No Excuses

This is just a general rant. Over the past few months I have been traveling quite frequently for work. Flying is just an absolutely horrendous experience at this point. It is remarkable that in a country where a substantial chunk of the population is obese or overweight, seats on aircrafts have gotten exponentially smaller to squeeze more and more people into a single flight. The end result is a miserable experience for everyone involved. Yesterday on a three hour flight, I was squeezed into my already tiny seat because the passenger adjacent to me couldn't fit into her seating space. I had to give up about a quarter of my seating space to her. Most airlines have instituted policies for larger passengers of size, and countries like Canada mandate that such passengers be given a 2nd seat at no additional charge. I know most US airlines have policies in place to accommodate passenger comfort but I don't think this ever gets enforced. Something needs to change.

Discuss the impending **** storm.

https://thinkprogress.org/trump-ichan-steel-imports-cf7deb8beaf0/ Insider trading 101. If the SEC still does what it's supposed to do, this should be a major scandal that demands an investigation. This is the kind of corruption that is a hallmark of oligarchies. Also might as well make this the trade war thread. It seems like the tariffs won't just be for steel and aluminum.

Someone capable of recognizing their past deplorable behavior and apologizing for it is commendable and almost necessary for the American right. But it’s only a start. And post-Trump, the litmus test will have to be actions rather than words.

The failing Presidency. Won’t be surprised if he announces that he’s going back to the private sector the moment **** hits the fan even more. I am beginning to think he isn’t running next year. In two years, there’s going to be zero people willing to admit they ever voted for a clearly insane person.

A lot of economically anxious right wing folks have descended upon UVA this weekend. Of course, there are heroes in this story. Who were sadly failed by their local police departments.

There was a suggestion in the Russia investigation thread to start a new one for impeachment. With the investigation now over and the SCO dissolved, the next phase begins. There is growing support among House Democrats and one lone Republican (Justin Amash) on starting impeachment hearings over the 11 counts of obstruction highlighted in the special counsel report.

Everything the GOP complained that Democrats would one day do, Trump has done.

We are pretty much at the point that the most important conversation for climate change is no longer "let's curb emissions" but start building defenses and infrastructure to withstand what's coming this century.

I was holding off on posting this because I wasn't sure where this dumb conspiracy was headed. But this has now reached enough of a mass popularity in right wing circles so here you go. Tl;dr: people are convinced that a Trump admin official who they have dubbed "QAnon", is posting subtle hints of a massive conspiracy on the 4chan board /pol. http://nymag.com/selectall/2017/12/qanon-4chan-the-storm-conspiracy-explained.html

"Trips for Trump" is an absolutely hilarious name and it would 100% work. Make it a very fascist tour of all the ultra-right wing countries like Poland, Hungary, Brazil and India. Special packages for Russia and North Korea. Label it as a middle finger to the liberals and MAGA dorks from all over the country will be signing up.

There is a greater than 50% chance that no one receives a refund.

Not a bad idea tbh but I doubt his supporters even own passports. Most of them probably haven’t traveled more than 50 miles from where they were born.

Peak stupidity that I’m sure will be topped by this time next week.

If the economy enters recession, Trump loses and the incoming Dem president has to approve a stimulus package via deficit spending, I am sure the pearl clutching will then resume and the Tea Party will remember that deficits are the real enemy, and totally not immigrants.

Proving our love for Jewish people and painting Democrats as anti-semites by calling American Jews stupid and disloyal. Now that they are being maligned and ridiculed by a white nationalist, I am sure they will start voting GOP.

He’s not directly telling people to go kill high profile Democrats. He is just relaying what “God” told him. He’s probably protected because of this.

There has to be some kind of universal rule that anything explicitly branding itself “true” or “truth” in its name is 100% crackpot conspiracy BS. Website name, social media handle, magazine or blog, it’s like a red flashing indicator of bat**** crazy.

I am quite afraid of what a recession does. This isn’t 2007, when cooler heads on both the right and left managed to get an absolutely crap situation under control. Even a mild recession has the risk of spiraling out of control because Trump is first and foremost a self serving asshole, who will not put the country ahead of his own interests and needs. And their isn’t a lick of self awareness or desire to admit fault in your average GOP voter, who will mindlessly rregurgitate bull**** talking points and conspiracies rather than acknowledging reality.

Splitting this off from the Charlottesville thread which should stay focused on hate group rallies and their aftermaths. Currently there is a wave of activism sweeping the country that is calling for the removal of monuments to Confederate generals and soldiers, who were traitors to the country and fought for a horrible cause. In Durham, protestors just took down a confederate statue. By my estimate the following cities have decided to remove or are considering removal of Comfederate monuments: New Orleans Charlottesville Richmond Lexington Jacksonville I am probably missing more.

I don't have a link yet, but Breitbart just preemptively ran a counter-piece to a Washington Post story that is about to be released soon. The Washington Post article will allege that Roy Moore, noted homophobe, running as the Republican candidate for Senate in Alabama, assaulted teenage girls as young as 14, when he was in his 30's. Roy Moore is on record, denying these allegations to Breitbart. This is going to be a huge ****storm. Republicans will have to make a choice: defend Roy Moore or force him to step down and likely replace him with Luther Strange. It's going to pit the McConnell faction that favors Strange, against the Bannon faction, which favors Roy Moore. I have not linked to the Breitbart piece but if the mods ask, I will provide the link. The Washington Post story hasn't come out yet. The WP article is out: https://www.washingtonpost.com/investigations/woman-says-roy-moore-initiated-sexual-encounter-when-she-was-14-he-was-32/2017/11/09/1f495878-c293-11e7-afe9-4f60b5a6c4a0_story.html?tid=ss_tw&utm_term=.969d8eb93561

They have done rioting in Portland trying to incite fights, which is what the charges against Gibson and six others are for. There should probably be more charges against other organizers and it wouldn’t be surprising that from this point we see them. They come with the intent of starting violence and their internal chat logs and social media posts make that explicitly clear. https://www.huffpost.com/entry/proud-boys-chat-logs-premeditate-rally-violence-in-leaked-chats_n_5ce1e231e4b00e035b928683 They are getting away with being painted as just protestors so far because the threat of violent white nationalism hasn’t been taken seriously enough until perhaps the past two weeks. Their leaked internal chat logs that I posted above reveal that they explicitly discuss violence internally but ask members to only talk about violence openly in terms of defense. They aren’t that bright, several members still openly talk about committing acts of violence on social media.

If this was it, we wouldn’t have much of an issue. But these groups are going in there with the purpose of incitement and rioting and they openly say it. And it’s not just a handful of guys, but typically in the hundreds or thousands. The largest rally in Portland so far was 3000, yesterday was close to 1200. Joey Gibson and several others are facing felonies because of this, which is I think the first direct LE action against these people: https://www.wweek.com/news/courts/2019/08/16/after-nearly-three-years-of-orchestrating-violent-rallies-patriot-prayer-leader-joey-gibson-turns-himself-in-on-felony-riot-charge/ We are pretty much at the point that these are no longer just protests but an ongoing harassment campaign that is costing Portland residents millions of dollars.

Making absurdly dumb analogies is how right wingers come to grips with the rot in their movement. "Antifa are terrorists" is nothing more than a whataboutism to play down the rising threat of white nationalists throughout the country and turn it into a "both sides" issue, when every statistical point tells you that it isn't.