US Politics Mega-Blog - Page 10

On September 20 2018 11:04 LegalLord wrote:

I'm sure you could find plenty of analogous situations where "they said it years ago so why would we think they're lying?" if you look. Fuck, let's investigate everything Alex Jones has ever said - who cares that he's an unreliable witness, who cares that there's no corroborating evidence, who cares that it's a waste of breath to even take it seriously, are we concerned about wasting the FBI's time or wasted tax dollars? Some very powerful and important people are implicated in his assertions and he will back them if you ask again, so let's get on that wild goose chase. And if that example seems a little too extreme for you, then dial it to whatever level you choose and you will certainly be able to draw up plenty of baseless bullshit based on nothing more than that someone said something once and was willing to testify, wait never mind, that it was so.

It's a waste of breath and a crock of shit that shouldn't be allowed to gain traction as a political tactic. You show people that baseless claims of sexual misconduct from decades past can be used to immediately spawn a pointless investigation and you're going to see that happen many more times. On the part of the senator who pushed this story, it was a blatant attempt to delay the nomination until the primaries for some form or other of political gain. On the part of the witness, who the fuck knows, but her story sure as hell isn't holding up to scrutiny. But hey, it's politically expedient, so let's just pretend it's credible anyways!

Maduro is responsible for the biggest economic and social crisis that has faced #Venezuela in the last 100 years. It destroyed the bolivar and the quality of life of the whole population. We're going to defeat this inept and irresponsible #SiVotasSeVa president

ANTI-TRUMP J20 PROTESTERS FACING 60 YEARS IN JAIL

“In all but a handful of cases, the prosecution isn't even arguing the individuals on trial committed any property damage,” Chip Gibbons, policy and legislative counsel for Defending Rights & Dissent, told Newsweek. He is advocating on behalf of the defendants that continue to await trial.

“Instead, they are trying to transform a publicly advertised, First Amendment-protected march into a criminal conspiracy and argue that anyone present is collectively liable for any unlawful acts that may have occurred,” he said.

On September 20 2018 22:56 xDaunt wrote:
How in the world can you blame the US for the problems in Venezuela when the Venezuelan government enacted policies that destroyed the market economy? What Venezuela has done has always led to disaster.

It also doesn't apply to the situation because the US government (especially under Trump) is clearly not well intentioned.

By the way, I found this article the other day which claims that the US and Saudis collaborated to flood the oil market in order to "crash" the Russian and Iranian economies. One of the results was the collapse of the Venezuelan economy, since 96% of its exports consists of oil.

I was reading about US-Venezuela relations and supposedly they're not quite so bad as they're sometimes claimed to be. 40% of its oil is exported to the US. And more of its population would view the US favorably than not. There wasn't anything comparable to the economic embargo against Cuba. I would speculate this is related to oil imports and the danger of disrupting this relationship. Venezuela has the world's largest proven oil reserves.

But the relationship has drastically worsened since the Maduro presidency. There have been new sanctions, and there has been talk of invasion. John Bolton joined the administration and he is an advocate of some sort of regime change. And the US has become drastically less dependent on Venezuelan oil imports.

Smuggling is a way of life in the Colombian border town of Cúcuta—and for decades, that’s meant drugs. But in recent years it’s ordinary goods like gasoline or oranges or diapers that make their way from Venezuela to Colombia. The side of the road into Cúcuta is dotted with illegal gasoline vendors, while the shelves of the local stores are stocked with products labeled “Produced for the Venezuelan market.”

On September 20 2018 23:45 xDaunt wrote:
That Venezuela was so harmed by the collapse of the oil market is a sign of just how bad the Chavez/Maduro economic policies were. Compare Venezuela to a country like Chile. Chile has no natural resources on the scale of Venezuela. Yet Chile's economy has been steadily growing and thriving because the government has loosened up market regulations. There's literally no good reason for Venezuela to perform worse than Chile given all of its inherent advantages. Centralized economic planning on the scale of what Venezuela has been doing never works and always leads to disaster.

On September 21 2018 00:38 xDaunt wrote:
Any number of countries have had momentously shitty things happen to them from internal or external sources. One thing that has remained reliably constant over the long run, however, is that centralized economies fail whereas market-based economies thrive. The broad-based dictation of wages and production always leads to ruin.

As kind of a shitpost aside, you just know that the liberal press is besides-themselves-upset that Florence did not turn into another Katrina and that Trump's administration has handled the hurricane remarkably well.

On September 21 2018 01:05 xDaunt wrote:
Puerto Rico isn't on Trump. That's on Puerto Rico and its own shitty governance.

On September 21 2018 00:49 xDaunt wrote:
The Ford / Kavanaugh attempted rape allegations may about to become hilarious. Apparently someone found Ford's yearbook from high school and published it. Let's just say that you can't make this shit up: Source.

EDIT: I bet GH is going to have a field day with this one.

On September 21 2018 02:34 IgnE wrote:
Who would have thought that a possible high school assault by a middle aged judge, set against a background of teenaged drinking and hijinx, would become so important. Especially after Trump, Roy Moore, etc.

On September 21 2018 02:12 ChristianS wrote:

I skimmed the blog you linked about the yearbook. Am I missing something? Is this supposed to disprove her claims somehow? It seemed to confirm that the girls there partied with the boys from Kavanaugh's school, and depicted exactly the kind of party culture where events like the ones she describes could plausibly occur, but otherwise very little seemed to even concern Ford directly. She was pictured attending a party where the caption suggested people played drinking games and passed out, which is neither here nor there. Then it went off for a while on how the kids/faculty were racist, which is probably true but I'm not sure what it has to do with anything.

Did I miss something? Honest question, I was skimming pretty quickly. Because otherwise dragging out old yearbooks and highlighting the references to drinking and promiscuity looks a lot like an attempt at saying "look what an alcoholic slut she was, she must be lying." Which is a horrific yet predictable response to a woman claiming she was sexually assaulted.

On September 21 2018 02:48 Simberto wrote:
So basically, it is character assassination.

On September 21 2018 02:43 xDaunt wrote:

The yearbook shows that the school that Ford went to was notorious for the girls engaging in drunken (as in black out drunk) sex parties and other shenanigans. Combine this fact with what we know about Ford's story (and the gaps therein), and it suddenly becomes quite likely that the reason Ford can't remember anything is that she was drunk at the time, which necessarily calls into question the accuracy and credibility of everything that she has said about what happened.