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wilwheaton · 5 years ago

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This is outrageous contempt. It isn't just that this scumbag Lewandowski is slapping the committee with it. This is a test, and the Democrats are going to fail it. They're so bad at this it makes me cringe. 2/ How much insult and contempt to do you need? How much obstruction and evasion is enough? Are you going to let this go? Of course you are. Trump and the House GOP are playing nuclear hardball and you idiots are at high tea. They're not bound by law or norms. 3/ They're playing to Fox. You're playing to what, exactly? This guy is in contempt. He has no privilege or immunity. He was always a private citizen. It's not about Corey. It's about the total inability of the House majority to get down to nut-cutting. 4/ It's about the only line of defense in a threatened democracy being manned by a group of people who don't understand that until you cause Trump's shitheel minions actual pain, with penalties and consequences, they will act with impunity. 5/ Trump's enablers are building a TV drama for their team. That's why Gym, et al tear their hair out, spit, and caper on the stage. They understand this is a *reality show* now. Do I have to do ALL of this for you? 6/ They've already won the day unless you provide a comparable *show*. Taking his abuse and contempt and running these anodyne questions is pathetic. It's weak. It's *not exciting television.*I don't care about the *legality* of "Sargent at arms, take that man into custody.” 7/ I care about the *drama* and the visual. He's obviously in contempt. By letting him escape the consequences of contempt, the House Democrats send the clear signal that ANYONE from the WH can slap them, spit on the floor and say, "Fuck you." 8/ This is where the whole "IMPEACH!" crowd falls down. You think THESE people are going to carry out some deus ex machina impeachment miracle when they can't even handle this bama dipshit Lewandowski? FFS.

https://twitter.com/TheRickWilson/status/1174025822719631361

Rick Wilson is a bully who sent his mob of right wing nutjobs after me a few years ago, when I criticized the NRA after yet another mass shooting.

I think he’s a dick, and I hate that he’s such a loud Never Trump voice on the Left, because the *instant* Trump is gone, he’ll be right back to attacking everything I care about in this world.

But when he’s right, he’s right. And today, he is right.

I am disgusted with, and totally demoralized by, Nadler and Cummings. Their sternly-worded letters are useless. They are weak and ineffective, and they are utterly failing not just Democrats, but the entire American Experiment. Trump and his enablers (including but not limited to Moscow Mitch and the SCOTUS majority) are dismantling everything that has made America a country worth defending, and the Democratic majority in Congress is writing fucking letters.

Honestly, what is the point of any of this? They can’t get the facts and present them to the electorate if subpoenaed, sworn witnesses are stonewalling at the direction of Individual-1. The chairs of these committees have the Constitutional authority and moral obligation to hold these people in contempt and make them live with the consequences of their actions, and instead, they are issuing threats that everyone knows are empty and ultimately meaningless.

#fuck trump #what the fuck are democrats even doing

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letmetellyouaboutthiscountry · 4 years ago

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1/6/2021 I've been away for far too long.

So, what's been happening since I left? Well, former Vice President Joe Biden has become current President-elect Joe Biden and was supposed to be ceremonially approved by Congress today, but more on that later.

In the Georgia senate race in November, it was too close to call, so in this fine January they held a second election in which the democrats won both races (as all states get two senators). This is a little weird because usually both senators don't get elected the same year. Often, one is supposed to be a newbie and they learn from the other one how to be an effective senator. At least that's what I was taught in school.

This double win in the senate has brought us to an even-steven split between Democrats and Republicans and that means Vice President-elect Kamala Harris gets to have a vote should there be a tie. That means Republican-majority leader Mitch Mcconnell has become the minority leader and Chuck Schumer is to be the brand-new Democratic-majority leader. That means both the legislative and executive branches are blue and can work together to move the country forward, which should really be the only way to move a country.

Should Biden choose to appoint more supreme court justices to make it a blue court, that would bring all three governmental bodies together.

Buuuut right now there's a bit of a hitch as I alluded to earlier, which is that the Capitol building was stormed by ARMED right-wing nutjobs. This has effectively impeded the normally boring and forgettable portion of the election process and halted it altogether. A person has been shit and, unlike the PEACEFUL blm protests during the summer, police and the national guard have been extremely nonviolent toward the rioters.

And before some of you say, "those blm protests were violent," the violence was largely caused by pro-Trump counter-protesters and the police. Literally, look it up.

Arrests have not been made on the scale they should be made on, most rioters are being escorted out of the building and just moved away from the area. Trump has made some pretty weak statements toward them, making sure to let them know he's "proud." And, I might add, he didn't say SHIT until after Biden came out and denounced them. He was the one who said they should storm DC to begin with. He also wanted Pence to stop the process of counting electoral votes and make everyone go back to the polls to revote. Luckily Pence had no intention of doing so.

Don't get me wrong, he's still a monster, but at least he's a monster with boundaries which is apparently something that's hard to find these days.

So here we are. How do we move forward from this? Letting bygones be bygones is absolutely not an option. At some point, the infection is too far gone to just try to let it heal on its own. Examples need to be made, precedents need to be set.

Biden used some strong wording today and we need to hold him to it. He works for the people and he needs to know it. He needs to be the strong democrat we've been looking for.

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atimefordragons · 5 years ago

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[ T S E S A R E V N A ... ]

My incomplete audition for Gem Quest, didn’t have the time to participate properly, let alone finish my audition from all the other groups (yeah, I don’t know what time management is and have no idea how to pace myself).

“В небе далеком горит звезда, | In distant heaven star shines Не одинока и не одна | It's not alone and not the one Каждый себе выбирает путь | Everyone choose their own way И она не даст свернуть | And star won't allow them to turn Не закрывай глаза | Don't close your eyes Смотри она ведет тебя.. | Look, it leads you...”

- Звезда (Dima Bilan ft Anna Belan)

Real Name: Yekatrina “Katya/Rina” Anatolyevna Raevskaya

Age: 26

FC: Alia Bhatt

Species & Class: Dragonborn & Mage-Knight

Guild: Moonstone

Description of In-Game Powers: (what their fantasy species lets them do, basically, and all the associated drawbacks)

A dragonborn is a cross-bred species, born from the bloodline of either a human or an elf, and a Great Dragon (highly evolved, ancient dragons that can cast spells, and shit, and even speak the human tongue). Because great dragons are rare, most dragonborn are second generation or later. In the case of Tsesarevna, an ice dragon and a human (not a first gen).

Dragonborns have a natural affinity for magic, particularly elemental, even more specifically for the element of the dragon type whose blood they inherited, in the case of Tsesarevna, frozen water related magic, ice, frost, snow.

Place of Birth: Saint Petersburg, Russian Federation

Appearance: (optional textual description/notes of wardrobe, features not represented by fc, etc)

Places Most Likely to be Found In-Game: Level 20 - A Midwinter Night’s Dream (I see what you did there Ayz) and Level 38 - Murias Pass (the snow reminds her of home, ya know. The cold never bothered me anyway), also sometimes Level 39 - The Dragon, but she’s technically stuck on that level because she refuses to kill the Dragon, issa zaldrīzo ānogar.

Current Inventory:

History Book: The Dragon King Festival

Strongest character trait: eurovision knowledge Confidence (in herself and some others)

Strengths: Katya is almost surprisingly determined, it contradicts with the rest of her “I’ve never had to work hard to get what I want in my life” type personality, but she is persevering and stubborn, when she wants something, she won’t stop until she gets it. Which in her real life was never very difficult getting.

Weaknesses: Where to even start? Spoiled Princess Brat (she has never not gotten what she wants in her life, and it shows), impatient, impulsive, not exactly a team player (I mean, she is now, but that shady shit she pulled back when she first started playing kinda got her a rep), arrogant, prideful, kind of a bitch (doesn’t really think of it as a weakness, but ya know, it’s hard to make friends), dragon obsession (refuses to kill dragons, even in order to advance the game, got herself and party members killed early on in the game ‘cause of it), kind of an adrenaline junkie, and reckless af. She doesn’t really consider the consequences of the game, wholeheartedly believes her dad, fam and connections in the real world will get her out soon enough, so has no problem running head first into fire (”I’m too hot to die in a video game”).

Player Stats: (on a scale of 1-10, 1 being the weakest, 10 being the strongest. try to balance it out!)

STRENGTH: 9

DEFENSE: 7

CHARISMA: 3

PSYCHE: 5

WILLPOWER: 9

CAUTIOUSNESS: 2

AGILITY: 5

ENDURANCE: 7

INTELLIGENCE: 8

LUCK: 4

Personality: “Haven’t you ever seen a princess be a bad bitch before?”

Haha, yeah, but mostly, she’s just a massive nerd. She’s such a fucking nerd. Bitch learned Quenya and Sindarin just for kicks, and her own amusement. Literally no one else in her irl circle even fucking knows what those two things are (Elvish tongues in Tolkien).

As the baby of a two large families, and the only daughter of a Russian oligarch, Katya is incredibly spoiled, and very much self-centered. Something of a downplayed celebutante, she is not quite as present at every single high society, high fashion event in Russia, or elsewhere in Europe, she only goes to a handful. And really only for the free stuff, she loves stuff. Katya maintains a somewhat disinterested high social status, as she is the daughter of a major industrialist, and friends with other, higher profile wealthy Russian heirs and heiresses, and there are benefits (so many), but she isn't quite interested in attaining spotlight or attention. However, she also perceives it as something that is just naturally part of her life. She uses a lot of hand gestures when speaking, and tends to give off a naive-princessy vibe who seems to think the world revolves around her. Which, to be fair, it does in her house -she does know that it doesn’t actually, but ya know, can’t quite turn off that bitch, I’m a princess mindset.

“I don’t skate through life... I walk through life. In really nice shoes.” - Alexis Rose (Schitts’ Creek 3.04)

Notably, she speaks with a vocal fry when speaking English. She says “like” a lot, has a bit of a condescending tone, but, she like, does care. About a lot of stuff, but also humanity in general. Spoiled baby she may be, she does have a moral compass, and was amongst the public figures who signed an open letter against the Saint Petersburg Anti-”Gay Propaganda” bill (it’s some bullshit about “protecting” minors from “non-traditional sexual relationships”). She believes in doing the right thing, that the goal of any organization or even person should just be to decrease the net suffering of humanity, but also, she is a super proud Russian. Very anti-american, thinks they’re all stupid, always says shady shit in Russian whenever she runs into americans online. However, it’s not like she’s a fan of United Russia (Putin’s party), they’re right-wing nutjobs, she does not like them. Her main political party is A Just Russia, who are much less then left than her (officially, they be centre-left), but they’re the only ones (of her favoured parties) who have seats in the State Duma (the lower house of the Federal Assembly, Russia’s legislative body - the Duma is like parliament, or congress, I think, I don’t really know what congress is tbh, house of representatives maybe? Idk, the place where Nancy Pelosi is charge, equivalent to that). Katya also supports Patriots of Russia, a socialist, left-wing party, but they only have seats in regional parliaments, and only one seat in the Federation Council (similar to the senate, the upper house of Russia’s legislative body). There’s also Russia of the Future, but it’s not been formally registered yet. In the 2018 election she voted for the communist party’s candidate just for kicks (it’s different in Russia, there’s was zero possibility of Putin losing, come on, grow up).

As a side note, if this helps with the explainary-stuff, I basically envision her as a slavic-desi cross of Alexis Rose from Schitts’ Creek, and Gina Linetti from Brooklyn-99, also this hindi song; Sheila ki Jawani. The song is basically about owning the fact that you’re super sexy.

Biography: Katya is half-Russian, half-Indian, born to a Russian father, industrialist (and oligarch) Anatoli Ivanovich Raevsky, and an Indian mother, activist and journalist Mishti Syeda Khan. Her parents eventually separated, though technically are still married, when she was about 14, and her mother moved to Manchester in the UK, while Katya remained in Russia with her father. Katya is from a large family, on both sides, and at the time of her birth, was the first baby to be born in quite a few years (the elder cousins were like tween-teen, too old be constantly coddled and cuddled, and too young to make babies), so she was hella spoiled by everyone. The problems her maternal family had with her mother marrying a non-Muslim white boy? Well, we still hate him, but look how cute Rina is.

Despite the... complications between her family members - the whole religion/marrying a shada (white) boy thing, not to mention that Mishti herself is like agnostic at “best”, in general, as the baby, Katya (or Rina as her mother and maternal family call her), get along - well, okay, there’s always the shady auntieji’s, and bullshit drama, but like, that’s just brown families yo. We like that. We’re all 100% those bitches (see ya at Eid Nanu [grandma], ya messy bitch). While there is some distance between Katya and her mother, metaphorically and literally, she really does look up to her mother and her work, and followed in her footsteps, studying journalism at Moscow State University, and moving on to work at Известия (Izvestia), the “national” paper of Russia, formerly the state newspaper of the Soviet Union. Currently, she’s a glorified fact checker, and maintains the website with a handful of other colleagues. She’s also authored small “puff pieces” for Nedelya (a weekly Friday section about leisure actives, culture, that kinda stuff).

Katya is not exactly an avid gamer. She likes games, but it’s not like a 24/7 thing, whereas she is 24/7 thinking about like ASOIAF or Stars Wars (fuck you JJ, you were supposed to destroy the Sith R*ylo, not join them), not to mention Eurovision. Anyone who thinks Eurovision only lasts for a week is a fake fan, and anyone who thinks it’s a one day thing is an american. Ziben ziben ilulu motherfucker. Anyway.... she prefers immersive, high fantasy worlds, she likes the story and plot, so her types of games are The Witcher and Dragon Age Series, Elder Scrolls, that sort of thing. She doesn’t put in daily hours, ‘cause she got other stuff to do, but will dedicate weekends to leveling up her characters in order to accomplish quests and missions quickly and not waste time to get to the story cut scenes. She hates, hates, hatessss microtransactions and those stupid fucking mmorpg phone games which are literally just farmville repackaged with a dragon or an orc; FUCK YOU. What a fucking waste of time, quit advertising as having a plot and story, or cool character customization, ‘cause you don’t have any of that you basic ass bitch!

Gem Quest was regifted to Katya by a coworker, who had gotten it as a present, but didn’t have a VR set (of course she had one, she’s rich, and also she needed it to play Batman: Arkham VR - she’s still waiting on a game that’ll let her make out with Nightwing while playing as a custom character). She got a bit of a bad rep (understatement) in the beginning of the game. Katya hates being stuck because she doesn’t have enough exp or whatever, so she always levels up in the beginning of a game before taking the time to fuck around and do whatever, which, in the case of Gem Quest, means teaming up is the easiest way to do that. So, whenever a party member was holding them back from leveling up, she would straight up kill them in order to move on. She killed her own irl friends, to be fair, she doesn’t do that anymore, that was just in the beginning, but ya know, the rep of being that bitch kinda hard to get of.

G.’s announcement didn’t particularly freak out Katya. Whatever kind of evil Kaiba Corp execs bullshit he was pulling didn’t matter, he still had a body out there in the real world, and there’s no fucking way her dad would let die in a fucking game. There’s perks to being Oligarchs in Russia, and even if she did die in-game and was unable to return to reality, wherever G. and his real body were, motherfucker will die in excruciating pain. Polonium-210 ain’t pleasant, and the Novichok series is so much worse.

Relationships: (OPTIONAL, fill out whenever you want to)

Silverwing - rn. Anastasia “Anya” Gagarina (fc: Anna Belan), a fellow moonstone, and real life friend - well, the younger sister of an ex-boyfriend whom she still gets along with (the sister, not necessarily the ex).

Inferna - I don’t really have any plotting ideas, but Inferna’s whole; “It’s very important that I am both cute and powerful” is so relatable (to me and Katya xp)

Enthroned -

Morningstar -

Extras/Trivia (aka unnecessary information):

Her mother, and thus maternal family, are from Kolkata, in the state of West Bengal in India, thus making Katya fluent (relatively) in Bengali as well (well, a dialect of it - West Central, you’d think as an actual Bengali person, I’d know the proper name of it, but nope. Idk, shudobasha maybe, but I think that’s for people from Dakha, which is in Bangladesh, not India. Whatever. Not like my dad will check this and be disappointed in me.)

Apart from her native Russian, Hindi, and Bengali, she speaks English, and Japanese (100% learned it because she’s a weeb), as well as the fictional languages; Quenya, Sindarin (and can use the Tengwar script to write them), High Valyrian, Mando’a, Dovazhul, and Klingon. As a teenager she also created a dictionary for ancient “Black Speech”, an in-universe constructed language in Tolkien’s legendarium, but her version is not canon, so it doesn’t count - she’s also forgotten a lot of it. She was a baby, she still has the hard copy she made somewhere in the Raevsky Manor in Saint Petersburg.

After graduating from MSU, her father bought her, her own apartment in the Kudrinskaya Square Building in Moscow, adjacent to the ones he owned already, which she had lived in when she moved to Moscow for school.

Katya’s family is religiously mixed (well, she’s the one who’s mixed), her maternal family are largely Muslim, some Hindu (very few though, like, you can count them on one hand), and her paternal family are either Orthodox Christian or atheist (usually depending on how long they were alive and how into the Soviet Regime they were). Katya’s parents are agnostic (Mishti), and atheist (Anatoli), Katya herself is also atheist, but sometimes she’ll say she prays to the Seven or R’hllar, or Lord Jashin, or some other made up nerd ass religion (’cause she that bitch).

But for real, she can be a real bitch about religion. The Soviets got a lot wrong, but banning religion was not one of them <- so she says. She gets super pissed when someone brings up religion during a politics chat, that fake shit should have nothing to do with running a country.

hates starbucks with every fibre of her being, it’s such an american staple and the first time she saw one in Russia, she nearly had a heart attack.

Will die mad about:

The Last Jedi and The Rise of Skywalker; the fuck was that bullshit? We trusted you JJ!

the garbage show’s gaslighting and murder of Daenerys Stormborn of House Targaryen, First of Her Name, Rightful Queen of the Andals, the Rhoynar, and the First Men. Queen of Meereen, The Prince who was Promised, The Unburnt, Slayer of Lies, Breaker of Shackles, Khaleesi of the Great Grass Sea, and Mother of Dragons.

Hrithik Roshan still being so fucking hot (he’s 45, please like chill a little, holy fuck)

Catarina de Lurton dying

Former american politician John McCain constantly saying “Russia is a gas station masquerading as a country” - bitch, we’re a thousand years old, how’s your 250 year old failed experiment of a garbage nation going?

Freud.

Links:

Playlist

Urstyle Collection (aesthetics, and other shit)

Social Media

#gem quest #katya raevskaya #audition #my edits #clara's edits #mine #incomplete #writing #graphics

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somethingusefulfromflorida · 4 years ago

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I just finished "Our War" by Craig DiLouie, and I have to say it is one of the most realistic depictions of war in the United States I have ever read

The president is impeached and convicted, but refuses to leave, triggering a nationwide civil war as federal, state, and local forces fracture into pro-congress and pro-executive sides. That's the backdrop for the story of child soldiers in Indianapolis, a reporter struggling to break this news to the world amidst censorship, and a UNICEF aid worker helping those she can. The story focuses on the left-wing Free Women militia in their battle against the right-wing Liberty Tree militia. Both sides are fractured, each just one militia among many fighting for the same causes, with disagreements over how things should be done. The novel captures the factionalism I feel enveloping our country; the author's sympathies lie with the left, but he doesn't paint them as the be-all-end-all of truth and justice. He doesn't resort to false equivalencies either, he's not saying that both sides are morally equal, he just acknowledges that in war a good cause does not automatically make good people. The left wingers are split between the centrists in charge of the government and the leftist fringe, which is how it would be in real life. The right wingers are every man for himself, dozens of factions all claiming to be the one true conservatives, everyone else is doing it wrong. Liberty Tree are generic militiamen, the Proud Boys, the 3 Percenters, Patriots Prayer, you name it. The Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department (IMPD) is playing both sides, hedging their bets to see which will come out on top. The First Angels are religious extremists, America's Taliban, who commit war crimes in the name of establishing a theocracy. This last group is the deadliest and most terrifying, but are quickly wiped out due to their own hubris, uniting the left wing factions against them.

I do wish more attention were paid to the political aspects of the war. We know that Democrats control Congress and impeached and convicted the president, but there's no way there would be total unity in Congress. We've seen two impeachment's in as many years, and both times were bitterly partisan affairs with one half of Congress protecting the president from the other half. The president in this novel would hold sway over his half of Congress no matter what he did, he wouldn't be a lone wolf fighting a war without allies in the legislature. The Vice President is never mentioned, so we don't know their reaction to the president's impeachment, though we can assume they refused to be sworn in after he was convicted and removed from office. There's no talk of the Speaker of the House either, who would be next in line behind the pres and vp; at the end of the novel there are peace talks between the president and "the president of the senate," which is the official job of the Vice President, so is the VP on Congress's side? Or is it the president pro tempore, the longest serving member of the senate majority party and 3rd in line behind the VP and Speaker? It's never touched upon, and I think it's a missed opportunity, though that's not what this story was about. This was a story about individuals in a specific battle on a specific front on a specific city.

All in all, I recommend it for those of you interested in hard dystopia. It paints the right wing nutjobs as human, but not sympathetic; they are the bad guys, full stop, and are fighting a losing war based on an empty ideology founded on fear. Fear of the unknown, fear or change, fear of unfairness. If they win, they still lose because their fighting will never end; nothing will be enough for them, they can never fill in the hole they feel. The war wasn't a valve that could be opened and closed, it was a dam bursting, you can't stop the floodwaters from coming. They'll keep finding more ad more enemies, fighting a war of attrition to the last man. It's a terrifying story because it realistically shows that these people have no endgame, no concrete plans beyond he immediate future, just feelings of hatred and vindictiveness

#our war #war #civil war #second civil war #second american civil war #American war #Craig DiLouie #novel #novel review #book review #review #politics #political

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libertariantaoist · 8 years ago

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James T. Hodgkinson, the would-be assassin of Republican congressmen, wasn’t a radical. If you look at his published output – a series of letters to his local newspaper in Belleville, Illinois, as well as the majority of his Internet postings – it’s mostly about matters nearly every progressive cares about: taxes (the rich don’t pay enough), healthcare (the government must provide), income inequality (it’s all a Republican plot). All in all, a pretty unremarkable worldview that any partisan Democrat – either a Bernie Sanders supporter, as Hodginkinson was, or a Hillary fan – could sign on to.

So what drove him over the edge?

One of his more recent Facebook posts was a link to a petition that called for “the legal removal of the President and Vice-President, et. al., for Misprision of Treason.” Hodgkinson had signed it and he was asking his readers to follow suit: “Trump is a Traitor,” he wrote, “Trump Has Destroyed Our Democracy. It’s Time to Destroy Trump & Co.” He was also a big fan of Rachel Maddow, who – incredibly — has spent the majority of her airtime ranting about “The Russian Connection,” as this Intercept piece documents. Hodgkinson was also a member of a Facebook group ominously dubbing itself “Terminate the Republican Party,” an appellation Hodgkinson apparently took quite literally. The group has over 13,000 members. The main page of the Terminators is adorned with a cartoon of Putin manipulating Trump like a puppet.

When Hodgkinson left his home and his job to travel to Alexandria, Virginia, he told his wife he was going to “work on tax issues.” But is that what motivated his murderous spree? Do “tax issues” really seem like something that would inspire someone to plan and carry out an assassination attempt that, but for the presence of Capitol police on the scene, would have certainly resulted in a massacre?

Hodgkinson clearly believed that the President of the United States was an agent of a foreign power. He had signed on to the idea that Trump not only benefited from a Russian campaign to discredit Hillary Clinton, but that he is engaged in a war against his own country. As Maddow put it in one of her more unhinged broadcasts:

“If the presidency is effectively a Russian op, right, if the American Presidency right now is the product of collusion between the Russian Intelligence Services, and an American campaign, I mean, that is so profoundly big. This is not part of American politics; this is not, you know, partisan warfare between Republicans and Democrats. This is international warfare against our country.”

“International warfare” – and Hodgkinson, a soldier in that fight, saw it as his duty to use the sort of weapons that are commonly used in international warfare. That’s why he sprayed that baseball field with a hail of gunfire – over fifty rounds. And when his rifle ran out of ammunition, he took out his handgun and continued firing. Because “this is not, you know, partisan warfare between Republicans and Democrats. This is international warfare against our country” – and it’s the obligation of patriotic citizens to take up that fight and take out the enemy.

This sort of craziness is usually reserved for the farther fringes of the American polity. Back in the 1960s, far-right groups like the Minutemen – who believed the United States government was effectively under the Kremlin’s control – armed themselves to prepare for the day when they would “liberate” America. Indeed, this sort of lunacy has traditionally been a fixture of extreme right-wing politics in this country: that it has now appeared on the left – and not the far-left, but in the “mainstream” of the Democratic party, which has taken up the Russia-gate conspiracy theory to the virtual exclusion of all else — is the proximate cause of what I call Hodgkinson’s Disease: the radicalization of formerly anodyne Democrats into a twenty-first century version of the Weathermen.

How did this happen? Democratic party leaders, in tandem with their journalistic camarilla, have validated an unconvincing conspiracy theory for which not a lick of definitive evidence has been provided: the idea that the Russians “stole” the election on behalf of Trump, and that the Trump campaign cooperated in this treasonous effort.

Yet that hasn’t stopped the Democratic party leadership from taking this ball and running with it. As Jennifer Palmieri, a top official in the Clinton campaign, put it, Democrats should push the “collusion” issue “relentlessly and above all else. They should talk about it in every interview.” The New York Times writes about this conspiracy theory as if it is uncontested fact. Democratic officeholders have declared that the alleged “hacking” of the election was an “act of war” – with the NeverTrump Republicans echoing the party line – and the Twitterverse’s conspiracy theorists are having a field day with the dangerously loony contention that we are at war with Russia. What’s more, the wildest imaginings of the nutjob crowd are being taken up and amplified by “respectable” people like constitutional lawyer Laurence Tribe.

In this way Hodgkinson’s Disease was incubated, its toxicity penetrating the mind of a suggestible and embittered little man until the poison had accumulated to such an extent that it burst through to the surface in an explosion of uncontrollable rage. Rachel Maddow is the theory: James T. Hodgkinson is the practice. The ultimate result is civil war.

That such a conflict would be born out of a full-scale delusional system that resembles a third-rate cold war era thriller just adds a Bizarro World cast to the whole sorry spectacle. The “Russia-gate” conspiracy theory that has consumed the energies of the media, the Congress, and President Trump is an elaborate hoax. This farrago of falsehood rests on a fallacious assumption: that the Russians necessarily “hacked” the DNC and John Podesta’s emails. The contention is that the methods supposedly utilized by the alleged hackers were similar to those used in the past by “suspected” Russian hackers, and that this makes the case. Yet this argument ignores the fact that these tools and methods were already out there, available for anyone to use. This is a textbook example of what cyber-security expert Jeffrey Carr calls “faith-based attribution,” which amounts to, at best, an educated guess, and at worst is the end result of confirmation bias combined with the economic incentive to tell a client what they want to hear. In the case of the DNC/Podesta “hacks,” the company hired to investigate, CrowdStrike, had every reason to echo Hillary Clinton’s contention that the Russians were the guilty party. CrowdStrike, by the way, never gave US law enforcement authorities access to the DNC’s servers: indeed, the FBI’s request for access was rebuffed.

The “Russia-gate” hoax has injected a pernicious and highly dangerous theme into our political discourse: the accusation that the Trump administration is a traitorous cabal intent on “destroying democracy,” as Hodgkinson put it, and handing over the country to the tender mercies of a foreign power. Taken seriously, this theme necessarily and inevitably leads to violence, which means there’s a good chance we’ll see more Hodgkinsons in the headlines.

And standing behind it all is the Deep State – the leakers (with access to all our communications) who are feeding disinformation to the Washington Post and the New York Times in order to bring down this presidency. One prong of this operation is embodied in the Special Counsel, Robert Mueller, whose investigation was provoked and fueled by Deep State leakage. The other prong consists of the useful idiot crowd, those who believe the propaganda and can be mobilized to take to the streets.

The Deep State types don’t have to get in direct contact with people like Hodgkinson in order to provoke violence against this administration or Trump’s supporters. They have only to continue to do what they’ve been doing since before Trump even took office, covertly spreading the idea that Trump is “Putin’s puppet,” as Mrs. Clinton put it: radicalized useful idiots like Hodgkinson will do the rest. It is eerily similar to the methods the CIA has used to overthrow foreign governments: spread rumors, utilizing their journalistic sock-puppets, and indirectly motivate and mobilize mobs to carry out their “regime-change” agenda. The only difference now is that they’re doing what they’ve always done on the home front instead of in, say, Lower Slobbovia.

Yes, that’s where we are right now – we’ve become Lower Slobbovia. Get used to it, folks, because it won’t end until the Deep State is defeated and dismantled.

#justin raimondo #antiwar.com #james hodgkinson #rachel maddow #russia-gate

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lejacquelope · 7 years ago

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Your AVERAGE Trump supporter is a more repulsive, twisted mockery of a human being than even a radical feminist like Brianna Wu

I have to say this because Brianna Wu is making a run for Congress. The mere mention of her causes a vile stench that has me burning incense after typing her name. But after dealing with Republicans for the last year, standing downwind from that woman would undoubtedly be far less unpleasant than standing upwind from any Trump supporter. I’ve seen her vitriol and in-your-face disregard for common sense and I used to think that was a sight to behold. Then in 2016 the Trumpanzees came along and I learned what peak batshit crazy really looks like.

Brianna Wu peddles fear of men (and particularly gamers), but that’s the scope of her vile nature. Your AVERAGE Trumpanzee is a frothing maniac who swallows and regurgitates every anti-woman, anti-POC, anti-gay and anti-Muslim pile of bullshit that they can scrape up off the road. Radical feminists can be screeching harpies, everyone knows how much I despise them, but Trump supporters are something even Clive Barker and Stephen King couldn’t come up with. You can’t parody them because, all the way up to the political / legislative level, they eventually escalate to whatever level of satirical ridiculousness you attribute to them.

There’s just something unearthly about Trump supporters, the same crowd that will send death threats to Las Vegas shooting victims and screech at Puerto Rico after being destroyed by a hurricane and tell them “you owe too much money so we can’t support you” and who think Nazi flag waving traitors are “fine people”. The same bunch who unironically place Neo Nazis - followers of an ideology their forefathers went to war with - on the same moral level as those Antifa people who are fighting them. All of America was ANTIFA in the 1940s... and now we’ve forgotten those historical lessons... all thanks to Trumpanzees. These are the same maniacs who revved up their support for Gianforte in Montana BECAUSE he body slammed a presumably liberal reporter for no reason. These are the same zombie nutjobs who violently attacked dissidents at Trump rallies and then cried all over the Internet and the media like little bitches when that same violence was reflected back at them. These are the same people running over counter protesters, shooting people of color, and being busted by the cops and feds for over 300 violent right wing attacks per fucking year.

Radical feminists, objectively and by the numbers, do not even compare. Not in the depth of their deplorable hate, and not even remotely in breadth. A competition it is certainly not. There are no 300 attacks by feminists per year, there aren’t waves of shootings and car attacks by feminists. They preach hate, and they have paid dearly for it as a movement, but Trumpanzees are both hate mongers and terrorists. You’re more likely to be assaulted and even shot dead by a Trumpanzee than a feminist. And that’s why there was such a huge blowback against the GOP tonight on November 7, 2017 - and why worse is coming for them.

Congratulations, radical feminists, comparing you to Trump supporters is the one thing you can legitimately call a false equivalency.

So yeah, Brianna Wu has surfaced again on Twitter and I long for the days when she was one of the loudest and most irritating voices out there. After Trump came along, she was demoted to less than an extra.

#brianna wu #radical feminists #trumpanzees #trump supporters #trumpanzees vs radical feminists #feminists #november 7 #conservatism is a terrorist movement #greg gianforte #gianforte #reich wing #antifa #neo nazis #nazis

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melindarowens · 8 years ago

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Hodgkinson’s Disease: Politics And Paranoia In The Age Of Trump

Authored by Justin Raimondo via AntiWar.com,

A would-be assassin was incited and validated by the media and the Democratic leadership

So what drove him over the edge?

As Maddow put it in one of her more unhinged broadcasts:

Yes, that’s where we are right now – we’ve become Lower Slobbovia. Get used to it, folks, because it won’t end until the Deep State is defeated and dismantled.

source http://capitalisthq.com/hodgkinsons-disease-politics-and-paranoia-in-the-age-of-trump/ from CapitalistHQ http://capitalisthq.blogspot.com/2017/06/hodgkinsons-disease-politics-and.html

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everettwilkinson · 8 years ago

Text

Hodgkinson’s Disease: Politics And Paranoia In The Age Of Trump

Authored by Justin Raimondo via AntiWar.com,

A would-be assassin was incited and validated by the media and the Democratic leadership

So what drove him over the edge?

As Maddow put it in one of her more unhinged broadcasts:

Yes, that’s where we are right now – we’ve become Lower Slobbovia. Get used to it, folks, because it won’t end until the Deep State is defeated and dismantled.

from CapitalistHQ.com http://capitalisthq.com/hodgkinsons-disease-politics-and-paranoia-in-the-age-of-trump/

#TrumpNews #CapitalistHQ.com

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furynewsnetwork · 8 years ago

Link

In 2011, in Tucson, Gabrielle Giffords and a whole passel of others were shot; several died. The perpetrator was a liberal, “progressive” [ironic term] nutjob who had been dutifully listening to the idiotic rhetoric and conspiracy theories of his political partisanship. His political partisanship consisted of marginalized notions held by almost no one outside of his very small political sensibility.

Yesterday, as we all know by now, a similar thing happened in Alexandria. The perpetrator in this case was a liberal, “progressive” [ironic term] nutjob who had been dutifully listening to the idiotic rhetoric and conspiracy theories of his political partisanship. His political partisanship consisted of mainstream notions held by almost everyone of his very large political sensibility.

Predictably, idiot liberal “progressives” [ironic term] flooded the virtual halls of social media yesterday denying, first, that yesterday’s event was done by one of their own and, second, that even if it was it was just karma for the Giffords “matter” six years earlier which they were reconstructing into a right-wing revolution of sorts and, third, if republicans didn’t want to get shot then perhaps they shouldn’t be trying to kill sick people and destroy the planet and throw granny onto an ice floe.

…are democrats still making that granny on an ice floe claim? Who can remember?

At any rate, I pointed a number of them at my essay from six years ago in which I expounded on a number of the rationalizations and excuses made by liberal “progressives” [ironic term] then and now to justify being grade-A self-pitying jackasses. The essay still holds.

Here it is, with minor style edits:

Wagging a Civil a Tongue

Old news by this point. Six dead, 14 injured in Tucson. Among the dead is a federal judge; among the injured [and presumably permanently incapacitated] is a US Representative.

I know nothing about the federal judge, but chances are I would not have approved of his ability to match the law against the Constitution and decide which to give prominence. Most judges are a little too smugly enamored of their own “special” ability to bend words into pretzels to allow something as trivial as our nation’s Constitution to stand.

Just going with the odds, here, I’m afraid I’m going to have to quote a few famous people in response to the news of The Honorable’s death:

“I’ve never killed a man, but I’ve read many an obituary with a great deal of satisfaction.” – Clarence Darrow

“I didn’t attend the funeral, but I sent a nice letter saying I approved of it.” – Mark Twain

One fewer federal judge means one fewer person having the ability and authority to subvert the Constitution.

Yes, I know. I’m not being very sympathetic to the gentleman, or his family, in their week of tragedy. Well … I’m not trying to be. This may be unfair; this judge may have been the only one in the last 90 years to have actually read the Constitution and understand what it means. …but I doubt it. And besides:

“If you expect cheers when the crowd likes what you do, then you should expect them to boo when they don’t.” – Every Disgruntled Sports Fan, Ever

And, well, Mr Judge? Boooooooo. Ride the pines.

As anyone could have predicted, both sides are lining up to blame each other for causing the shooter to pull the trigger. It was the constant bath of insufferably strident, closed-minded political discourse he was subjected to on a daily basis, they say. And as some people could have predicted, the most common target of blame is the Tea Party, and the new conservative everyone loves to hate [since the old one retired]: Sarah Palin.

Palin had put out, for the 2010 election, a map of the US with bulls eyes on it where conservatives had the best chances of unseating a liberal. Or something. It’s hardly a new concept, and versions of the same thing have been created every few election cycles since I’ve been voting − by both sides − when the mood of the electorate has shifted dramatically and Key Seats were being targeted for electoral change.

Liberals and democrats claiming that Palin is somehow out of bounds for doing in 2010 what they did as recently as 2006 need to see a doctor about their memory problem. There was no shortage of graphics for eight long years showing Dubya in a scope, and the only reason I can think of that some liberal nitwit didn’t actually do what was implied by it is because “Darth Cheney” would have succeeded him. Say what you like about Junior Bush [or what you dislike, as the case may be]; it may well be accurate. But in the final analysis, Bush the Younger was a basically inoffensive executive, neither strongly competent, nor strongly not, and well within the century-long trend-line of federalizing new authorities. His main flaw is being an inarticulate dweeb.

With bad table manners.

There’s no reason to believe the US would now be uninvolved in the wars we’re in, nor have responded to, um, certain events with any less statist tactics in our domestic policy if Gore had been elected. Note how quickly we’ve exited Iraq and Afghanistan, closed Gitmo, rescinded the Patriot Act and shut down the Freedom is Slavery Department of Homeland Security under the democrat Congress we got in 2006 and the democrat White House we acquired in 2008 − both elected expressly to do those very things.

Our National Savior isn’t the first grasping elected official to subscribe to the sentiment “Never let a crisis go to waste.” George Washington put down the Whiskey Rebellion with federalized militia; it started there. Whoever was president on 9/11 was going to do essentially the same thing Bush did … to within decimal places. You’re lying to yourself if you won’t admit it.

So, no. Both the left and the right pointing fingers at each other over which side is more responsible for the take no prisoners political rhetoric is monumental hypocrisy. Clarence Page − who’s penned an anti-Palin polemic at least once a week since her name showed up south of Skagway − I’m looking at you, here, though I could as easily look at thousands of others. You calling for “civility” is a Mirror, Mirror moment.

Speaking of inheriting the wind … the only example of any candidate from either side in the 2010 mud-terms calling for death or violence is Paul Kanjorski, the democrat Congressman from PA [diselected in 2010] who had this to say about republican Rick Scott, the winner of the FL governor’s election: “Put him against the wall and shoot him.”

Nice. Paul must really be a conservative, Tea Party republican, then, right? No democrat would say such a thing.

And not that it matters any, but parsing which side owns the political sentiments of the shooter is also a waste of time. …though I’d have to suggest that for him to belong to the conservatives, being as he’s a 9/11 conspiracy theorist, is an extreme long shot. Just sayin’.

Those with cooler heads have taken a different approach: it wouldn’t have mattered if our nation’s political discourse was festooned with flowery fart gas, the guy is unhinged; anything could have been enough to set him off. Mark David Chapman believes Catcher in the Rye led him to kill John Lennon. Loughner read Alice in Wonderland and The Phantom Tollbooth. …and had it in for the AZ congressman for 4 years, outliving any familiarity he − or anyone else − had with Palin or the Tea Party.

Like Kaczynski, he regaled everyone with a litany of “evils” upon which the United States government is conspiring. Perpetrating 9/11 against itself is just the first. Not to imply anything about some of his lesser-known crackpottings, even if only because the government is involved in a helluva lotta things, but he − like every other conspiracy theorist − cites loads of circumstantial evidence as support for their favorite conspiracy. And, as always, it is the circumstantial support that, to many people with a flimsy grasp of reality, makes sense.

The US orchestrated 9/11 because it gave an excuse to invade a muslim country, to further erode civil liberties, et cetera.

Circumstantially … all very correct. We invaded Afghanistan, and we Patriot Acted ourselves out of still more semblance of a free country. To people who can’t tell cause from side effect, it’s reasonable to conclude a unifying motivation.

Bush invaded Iraq [variously] to “finish Daddy’s war”, to demonstrate machismo after the defensive invasion of Afghanistan, to steal Iraqi oil… Except for the oil-stealing thing, the circumstantial evidence is either there or can be plausibly inferred. A commodity price doesn’t increase if there is a free supply of it, thus “stealing oil” is a tinfoil hat insanity with nothing rational behind it. But for the rest, the only thing missing is a non-witless way of getting from Premise A to Conclusion B.

Other bits of circumstantial evidence cited by previous crackpots when doing their insanities:

certain shortcomings of industrial society and technology − Ted Kaczynski

excesses of industrial society’s government − Randy Weaver

impending Armageddon brought on by the sins of the world − David Koresh

paranoiac Waco siege − Timothy McVeigh

Et cetera.

In each case, the superficial evidence is largely accurate. Modern industrial society has flaws. You’re right, Ted; stick a gold star on your forehead.

Yes, Randy, there is excess of [and in] government. I’m with you on that.

Reverend Koresh − or “god” if you prefer − the world is indeed a sinful place. Has been ever since you gave Adam and Eve the capacity to choose Knowledge over Instinct. It would seem to be your fault; deal with it.

Right, Tim, another in a long, long line of governmental overreactions. Crack a history book; that’s what government does.

In all but one of those examples, the loony tune is dead − obituaries that I read with great pleasure, I might add.

Self-serving political commentators who, by and large, particularly those on the left, have been uncivil and strident in their snively rhetoric, are backtracking like mad, covering their trail of mopey partisanship by largely denying they ever participated, and are now writing treatises on “the lessons of Tucson,” with civility heading the list … as they plow all blame for their actions to the right.

Our National Savior, who called republicans and independents who lined up to vote against his party “the enemy”, is now claiming “We can do better”. No, dude; you can do better.

Lawmakers are calling for “toning down” the harangue we give each other on a daily basis. Some − democrats, as if it needs to be said − are actually claiming that we should, by law, be prevented from pointed political disagreement altogether, erasing one more clause from the already highly redacted First Amendment. Unfortunately, the ADA doesn’t require handrails on Slippery Slopes.

Others − more democrats, as if it still needs to be said − are all in a panic to invent more gun control laws, as if taking away yet another of our rights is going to reduce the circumstantial evidence of all the conspiracy theories that hinge on the government taking away our rights.

Loughner is a nutjob, just like the many, many who spun conspiracy theories during Bush, and the many who spun conspiracy theories during Clinton, and the et cetera during yadda, and the blah during everyone else. He’s just one of the few who did anything about it. That is the only thing not always allowed in a free society.

Spout if you’re a republican, spew if you’re a democrat, write angry incoherent manifestos if you’re batshit. Blame everyone else for your failed responsibilities if you’re in the media. All good.

Use fists, brickbats or bullets for punctuation? Not good.

The circumstances are there: the usurpations of power, the obliteration of rights, the elevation of a bureaucrat’s paranoias into policy. The government is doing all these things, and much much more. It is justified to distrust the government − indeed it’s naively delusional not to. But it’s psychotic to conclude conspiracy; it is criminal to do much more about it than vote against every bastard when given the opportunity, and to yell at them the rest of the time.

The lesson here is not civility or any similarly puerile, cotton candy sentiment, and it certainly isn’t to fan the flames of the whack-a-mole conspiracists by giving them one more excess to rail against. The lesson to be learned here is not for the citizen, nor even for the feckless, cowering media; it is for the asshats in our government − elected, appointed and career bureaucrat, all.

Dig it, bozos: if you don’t want the conspiratorial nitwits to step off into criminality, then don’t provide the circumstances that makes their conspiracy theory seem − to the pillocks they are − plausible. How many Americans have gone to their graves, and taken others with them, complaining about the erosion of their rights, the highhandedness of the IRS, the paranoias of one mob of bureaucrat or other?

Their ammunition, even before they dig out the Glock, is the erosion of rights, the highhandedness of the IRS, and bureaucratic paranoias writ large and imposed upon everyone. Do you actually need to be told this? They have a point, and often a good one, hiding in their bonkers.

If you weren’t scanning children for naked images and groping nuns at airports, we’d be able to tell who was insane when they claimed the government was porno-scanning kids and feeling up old ladies. As it is, we don’t know who to nod in agreement with and who to get the butterfly net for.

But we know who to yell at, and who to vote against. And why. Do your job, please; the one you were given by the Constitution, not the one you cut from whole cloth. Because when you don’t do your job but instead do a job on us the way you have been, we find it very hard to scrape up any sympathy when things like this happen.

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