
Metal freak

Joined: Fri Oct 13, 2006 12:11 am
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PostPosted: Tue Jun 06, 2017 11:28 pm 
 

Subrick wrote:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/336564-trump-foundation-funneled-100k-in-donation-into-revenue-for-trump

I would love to see a Trumper attempt to spin this into some absurd defense of the guy.

Two easy ones: "fake news" or completely shutting out negative media altogether.

@ Morrigan, do a small June update on the OP at the end of this week. This needs archiving.
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theposega
Mezla

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 12:17 am 
 

that is literal cartoon villainy. i mean i know the guy shits in a gold toilet and eats pizza with a knife and fork but fuck me this is comically evil
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Morrigan
Crone of War

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 7:27 am
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Location: Canada
PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 11:56 am 
 

OzzyApu wrote:
@ Morrigan, do a small June update on the OP at the end of this week. This needs archiving.

Was just gonna get on it :) And adding this too:

http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/07/trump-wa ... tamps.html

Quote:
  • Budget office predicts $2.4 billion in new revenue from the fee, which is seen hurting independent grocers more than big chains.
  • Separately, the Trump administration is proposing $191 billion in cuts over the next decade to the food stamp program.

Quote:
Grocers oppose the "flawed policy of imposing fees on food retailers in order to reduce the cost of the federal government's nutrition assistance benefits to the most needy in our society," said Leslie G. Sarasin, president of the Food Marketing Institute, which represents the industry.

Quote:
Walmart is a massive retailer that can weather those small hits, but grocers overall operate on notoriously thin margins. Smaller stores — particularly the bodegas and independent retailers that serve poor neighborhoods — would likely feel more pain.

"Certainly, they would see it in their bottom line," said Brian Lang of The Food Trust, a Pennsylvania nonprofit. Lang directs a campaign to make healthy food more accessible. "Implementing cuts to that extent are going to have stark consequences for retailers, especially in low-income communities."


So: screw over the poor, starving children, AND small businesses all at once.

Also, this gem from Eric Trump: says his father's critics "aren't even people"
https://www.yahoo.com/news/eric-trump-f ... 15414.html

Care to even try defending this shit, Trump supporters?
theposega wrote:
that is literal cartoon villainy. i mean i know the guy shits in a gold toilet and eats pizza with a knife and fork but fuck me this is comically evil

Yup
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a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

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~Guest 58624
Metalhead

Joined: Sun Jan 29, 2006 4:33 am
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 12:19 pm 
 

Morrigan wrote:
Care to even try defending this, Trump supporters?


I don't know how representative it is (probably quite a bit more than I'd hope for it to be), but there's a woman whose story in this piece has somehow stood out to me since I read it. You'd like to think that most people have at least the bare rudiments of rationality, but:

Quote:
Judy Banks, a 70-year-old struggling to get by, said she voted for Trump because “he was talking about getting rid of those illegals.” But Banks now finds herself shocked that he also has his sights on funds for the Labor Department’s Senior Community Service Employment Program, which is her lifeline. It pays senior citizens a minimum wage to hold public service jobs.

“This program makes sense,” said Banks, who was placed by the program into a job as a receptionist for a senior nutrition program. Banks said she depends on the job to make ends meet, and for an excuse to get out of the house.

“If I lose this job,” she said, “I’ll sit home and die.”

Yet she said she might still vote for Trump in 2020.

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~Guest 282118
Argentinian Asado Supremacy

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 1:27 pm 
 

Trump only does good things > Trump did something that's gonna kill me > Trump only does good things > It's okay if Trump kills me.

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Morrigan
Crone of War

Joined: Sat Aug 10, 2002 7:27 am
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 2:16 pm 
 

Juicy bits from Comey!
https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sit ... 060817.pdf

Some highlights:
Spoiler: show
Image

Image

Image

Image

Image

Image


LOL @ the Russian hookers thing. What a guilty way to deny anything. Much like the "I never said it was Israel!!" thing about the leak of classified intel.
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Von Cichlid wrote:
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Markeri, in 2013 wrote:
a fairly agreed upon date [of the beginning of metal] is 1969. Metal is almost 25 years old

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~Guest 21181
The Great Fearmonger

Joined: Sun Nov 07, 2004 3:44 am
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 2:43 pm 
 

A Trump sex tape is the plot twist we deserve but not the one we need right now.


There's a bar in DC that's opening up early for the Comey hearing tomorrow. They're also monitoring Trump's twitter ramblings and offering a free round of drinks to everyone in the bar every time Trump tweets about the hearing. I would go but the hearing is in the morning.

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iamntbatman
Chaos Breed

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 2:46 pm 
 

Man if he goes down over golden showers...maaaaaaaan. That'll be hilarious as shit but also really fuckin' annoying because hey, if a guy wants to get peed on, that's his business, but all the actual horrible shady stuff is whatever.

I hope the Comey testimony tomorrow is fuckin' mushroom clouds. I get a feeling it probably won't be - at least not the public testimony - but I'm sure the behind closed doors one will be flinging some serious dirt.

Just this morning I was thinking that well over a year ago, I was telling people that I was dead sure Trump was a disaster waiting to happen because of Russian ties over anything else. I think at the time I was just basing that off the way he talked about Putin and Russian relations, before any hacking happened at all I think. It just reeked of corruption from miles off.
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~Guest 21181
The Great Fearmonger

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 3:39 pm 
 

Comey's hearing could be smoke but no fire. He's not legally bound to FBI anymore but I'm sure he feels an attachment, and if he thinks testimony fragmented by bombshells will in some way hinder or interfere with the Mueller probe he might feel compelled to tamp down any fireworks. Of course, he was also just fired, so he could also feel free to YOLO it.

And the golden showers thing, if it exists, is probably just the phallic tip of the iceberg. Trump was an 80's billionaire cokehead whose entire worldview about Russia---which had been negative, even Reagan-in-1980-esque---changed with a single stay at a Moscow hotel. If there are any sex tapes of Trump we could be talking grainy color palette vintage 80's stuff.

Resident_Hazard wrote:
Earthcubed wrote:
Yes, let's counter Putin's play for de-legitimizing our centuries-old electoral process by hastily preparing a one-time fix.


*stuff*


My point was trying to dinker with a legitimate electoral process by "holding a new election" merely further erodes public confidence in our existing institutions. Not to mention our current president has staked his legitimacy amongst supporters and hangers-on upon the belief that the Establishment/managerial state/deep state is conspiring against him. If there is an impeachment or 25th amendment proceedings that's inevitably going to be a problem, but those might be necessary bridges to cross if the time comes, whereas "holding a new election" is unnecessary and would only make the political climate more hostile.

BastardHead wrote:
Just gonna throw out there that I think this electoral college thing is really overblown.


The electoral college is one area where the whole "the Founders were wise but their ideas only worked for the 18th century" trope is bullshit and it's actually the reformers who screwed it up rather than reactionaries. Part of the justification for having an electoral college in the first place is that electors would be better positioned to understand the duties of the president and be able to sort those competent from those demagogic, and furthermore would be expected to know things about the candidates the public doesn't. If a candidate was demonstrably incapable of discharging the duties of the office or under some foreign or otherwise corrupting influence but had fooled the voters through passionate rhetoric, the electors would be able to correct the error. And that only sounds undemocratic to modern people because modern people have forgotten that the root of the word "leaders" is lead, which means "(v) be in charge or command of; (n) an example for others to follow."

The reason this cannot happen now is because states generally have "reformed" their laws to force electors into voting for whoever won the popular vote in their state, or at least their electoral district. Even if electors in this election had been granted access to some classified background information about Trump's dealings with Russia before casting their ballots it wouldn't have made much of a difference, since for most of them their vote was legally bound anyway.

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~Guest 226319
President Satan

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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 7:21 pm 
 

Earthcubed wrote:
And that only sounds undemocratic to modern people because modern people have forgotten that the root of the word "leaders" is lead, which means "(v) be in charge or command of; (n) an example for others to follow."

It sounds undemocratic because it is undemocratic. It is a check on democracy. The founders wanted limited democracy. The reason they wanted the limitations is because of the reasons you mentioned. Don't be a definition nazi and then get the definitions wrong.

Anyway, those reasons for the electoral college are also obsolete. The electors don't have the capacity to prevent a demagogue from coming to power because we have a two party system. If the major parties decide to run demagogues, the electors have to dutifully pick one like the rubes they are. The parties' internal processes aren't checked by the electoral college in this way. The electoral college was designed on the assumption that the ruling class wouldn't have codified parties and would be basically of one mind (which wasn't as crazy an idea as it seems today considering how much smaller it was back then and how similar all their backgrounds and educations were).

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OneSizeFitzpatrick
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PostPosted: Wed Jun 07, 2017 11:46 pm 
 

Just reading excerpts from that Senate testimony from Comey, and remembering my grandpa that had pretty bad Alzheimer's for the entire time I knew him, I'm gonna go out and call it right now, he's got Alzheimer's. He's far too rich to ever spend a day in jail or be convicted of any crime no matter how much evidence is dumped in front of a jury (Democracy ensures a fair trial, but capitalism ensures if you have enough wealth you can buy yourself whatever kind of trial you want). But he'll end up resigning either on his own or by force in the next year maybe year and a half.

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darkeningday
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Joined: Mon Aug 23, 2004 1:20 pm
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 12:11 am 
 

OneSizeFitzpatrick wrote:
But he'll end up resigning either on his own or by force in the next year maybe year and a half.

I really hope so, but I have this terrible unsettling feeling we're going to be stuck with the guy for 8 years. Prove me wrong, universe. For god's sakes, prove me wrong.

I know this is the US politics thread, but have you guys been following the British PM "forced early" election? It'd be absolutely genius karma if Brexit and disdain for Trump actually put the farthest-left candidate for a major western power in world history in the Prime Minister's chair. It probably won't happen but... the same was said for Brexit... and Trump. Any thoughts?
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Sepulchrave
Metalhead

Joined: Mon Jul 27, 2015 7:29 pm
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 12:39 am 
 

darkeningday wrote:
OneSizeFitzpatrick wrote:
But he'll end up resigning either on his own or by force in the next year maybe year and a half.

I really hope so, but I have this terrible unsettling feeling we're going to be stuck with the guy for 8 years. Prove me wrong, universe. For god's sakes, prove me wrong.

I know this is the US politics thread, but have you guys been following the British PM "forced early" election? It'd be absolutely genius karma if Brexit and disdain for Trump actually put the farthest-left candidate for a major western power in world history in the Prime Minister's chair. It probably won't happen but... the same was said for Brexit... and Trump. Any thoughts?


Have you not seen how Labour has jumped ahead in the polls? Corbyn has a fairly good chance. But the party will have to prepare itself for the backlash from the establishment. They haven't provided an answer for that yet, and if they don't the situation might, unfortunately, end up resembling Syriza.
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darkeningday
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 6:17 am 
 

Sepulchrave wrote:
darkeningday wrote:
I know this is the US politics thread, but have you guys been following the British PM "forced early" election? It'd be absolutely genius karma if Brexit and disdain for Trump actually put the farthest-left candidate for a major western power in world history in the Prime Minister's chair. It probably won't happen but... the same was said for Brexit... and Trump. Any thoughts?

Have you not seen how Labour has jumped ahead in the polls? Corbyn has a fairly good chance. But the party will have to prepare itself for the backlash from the establishment. They haven't provided an answer for that yet, and if they don't the situation might, unfortunately, end up resembling Syriza.

I've been following them religiously. Polls still show May with a healthy lead over Corbyn, although it's a much smaller lead than I think even her largest skeptics could have imagined. There's still hope, but I think it's a bit too far gone to be anything beyond that. I guess we'll see.
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Resident_Hazard
Possessed by Starscream's Ghost

Joined: Thu Oct 07, 2004 2:33 pm
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 10:52 am 
 

Earthcubed wrote:


My point was trying to dinker with a legitimate electoral process by "holding a new election" merely further erodes public confidence in our existing institutions. Not to mention our current president has staked his legitimacy amongst supporters and hangers-on upon the belief that the Establishment/managerial state/deep state is conspiring against him. If there is an impeachment or 25th amendment proceedings that's inevitably going to be a problem, but those might be necessary bridges to cross if the time comes, whereas "holding a new election" is unnecessary and would only make the political climate more hostile.

BastardHead wrote:
Just gonna throw out there that I think this electoral college thing is really overblown.


The electoral college is one area where the whole "the Founders were wise but their ideas only worked for the 18th century" trope is bullshit and it's actually the reformers who screwed it up rather than reactionaries. Part of the justification for having an electoral college in the first place is that electors would be better positioned to understand the duties of the president and be able to sort those competent from those demagogic, and furthermore would be expected to know things about the candidates the public doesn't. If a candidate was demonstrably incapable of discharging the duties of the office or under some foreign or otherwise corrupting influence but had fooled the voters through passionate rhetoric, the electors would be able to correct the error. And that only sounds undemocratic to modern people because modern people have forgotten that the root of the word "leaders" is lead, which means "(v) be in charge or command of; (n) an example for others to follow."

The reason this cannot happen now is because states generally have "reformed" their laws to force electors into voting for whoever won the popular vote in their state, or at least their electoral district. Even if electors in this election had been granted access to some classified background information about Trump's dealings with Russia before casting their ballots it wouldn't have made much of a difference, since for most of them their vote was legally bound anyway.



Per my understanding, most states do not actually give the Electoral votes to the Popular Vote candidate, which is why there are movements to change this. My state is one of the ones trying to move in this direction, but it's a minority that actually do. Typically, it's in Republican-heavy state governments that are opposed to the idea of using popular vote to determine electoral.

The electoral college is very clearly broken if the entire point of it was originally to keep people like Trump out of the White House.

I meandered over to Wikipedia to read more about this to check my bearings, but damn this article is long. Also, I'm at work. I should probably do some of that. But I go on vacation tomorrow so my enthusiasm for work is super low.
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why
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 12:01 pm 
 

The most dangerous thing is that Trump is the anti diplomat in all possible aspects. Remind me... what happens when diplomacy fails?

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acid_bukkake
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 1:26 pm 
 

So John McCain made an ass of himself, eh? It seems pretty hard for him to differentiate a case with a specific investigation (whether Hillary's private e-mail use while Sec of State was illegal or not) versus a current one that has no bearing on it whatsoever.
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 1:35 pm 
 

acid_bukkake wrote:
So John McCain made an ass of himself, eh? It seems pretty hard for him to differentiate a case with a specific investigation (whether Hillary's private e-mail use while Sec of State was illegal or not) versus a current one that has no bearing on it whatsoever.


That was hilarious comey was like "what does this old senile fool want from me!?"

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iamntbatman
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 1:38 pm 
 

Yeah, that was just fucking bizarre. Basically he was pestering Comey about why there was some double standard about concluding the Clinton email investigation, but continuing the Trump Russia collusion investigation, trying to call him out on it. During the whole thing he kept calling the wrong people different names (at "President Comey" when he was clearly talking about Trump, the look on Comey's face was pretty priceless) and just generally seemed senile as shit. Like...how does he not understand that these were two different investigations? The Clinton email investigation was SPECIFICALLY about her use of a private email server while serving as Secretary of State, not during the campaign years later. They're just...not even remotely connected things, whereas McCain was trying to say that there's this big ol' Russian cloud over both candidates equally so ending either investigation is bad or something.

Actually it kind of reminded me of how, in The Big Lebowski, Walter had to turn every completely unrelated thing into a rant about Vietnam.

All in all I think Comey came away from this looking great. Slung all kinds of mud on Trump, characterizing him as a Hollywood mafia boss threatening subordinates and demanding loyalty. At the same time he also slung some mud on AG Lynch and the way she fucked with the Clinton email investigation, throwing some bones to the GOP and helping to establish his political neutrality. For the most part, the questioning from the senators seemed pretty damn non-partisan, like most of them were all on the same page. Big ol' scary Russia is a hell of a politically unifying force.
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Zelkiiro
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 1:45 pm 
 

And then there was Cornyn, who thinks he's still in October 2016 pestering Comey about buttery males.
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 1:49 pm 
 

iamntbatman wrote:
During the whole thing he kept calling the wrong people different names (at "President Comey" when he was clearly talking about Trump, the look on Comey's face was pretty priceless)


Comey said "no SIR!", almost with amused disgust, when McCain confused him with the president and there was audible laughter. Brilliant.

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~Guest 21181
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 2:22 pm 
 

What I took away from the McCain confusion is that he was trying to tie Clinton into the Russian election interference investigation (which is where his comments about possible blackmail came from) but forgot to drink his coffee this morning. Or perhaps his new summer interns mixed up the regular and decaf pots. Normally McCain is coherent enough to not sound like Clint Eastwood talking to a chair.

I don't really agree that the questioning was super non-partisan. Risch was a little too clever how he went about it and Comey saw right through it, Coton's questions were pretty clearly intended to illicit answers making Trump not look bad (though it failed utterly since Comey said he couldn't answer those outside a classified hearing, which makes Trump look worse). I missed the opening remarks but what I saw of the Republican chairman's questioning was at least pretty level-headed.

The worst/most notable things I saw: saying there were things that made it difficult for Sessions to involve himself in the Russia investigation but he couldn't talk about those things because they're classified; not being able to comment on whether Trump & Co. had tried to destroy evidence; and not being able to comment on or unilaterally deby the criminal claims in the "golden shower" dossier.

Oh, and not related to Russia, but obviously the Loretta Lynch interference in the Clinton email investigation. Err excuse me, not investigation but "matter."

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Morrigan
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 2:33 pm 
 

Earthcubed wrote:
Normally McCain is coherent enough to not sound like Clint Eastwood talking to a chair.

:lol:

You people give too much credit to McCain really. He's been a spineless, stupid, senile motherfucker for a while now.
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acid_bukkake
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 2:35 pm 
 

Comey repeatedly referring to classified information as just that, and then promising to speak more in a closed/private hearing, is what's got me interested. He's shooting off flares each time he says it, simultaneously letting the senate (and the public) know that there's plenty to delve into while also positioning himself as, above all, PROFESSIONAL. Kamala Harris was practically giggling when she had 4-5 questions in a row where Comey's answer was "that's classified and we'll talk later," gingerly jotting down notes about where to emphasize her probes.

Won't lie, though: I laugh at Kamala Harris's name. Because wrestling.
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Kerrick
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 2:52 pm 
 

This is interesting... One of Trump's latest nominees (deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget) got blasted by Bernie Sanders and co. for being a Christian and was accused of being "unfit" for office because of his religious beliefs.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/arti ... 0:00+00:00

Obviously, the article is from a conservative Christian perspective, so there's sure to be more to the story from the other side... though nonetheless it's pretty alarming that religious freedom is so directly and unabashedly under attack - no matter what the religion on the chopping block is (in this case, Christianity). This sets a very dangerous tone for the future of our government if only those with certain select sets of beliefs (...as determined by who?) are allowed to serve in public office. Yikes.

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Empyreal
The Final Frontier

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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 3:33 pm 
 

That is very clearly a biased source. And Christians aren't on the chopping block or discriminated against at all in this country. Two Senators plus the ACLU objecting to a nominated post by the president doesn't mean anyone is getting persecuted.

A lot of Christians in this country also love to crow on about religious freedom this and that, and yet they usually mean it only for them and nobody else - i.e. when it comes to other freedoms like gay marriage, abortion, etc, they want to lord their opinions over everyone else's and make things illegal because they do not agree with their faith. The only freedom that matters is that they get to oppress everyone else. I hope you are not one of those kinds of people.
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darkeningday
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PostPosted: Thu Jun 08, 2017 4:06 pm 
 

Kerrick wrote:
This is interesting... One of Trump's latest nominees (deputy director of the Office of Management and Budget) got blasted by Bernie Sanders and co. for being a Christian and was accused of being "unfit" for office because of his religious beliefs.

https://www.thegospelcoalition.org/arti ... 0:00+00:00

Obviously, the article is from a conservative Christian perspective, so there's sure to be more to the story from the other side... though nonetheless it's pretty alarming that religious freedom is so directly and unabashedly under attack - no matter what the religion on the chopping block is (in this case, Christianity). This sets a very dangerous tone for the future of our government if only those with certain select sets of beliefs (...as determined by who?) are allowed to serve in public office. Yikes.

Dude, this is not about religious freedom; it's about religious supremacy. Saying that any and everyone who doesn't believe exactly the way you do is "condemned" is fucked. I think the problem stems from divergent definitions of the word "condemned," but the very fact Vought couldn't even understand how that could sound shitty means he's so entrenched in Christian dogma he really shouldn't have a position of power.

Also, did you even read the article? The issue is very clearly not "because he's Christian." Good grief. Yikes indeed.
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