No Excuses

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.

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.

The worst people in the country.

Nah, too many crazy people showing up. This is gearing up to be Charlottesville 2.0 by the looks of it.

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

The scumbag lawyer, accused of rape by Epstein's victims, who got Epstein off the hook, now represents the the rapey, **** grabbing President in his impeachment. Just a den of low life criminals in the GOP.

Ok, I read the book review. This is kind of a weird thread where no one has read the book, no one will probably read the book, most people probably don't know what Claremont Institute is, but it's obvious that they don't like socialists. The DSA loony bin of bad ideas however is something I'm familiar with. Well intentioned people, with some of the worst ideas out there. Stripping private ownership and turning everything into a bureaucratized democratic hellhole is their utopian vision. So at least on that end, the review critiques them quite well. If the goal is a more egalitarian American society, stripping private ownership is the absolute most god awful way of doing this, and also something that a large majority of the country will never get on board with. It's just about the most anti-American idea in existence and most people who have migrated to this country likely came from places where private ownership of land and business was a bureaucratized nightmare. There is a reason immigrants start businesses at a much higher rate than native citizens in America. A place like Claremont however really has no room to critique DSA. DSA's growth in popularity is a reaction to the decimation of communities from crony capitalism and a deregulated market that has stripped the private ownership capabilities of a large chunk of the population. DSA will keep growing in numbers as long as people equate a corrupt political and economic system with capitalism. This country has used policy very successfully historically to increase private ownership of land and business and lift poor white people into the middle class. We don't really have to reinvent the wheel to do the same for poor brown and black people, who make up a disproportionate share of people hurt by today's economic system. And I guarantee you that loons at Claremont oppose policies that would do this, even though they don't stray from our capitalist economic system. My tl;dr for this post: crazy people on opposite ends, who feed into each other and radicalize more people as a result of their bad ideas are the worst.

This is really what is at the heart of the conservative push for more charter schools and school vouchers. Most of the country isn't getting the type of charter school's we have in the DMV which specialize in science, tech, design or a multitude of other useful skills. A lot of these private charter schools are really just churches masquerading as education centers. American Madrasas is what they are.

There are two Senate elections in GA in 2020. Split line is to show the lean for both.

Bruuuuhhhh the wait is killing me.

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

Discuss the impending **** storm.

Congrats to the kids for having a chance at being a normal person and not a medieval weirdo creep.

To The GOP is making up claims of electoral fraud to undermine the trust of the public in our electoral process. Happening in FL and AZ for the past few days, and now it seems Nevada GOP is denying results that pretty much swept them out of power at every level of government in the state. As the GOP reaps the electoral results of their bargain with Trump, expect this to worsen.

Need to more be emphasis on defense and obviously better players. I think Tommy Shep has done really well for the first year but this should put the FO on notice that they can’t be meek and conservative when it comes to making roster moves like they were under Ernie. They need to aggressively pursue top talent.

Being a meek, subservient ass kisser to an overgrown manbaby is the defining characteristic of present day conservatives. Looks like Trump finally managed to get Ukraine to open investigations into Americans. Will he complain about Ukrainian sabotage of his campaign again?

The de facto Republican strategy has been to drum up phony scandals during election years and then let them fizzle out post -elections. The media takes the bait. Their mindless base amplifies it. And just enough low-info moderate voters buy into it to. Considering how many crimes Hillary has supposedly committed, it’s amazing that she’s still walking free and somehow one Trump goon after another is landing in jail. This reality is completely lost on the nutjob gallery.

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.

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.

Sure looks like surveillance and intimidation of a US ambassador carried out by Trump’s goons, one who happens to be a GOP congressional candidate.

Every day I feel better about my decision to not support Bernie, primary or general election, so people like this are not given an elevated platform.

Deficit spending to boost the economy so they can win elections on the back of it. Must be nice to have zombies for voters.

The worst people.

This is good.