USA Politics

Mosh said:
It’s such a bungle that it almost makes me believe the theories that this was a 5D chess move to get Gaetz out of Congress. But man, I just have a hard time seeing it. Forget political savvy, all this shows is Trump has no interest in the typical political jockeying required to make this stuff works and thinks he can strong arm republicans into whatever he wants. Hard not to see this as a harbinger of what’s to come with this administration.
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I wouldn't think Trump, Susie Wiles or Elon Musk would want Gaetz out of Congress as he's been one of Trump's strongest supporters from the House. Granted, Gaetz's political pull in the house was DOA, but he'd still find some use as a chief Trump ego fluffer there - which really is how you get on Trump's good side anyway.

I don't believe Trump ever had interest in politicking in his first term either, but I still think he's overestimating/overestimated what his actual political influence within his own party is. The Rick Scott for Majority Leader movement never took momentum and his loyalist AG pick was DOA with his own lobbying efforts doing nothing to help.

Still plenty of time to go before the inauguration, and I'm sure this is just going to get even more bizarre by the time the new year rolls around.
 
To be clear, my strong belief on this is that it simply comes down to Trump wanting a loyalist who would also be eager to go after political opponents. I don't think this was a litmus test or anything more than that, and the trap of the Trump 2.0 era is going to be overanalyzing everything he does.

What I will say though is that, whether there was a grand plan or not (I think not), Trump has an advantage here where his next pick for AG is almost by default going to be less controversial even if that person would be just as dangerous in the role as Gaetz.
 
Dear Americans, is such approach normal/acceptable to you? To me it's definitely not. That's one of the reasons why average voters turning to the right. To humanize murderer is very wrong (not the right time, nor the right place). He crossed the line of no return. Period. The victim here is only one. Laken Riley.
MSNBC.png
Oh, and I checked MSNBC political leaning.
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Azas said:
Dear Americans, is such approach normal/acceptable to you? To me it's definitely not. That's one of the reasons why average voters turning to the right. To humanize murderer is very wrong (not the right time, nor the right place). He crossed the line of no return. Period. The victim here is only one. Laken Riley.
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Oh, and I checked MSNBC political leaning.
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Did you even read the article? Here:

www.msnbc.com

Opinion | Why Laken Riley's killer was always going to be found guilty

For all the political controversy surrounding Jose Ibarra, the case against him was always a simple one.
www.msnbc.com www.msnbc.com

It doesn't "humanize murder". It's mostly from the POV of a defense attorney having to take on an unwinnable case. Maybe spend at least a few minutes actually reading up on stuff before being outraged ;)
 
____no5 said:
Decarbonization is a step in the right direction
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It's not just a step in the right direction, it should be international law.
____no5 said:
but the goals and timelines are too ambitious and unrealistic,
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According to literally every climate scientist, they're not nearly ambitious enough.
____no5 said:
it ends up being too ideological -pc for the sake of it-
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Yeah, stupid planet earth being all woke.
____no5 said:
which destroy the economy and ends up messing up the life of working people, already in recession.
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Climate change will be much worse for the economy long term.
____no5 said:
All in all I’m delighted with the logic behind this nomination.
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At this stage I'm convinced that Trump could shit on your head and you'd praise him for it.
 
Mosh said:
To be clear, my strong belief on this is that it simply comes down to Trump wanting a loyalist who would also be eager to go after political opponents.
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There's a bit of that, and also he appoints real shitheads to positions as a way to test the loyalty of others. how low will other people be willing to go by debasing themselves and backing people they know are scum/shit.
 
Meliegree said:
I have studied propaganda and disinformation for years, both professionally and at work. In my opinion, nothing has done as much to divide society and bend democracy in the last 10 years as Google, Facebook and YouTube.
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I'd already been downsizing my social media intake even prior to election season. Somehow, people think being on the internet (even if you personally know who you're talking to) gives you the license to just be shitty to others just because they're not in the same room as you. It amplifies divide.
 
Spaldy said:
I'm sorry but Bill Maher is a twat and always has been.
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What an insightful critique of the actual content of his commentary!

Whatever your overall impression of a person might be, they may occasionally surprise you. I even got a useful nugget out of Ted Cruz once, and he’s the twat to end all twats.
 
Flaming Blimp Crash said:
I'd already been downsizing my social media intake even prior to election season. Somehow, people think being on the internet (even if you personally know who you're talking to) gives you the license to just be shitty to others just because they're not in the same room as you. It amplifies divide.
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Social media also has a number of built-in mechanisms that fuel hatred. The basic one is the like mechanism, which works like a Skinner box. Every time we do something, we get (or not) a return in the form of likes, which act like a shot of dopamine. After a while, we become programmed to gain them at all costs, even more extreme opinions (stronger opinion - stronger feedback). At the same time, algorithms are focused on generating engagement counted as time spent on discussions and the number of engagement events (e.g. reactions) - the most effective generator is arguments. It has been proven in studies many times that YouTube pushes users towards increasingly extreme channels to drive time spent on the portal. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of how systems of this type work.

This is the greatest threat to democracy that I know of - especially when combined with a media that is dependent on a) advertising revenue and b) social media engagement.
 
Meliegree said:
Social media also has a number of built-in mechanisms that fuel hatred. The basic one is the like mechanism, which works like a Skinner box. Every time we do something, we get (or not) a return in the form of likes, which act like a shot of dopamine. After a while, we become programmed to gain them at all costs, even more extreme opinions (stronger opinion - stronger feedback). At the same time, algorithms are focused on generating engagement counted as time spent on discussions and the number of engagement events (e.g. reactions) - the most effective generator is arguments. It has been proven in studies many times that YouTube pushes users towards increasingly extreme channels to drive time spent on the portal. And this is just the tip of the iceberg of how systems of this type work.

This is the greatest threat to democracy that I know of - especially when combined with a media that is dependent on a) advertising revenue and b) social media engagement.
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Hello nail, meet head
 
As per Financial Times, US is pressing Ukraine to lower the conscription age from 25 to 18.
Additionally, Jake Sullivan (US national security adviser) is reported to say that "Our view has been that there’s not one weapon system that makes a difference in this battle. It’s about manpower, and Ukraine needs to do more, in our view, to firm up its lines in terms of the number of forces it has on the front lines"

So since "there’s not one weapon system that makes a difference in this battle" then this question is why outgoing Biden administration crossed the only stated Russian red line during the transition period to authorise missile attacks requiring data /operation by US personnel?
Best thing is that president Biden didn't seem to even inform president -elect Trump how about that.

EDIT (after seeing Azas’ post below):
I intentionally posted in this thread, this isn’t really about Ukraine, it’s about the recklessness of outgoing administration. Those people not only put the world at risk, even admitting that will change nothing, but effectively sabotage or trying to, the next administration. Which says a lot about their lack of respect towards elections & Democracy.

In my view they are much worse than Trump.

www.ft.com

US tells Ukraine to lower conscription age to 18 to stem manpower shortage

Kyiv pushes back against request and shifts blame on delays in western weaponry supply
www.ft.com www.ft.com
 
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