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Now that we have a new thread, in order to ensure that this thread continues to meet TL standards and follows the proper guidelines, we will be enforcing the rules in the OP more strictly. Be sure to give them a complete and thorough read before posting! NOTE: When providing a source, please provide a very brief summary on what it's about and what purpose it adds to the discussion. The supporting statement should clearly explain why the subject is relevant and needs to be discussed. Please follow this rule especially for tweets.
Your supporting statement should always come BEFORE you provide the source.If you have any questions, comments, concern, or feedback regarding the USPMT, then please use this thread: http://www.teamliquid.net/forum/website-feedback/510156-us-politics-thread |
On June 30 2018 12:30 Plansix wrote:
So prepare to have your tax dollars wasted on a stupid plan created by anti immigration champions Miller and Sessions. A fight no one really wanted to fix a problem that does not exist:
And here it is, exactly why NPR is dangerous brainwashing neoliberal propaganda. Hilarious that this was said after quoting NPR to boot. Here are just a few of the reasons why NPR is garbage:
- perpetuates the myth and bigotry of the taxpayer and that taxes fund [federal]* spending. https://splinternews.com/the-dangerous-myth-of-taxpayer-money-1819658902
- misunderstanding of the role of federal taxes. (Drives the currency, tool to cool the economy/inflation)
- doesn't understand monetary sovereignty and the difference between monopoly currency issuer and currency user.
On July 03 2018 01:26 Plansix wrote:
A trade surplus or deficit isn’t a balance sheet and should not be viewed like one. Have a deficit can be a sign of a robust economy, as the nation is consuming more simply because of more disposable income. And a surplus is not a sign of a good, function economy. This plan is bad.
A trade deficit/surplus, can indeed be viewed as a balance sheet and should. See: sectoral balances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectoral_balances
The rest of this I would agree with. Imports are a real benefit, exports are a real cost.
On June 30 2018 06:39 Plansix wrote:
Most of use read 10 times faster than any video plays, so maybe linking articles would be a more productive way to make your argument. God know it would show the slightest bit of respect for our time.
If actually interested and not just acting like a full cup, the same information can be found in this short (and free) book: https://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf
*edit for clarification
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Update to the KY Medicaid work requirement:
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin’s (R) administration is canceling dental and vision benefits for thousands of people on Medicaid in the state following a judge blocking the state’s Medicaid work requirements.
The cancellation of dental and vision coverage for almost 500,000 enrollees in the state’s Medicaid expansion is “an unfortunate consequence of the judge's ruling,” Doug Hogan, a spokesman for the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, told the Louisville Courier-Journal.
Democrats denounced the move and said they did not think Bevin had the legal authority to cancel the benefits.
“He said he wants to take dental and vision coverage away,” Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), said Monday at a press conference. “We don't think that's legal either.”
Under Bevin’s Medicaid proposal, along with work requirements, enrollees would have had to earn dental and vision benefits through completing activities like taking classes or searching for a job.
With the proposal blocked in court, Bevin’s administration is now canceling dental and vision benefits altogether.
The court ruling on Friday was a major setback for Bevin’s proposal and for the Trump administration’s efforts to allow states to impose Medicaid work requirements more broadly.
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled that the Trump administration did not adequately consider the coverage losses that would result from approving the work requirements, and that omission runs counter to furthering the program’s goal of providing health insurance.
Bevin has threatened to cancel the state’s Medicaid expansion altogether if the work requirements are struck down. Friday’s ruling can be appealed, though, so the issue is not fully resolved.
Source
Bevin is following through on his threat to roll back Medicaid expansion if work requirements were struck down. I don't imagine this will be popular.
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On July 03 2018 05:50 ticklishmusic wrote:Update to the KY Medicaid work requirement: Show nested quote +
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin’s (R) administration is canceling dental and vision benefits for thousands of people on Medicaid in the state following a judge blocking the state’s Medicaid work requirements.
The cancellation of dental and vision coverage for almost 500,000 enrollees in the state’s Medicaid expansion is “an unfortunate consequence of the judge's ruling,” Doug Hogan, a spokesman for the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, told the Louisville Courier-Journal.
Democrats denounced the move and said they did not think Bevin had the legal authority to cancel the benefits.
“He said he wants to take dental and vision coverage away,” Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), said Monday at a press conference. “We don't think that's legal either.”
Under Bevin’s Medicaid proposal, along with work requirements, enrollees would have had to earn dental and vision benefits through completing activities like taking classes or searching for a job.
With the proposal blocked in court, Bevin’s administration is now canceling dental and vision benefits altogether.
The court ruling on Friday was a major setback for Bevin’s proposal and for the Trump administration’s efforts to allow states to impose Medicaid work requirements more broadly.
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled that the Trump administration did not adequately consider the coverage losses that would result from approving the work requirements, and that omission runs counter to furthering the program’s goal of providing health insurance.
Bevin has threatened to cancel the state’s Medicaid expansion altogether if the work requirements are struck down. Friday’s ruling can be appealed, though, so the issue is not fully resolved.
SourceBevin is following through on his threat to roll back Medicaid expansion if work requirements were struck down. I don't imagine this will be popular.
You have to give him some credit. He engaged in hostage taking, and when that didn't work, he's actually following through and metaphorically shooting some hostages.
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On July 03 2018 05:39 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2018 05:18 Danglars wrote:On July 03 2018 04:51 TheTenthDoc wrote:On July 03 2018 04:19 Danglars wrote:On July 03 2018 03:59 Kyadytim wrote:Court records show that Ramos pleaded guilty in July 2011 to criminal harassment in Anne Arundel County, where the Capital Gazette is based. A 90-day jail sentence was suspended, and Ramos was placed on 18 months' supervised probation.
Five days later, the Capital Gazette published a column headlined "Jarrod wants to be your friend," profiling the woman who said she was the victim of Ramos' harassment. The article is no longer on the newspaper's website, but it was reprinted in full in the court documents.
In the column, the woman, whose name was withheld, claimed that Ramos, a former high school classmate, tracked her down on Facebook and then harshly harassed her through email for as long as two years.
The column quoted her as saying that Ramos urged her to kill herself and that the bank where she worked put her on probation because of "an email from Ramos and a follow-up phone call in which he advised them to fire her."
The column said she was laid off a few months later and "believes, but can't prove, it was because of Ramos."
In July 2012, Ramos, representing himself, sued the Capital Gazette; Eric Hartley, a former reporter who wrote the column; and Thomas Marquardt, the newspaper's publisher at the time, in Prince George's County Circuit Court alleging defamation. He filed a longer complaint in October 2012, two months after the statute of limitations for the alleged defamation had expired, adding an allegation of invasion of privacy.
The circuit judge dismissed the complaint in 2013, saying: "There is nothing in those complaints that prove that anything that was published about you is, in fact, false. It all came from a public record. It was of the result of a criminal conviction. And it cannot give rise to a defamation suit."
Ramos appealed, and in September 2015, the appeals court upheld the dismissal, writing that Ramos "never alleges that any basic fact contained in the article about his guilty plea is actually false."
"The appellant was charged with a criminal act," the court wrote. "The appellant perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant plead guilty to having perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant was punished for his criminal act. ... He does not appear to have learned his lesson."
Marquardt, the former publisher of the Capital Gazette, told the Baltimore Sun that he wasn't surprised Ramos was identified as the suspect because he began harassing the newspaper's staff shortly after the 2011 article was published. www.nbcnews.comThe Capital Gazette shooting was personal, but if you look a little deeper, the shooter's beef with the paper was that it reported facts about him. He sued it for defamation, lost because he not only failed to show that it had published any falsehoods, but in the appeal decision, the judge found that he didn't even allege that anything the offending article contained was false. That was two and a half years ago. Its pretty reasonable to correlate the increasing hostility towards journalism in this country with any individual's willingness to escalate their beef with journalists into violence. And on the flip side, it's an entirely detestable act to place a crazy shooting up a newspaper years after they published an article at the feet of Trump. You don't want to go down this road. This is the kind of mind-bogging logic that puts the baseball shooter at the feet of anti-GOP rhetoric that makes the left the reason the shooter shot up a baseball stadium. This is where people blame you for being part of the anti-cop rhetoric that inspires leftists to assassinate police officers. It's pretty reasonable to correlate the increasing hostility towards GOP Congressmen in this country with any individuals to escalate their beef with the GOP into violence It's pretty reasonable to correlate the increasing frequency of calling GOP members Nazis in this country with any individuals inspired to shoot Republican Congressmen Just to re-purpose your conclusion to other acts that will be brought up, should more people adopt your logic. You're exploring a very deep and dark pit. I'm probably not the right sympathetic voice to relay this to you, considering last month you accused me of being a threat to your very life and celebratory if you died. But all the same, I hope you get the message. The absolute narcissism of making Ramos in Annapolis, Maryland all about Trump in Washington, DC will end very badly for all parties involved. And on the other flip side, at some point you do have to start attributing responsibility to higher authorities when they use inflammatory rhetoric that encourages and potentially normalizes violence. What is that point? Ramos doesn't cross it (at least from what I've seen) but if someone directly says "I shot up the enemy of the people" does Trump share any blame at all? You extrapolate beyond individual responsibility of authorities towards some greater concept of right and left here. It actually feels a lot like with SHS, where one person kicking someone out of their restaurant for being lying scum who hates people like them into some grand gesture against "the right." (considering whether general sentiment is linked to violence, as Kyadytim does, is also an entirely different kettle of fish from individual violence, but I assume you were just treating that as a jumping-off point) You probably know enough of it yourself. Why do you say "potentially normalizes violence" instead of "it normalizes violence?" It's like you know all the "inflammatory rhetoric" is basically just your characterization of something that escalates tensions, and itself could be used against Black Lives Matter, the media, special interest groups like the SPLC, and all sorts of people and organizations. That level of fog is precisely why we do not carelessly attribute responsibility beyond the individual when he or she has a private grievance and a history of lunatic aims. The best course is to permit hateful speech is not a general incitement to violence. Let me know when Trump says, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" He's smart enough to not cross the line. The count of dead journalists because Trump supporters knew he was really calling on them to take matters into their own hands is quite low. If you want threats of violence, and I don't know if you do, but those are directed at Trump and his officials just as at journalists and opposition politicians. The "share of the blame" argument is complex, because you can regress that one back five decades. I don't think you can make the case that Trump "encourages violence" against journalists. We've had an entire American history of slurs back and forth between branches of government, media, constituencies, and all he's done is insult and give fiery speeches. Your argument basically asks the reader to separate out the many speakers about what's ruining America, and say that this one will actually be seized upon to rationalize their violence. I disagree. The tradition is old and Trump's attacks on the media are vicious but stale. If you're the kind of crazy that theorizes his gun will right the wrongs Trump supposedly points out, the issue is the crazy, not that he selected Trump instead of Schumer, the SPLC, Everytown, or Ta-Nehisi Coates to be his springing board. I draw the line at actual incitement to violence. Not "inflammatory rhetoric" as gets tossed around so easily these days (probably even predates the latest racist-sexist-homophobic-Islamophobic-xenophobic tripe that gets robbed of its meaning these days). I think the history of American politics teaches that the rhetoric was never really tame from founding to today. So whether speech crosses the line is an inherent property of the speech, rather than any consequentialist argument based on what the speech inspires? I think that is dangerous because it implies a large-scale unawareness on the part of the people making speech-if there are "crazies" out there on the border of snapping, *something* pushes that particular crazy over the border. To totally abdicate even personal responsibility (let alone legal responsibility) for all the crazies that follow you paves the way to dangerous precedent, as you point out. As I said before, the Ramos situation is not one of those situations, but I think Trump would absolutely pull those levers if he thought he could get away with it (witness: "I'd like to punch him in the face"). They're just smaller levers for now. If someone cited something I posted here as motivation to kill Paul Ryan, I'd be like "shit, I feel terrible" and would say as much. I don't think Trump would even do that.
That's my view of it. If you're triggered by Trump's media attacks, or media attacks on Trump officials, or SPLC, or Everytown, or Ta-Nehisi Coates, that's on you. They are absolutely within their rights to level the most blistering criticism of their opponents that they want. Anything less amounts to arguments for restricting free speech because the lunatics have all the power over your rights.
I don't really know what you're on about with "shit, I feel terrible." You do know you can feel terrible that a looneypicked your bullshit to go off of without bearing moral guilt or innocence, right? Or please quote me whatever you thought meant that.
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On July 03 2018 05:43 screamingpalm wrote:Show nested quote +On June 30 2018 12:30 Plansix wrote:
So prepare to have your tax dollars wasted on a stupid plan created by anti immigration champions Miller and Sessions. A fight no one really wanted to fix a problem that does not exist: And here it is, exactly why NPR is dangerous brainwashing neoliberal propaganda. Hilarious that this was said after quoting NPR to boot. Here are just a few of the reasons why NPR is garbage: - perpetuates the myth and bigotry of the taxpayer and that taxes fund [federal]* spending. https://splinternews.com/the-dangerous-myth-of-taxpayer-money-1819658902- misunderstanding of the role of federal taxes. (Drives the currency, tool to cool the economy/inflation) - doesn't understand monetary sovereignty and the difference between monopoly currency issuer and currency user. Show nested quote +On July 03 2018 01:26 Plansix wrote:
A trade surplus or deficit isn’t a balance sheet and should not be viewed like one. Have a deficit can be a sign of a robust economy, as the nation is consuming more simply because of more disposable income. And a surplus is not a sign of a good, function economy. This plan is bad.
A trade deficit/surplus, can indeed be viewed as a balance sheet and should. See: sectoral balances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sectoral_balancesThe rest of this I would agree with. Imports are a real benefit, exports are a real cost. Show nested quote +On June 30 2018 06:39 Plansix wrote:
Most of use read 10 times faster than any video plays, so maybe linking articles would be a more productive way to make your argument. God know it would show the slightest bit of respect for our time.
If actually interested and not just acting like a full cup, the same information can be found in this short (and free) book: https://moslereconomics.com/wp-content/powerpoints/7DIF.pdf*edit for clarification
Indeed. The the balance of trade is a balance sheet. The current account is savings - investments. It's exactly why trumps policy is nuts. He's increasing the fiscal deficit by reducing taxes which reduces overall savings in the economy which by definition increases the current account deficit.
Either way there's nothing won't with a current account deficit. It can be but it's not necessarily so.
https://www.economicshelp.org/blog/6411/economics/current-account-savings-investment/
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On July 03 2018 05:50 ticklishmusic wrote:Update to the KY Medicaid work requirement: Show nested quote +
Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin’s (R) administration is canceling dental and vision benefits for thousands of people on Medicaid in the state following a judge blocking the state’s Medicaid work requirements.
The cancellation of dental and vision coverage for almost 500,000 enrollees in the state’s Medicaid expansion is “an unfortunate consequence of the judge's ruling,” Doug Hogan, a spokesman for the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, told the Louisville Courier-Journal.
Democrats denounced the move and said they did not think Bevin had the legal authority to cancel the benefits.
“He said he wants to take dental and vision coverage away,” Rep. John Yarmuth (D-Ky.), said Monday at a press conference. “We don't think that's legal either.”
Under Bevin’s Medicaid proposal, along with work requirements, enrollees would have had to earn dental and vision benefits through completing activities like taking classes or searching for a job.
With the proposal blocked in court, Bevin’s administration is now canceling dental and vision benefits altogether.
The court ruling on Friday was a major setback for Bevin’s proposal and for the Trump administration’s efforts to allow states to impose Medicaid work requirements more broadly.
U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg ruled that the Trump administration did not adequately consider the coverage losses that would result from approving the work requirements, and that omission runs counter to furthering the program’s goal of providing health insurance.
Bevin has threatened to cancel the state’s Medicaid expansion altogether if the work requirements are struck down. Friday’s ruling can be appealed, though, so the issue is not fully resolved.
SourceBevin is following through on his threat to roll back Medicaid expansion if work requirements were struck down. I don't imagine this will be popular.
I do love it when governor’s put work requirements on the poorest people in the state before they get government benefits. It is the rare double whamy of poor governance of the state’s economy and government systems all at once. Punishing people for not apply for the jobs that do not exist in the economically depressed state the governor makes no effort to improve.
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Norway28667 Posts
I don't even mind some protectionism. Wanting to preserve some local industry makes sense for a multitude of reasons, although it differs based on industry and good produced. (for example I'm totally on board with some Norwegian tariffs on cheese and other farm products to make norwegian farming continue to be viable, because food is so essential that some hypothetical future crisis in food distribution would literally kill us if we had no production of our own. At the same time trying to compete in smartphone production is impossible unless we decide that we want to pay five times more. Many industries fall somewhere between these two examples.)
But the way Trump (and xdaunt) seems to consider progress a relative rather than absolute value makes no sense to me. (for daunt, exemplified through the 'it won't be comfortable for the US', indicating that he doesn't care if it hurts the US as long as it hurts China more). If your goal is hurting the other guy, you shouldn't be surprised when the other guy's goal becomes hurting you. And this I feel is going to be one of the lasting effects of the Trump presidency, both on an american and on an international level; democrats will hope that republicans suffer because they saw republicans cheering from them suffering, current allies of the US will hope that the US suffers because they elected a president trying to make other countries suffer. I dunno who ends up suffering more, but I can't see how anyone ends up actually benefiting.
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I'm just waiting for the other shoe to drop about the Pentagon hiring private military contractors aka Iraq War scenario repeat to be going on missions maybe even covertly. Not to mention this is how small wars become one big one while the MIC becomes more and more hungry for troops, and equipment finally culminating in a boots on the ground scenario. Why are we not supporting the African Union overall with training, and logistics even monetary support with combat as the last resort. Meanwhile we could be doing the Japanese model by training teachers, and doctors etc. Meanwhile building schools, hospitals, and clinics over there and putting such programs into overdrive.
American special operations teams are playing a more direct role in military actions against suspected terrorists in Africa than the Pentagon has publicly acknowledged, planning and participating in combat raids by African troops in multiple countries including Somalia, Kenya, Tunisia and Niger, under a set of classified programs.
In repeated public statements, military spokespeople have said the American role in Africa is limited to “advising and assisting” other militaries. But for at least five years, Green Berets, Navy SEALs and other commandos operating under a little-understood authority have planned and controlled certain missions, putting them in charge of their African partner forces.
Under both the Obama and Trump administrations, the military has relied on partners in other countries to carry out crucial missions against suspected terrorists, to avoid American casualties after years of massive direct involvement in Iraq and Afghanistan. But having Americans plan and retain operational control of the missions gives them greater ability to strike quickly against threats, according to supporters of the programs, even as it shields the true nature of the missions from critics in the United States and abroad.
“It’s less, ‘We’re helping you,’ and more, ‘You’re doing our bidding,’” said one active-duty Green Beret officer with recent experience in West Africa as he described the programs carried out under a legal authority known as Section 127e. Like several other sources interviewed for this story, he spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss classified programs.
“Our special operators not only advise and assist and accompany their partner force, but also direct it under these programs,” acknowledged retired Brig. Gen. Donald Bolduc, who until June 2017 commanded most U.S. special operations forces in Africa, in a POLITICO interview.
The budgetary authority behind the secret programs is not itself classified, and military leaders have referred to it obliquely in congressional hearings — without describing the unusual arrangements with African militaries that it allows. In 2014, Adm. William McRaven, then the military’s top special operations commander, testified that 127e — then known as Section 1208 — was “probably the single most important authority we have in our fight against terrorism.” And earlier this year his successor, Gen. Tony Thomas, told Congress that the authority’s “unique access and capabilities achieve results,” without elaborating on what those capabilities are.
But other African governments have embraced the programs. Already home to one surrogate unit, the government of Niger permitted another Green Beret team to stand up a second one, and asked only to be kept “apprised” of the units’ operations, the former special operations source said.
“It works differently in each country,” said Michael Hoza, the former ambassador to Cameroon, where “a handful of SEALs” are helping local commandos hunt the organizers of a Boko Haram suicide bombing campaign. Cameroon’s president reserved the right to approve every mission the SEALs proposed, Hoza told POLITICO, “because he did not want any American casualties in his country.”
Somalia is another willing host, welcoming the ability the units bring to conduct short-notice raids against the Al Qaeda-linked al-Shabab insurgency aboard U.S. helicopters. “All U.S. military activities in Somalia were done with the full support of the Somali government during my tenure,” said Steven Schwartz, the ambassador in Mogadishu until last fall, in an interview.
At the time, according to Bolduc, SEALs ran two separate units under the authority in Somalia. Waldhauser, the general who heads Africa Command, testified to Congress in 2016 that one of those units was “instrumental in recent operations to remove senior al-Shabab leadership.”
Besides the tactical benefits, hosting one of the surrogate programs can be a way for a government to court American support more generally. African governments may agree to host the programs “because it makes their units more effective and allows them to take advantage of U.S. resources and intelligence,” said Andrew Lebovich, a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations who studies security in northwest Africa. “But it’s also an easy way to cultivate closer security ties to the U.S. and gain more U.S. support in some cases.”
Source
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By Japanese model, you mean post WW2 investment? Or some thing else?
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On July 03 2018 06:53 Plansix wrote:
By Japanese model, you mean post WW2 investment? Or some thing else?
Japan invests heavily in other countries such building rail stations, clinics etc. Such as in India and so on. They get economic benefits while also better diplomacy outcomes if the need arises.
We simply sell them weapons and they pay us to train them.
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On July 03 2018 01:09 xDaunt wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2018 00:58 GreenHorizons wrote:On July 03 2018 00:26 Plansix wrote:
Pretty sure Trump has zero plan for that trade war he is starting. And the theory that the US is to valuable of an trade partners for to lose one built on hubris. The US does not have the political will to engage with a trade war with China or our two closes neighbors. He doesn't have a plan to comply with the court ordered reuniting of families, of course he's got no plan for an actual trade war. Well that's not entirely true. His plan is to act recklessly selfish, potentially self-sabotagingly, then hope the fear he might do literally anything leverages the opposition to a more favorable position as to avoid Trump doing something destructive to everyone involved out of spite, stupidity, selfishness, hubris, any of the many reasons he does the things he does. Catch is he doesn't even know what a better deal looks like and doesn't care because literally anything that comes out will be deemed (by himself) the most amazing deal ever. Through sheer repetition and denial he'll die believing it, no matter what the outcome. You're missing the boat on this one, GH. This is your big chance to shit all over the greedy CEOs and business owners who are more than happy to sacrifice the American worker at the altar of corporate profits.
You know, if you paid attention to my arguments you'd know that's always been something I disagree with Bernie on. It's not American workers vs other workers, it's all workers against the exploiters.
Not that I'll pass an opportunity to shit on major corporate CEO's/owners for being generally despicable people we'd be better off without.
On July 03 2018 06:25 JimmiC wrote:I'm not sure if this is still "right wing" propaganda but yesterday they announced Venezuela hit 40000% (not a typo) inflation. And today more news about how dire it is getting. "More than 1.5 million Venezuelans are currently displaced in the region and the U.N. estimates that approximately 4,000 people are fleeing to neighboring countries each day. Of those who remain, 87 percent live in poverty."http://thehill.com/opinion/international/395182-as-human-rights-abuses-in-venezuela-increase-un-answers-call-for-helpTo me it seems hard for the CIA to fake 4000 people leaving a day but what do I know. "Last week, the office of the U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights released a report that reveals the ever-worsening conditions in the country. Specifically, the report documents human rights abuses committed by government authorities, including the use of excessive force, torture, arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings, and violations of the rights to food and health care. "I really hope it becomes clear that leadership is not about the people. Chavez family is still pulling the strings and in high positions all through the government. It will be interesting to see if they take over and scapegoat Maduro. I'm not sure how that would work out long term though, I not sure how they recover. I think the question based on a bunch of reading in this thread and others is when, not if, the government collapses how does the rest of the world help the Venezuelans get a true democratic governments without sliding back into this again. It will be scary if now a right wing guy comes in shows short term success and just creates the same situation long term for the people with a different window dressing. “For years now, institutional checks and balances and the democratic space in Venezuela have been chiseled away, leaving little room to hold the State to account. The impunity must end,” said U.N. High Commissioner for Human Rights Zeid Ra’ad Al Hussein before the 38th Session of the Human Rights Council (U.N.HRC). “Given that the State appears neither able nor willing to prosecute serious human rights violations, there is also a strong case to be made for deeper involvement by the International Criminal Court,” he added. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/venezuela-inflation-rate-nicolas-maduro-latest-a8425296.html"But economists and activists say hyperinflation's presence now is clear. A recent university study found that about 90 percent of civilians were living in poverty last year and most of those surveyed had lost an average of 25 pounds in body weight. "At least he is still "popular" Mr Abadia said Venezuela is a "disaster area" and that as long as Mr Maduro is in power, the economy will "continue to collapse." But Mr Maduro reaffirmed his tight grip on power last month, easily winning another six-year term in what was widely condemned as a fraudulent election. What are the best strategies to help turn a dictatorship into a lasting democracy? Does anyone know some examples of where this happened and what they did differently then in all the places it failed?
You at least realize this is the US pushing for regime change right? I mean it's hard to tell with the "turn a dictatorship into a lasting democracy". Every time that's the US ousting the leader and replacing them with a puppet that they arm and fund until he turns on the US and uses those resources against us.
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On July 03 2018 06:58 {CC}StealthBlue wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2018 06:53 Plansix wrote:
By Japanese model, you mean post WW2 investment? Or some thing else? Japan invests heavily in other countries such building rail stations, clinics etc. Such as in India and so on. They get economic benefits while also better diplomacy outcomes if the need arises. We simply sell them weapons and they pay us to train them.
Ah, well that is a more productive model. I don't like being arms dealer to the entire world, it is counter productive.
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Apparently the official White House Twitter is now openly picking fights with Democratic senators by @ing them because they were critical of ICE today. But only the women senators so far. That isn't totally fucked, a violation of the Hatch Act and not a surprise for this White House. They can't deal with the idea their attack dog agency might be under the oversight of congress(it is).
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On July 03 2018 06:01 Danglars wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2018 05:39 TheTenthDoc wrote:On July 03 2018 05:18 Danglars wrote:On July 03 2018 04:51 TheTenthDoc wrote:On July 03 2018 04:19 Danglars wrote:On July 03 2018 03:59 Kyadytim wrote:Court records show that Ramos pleaded guilty in July 2011 to criminal harassment in Anne Arundel County, where the Capital Gazette is based. A 90-day jail sentence was suspended, and Ramos was placed on 18 months' supervised probation.
Five days later, the Capital Gazette published a column headlined "Jarrod wants to be your friend," profiling the woman who said she was the victim of Ramos' harassment. The article is no longer on the newspaper's website, but it was reprinted in full in the court documents.
In the column, the woman, whose name was withheld, claimed that Ramos, a former high school classmate, tracked her down on Facebook and then harshly harassed her through email for as long as two years.
The column quoted her as saying that Ramos urged her to kill herself and that the bank where she worked put her on probation because of "an email from Ramos and a follow-up phone call in which he advised them to fire her."
The column said she was laid off a few months later and "believes, but can't prove, it was because of Ramos."
In July 2012, Ramos, representing himself, sued the Capital Gazette; Eric Hartley, a former reporter who wrote the column; and Thomas Marquardt, the newspaper's publisher at the time, in Prince George's County Circuit Court alleging defamation. He filed a longer complaint in October 2012, two months after the statute of limitations for the alleged defamation had expired, adding an allegation of invasion of privacy.
The circuit judge dismissed the complaint in 2013, saying: "There is nothing in those complaints that prove that anything that was published about you is, in fact, false. It all came from a public record. It was of the result of a criminal conviction. And it cannot give rise to a defamation suit."
Ramos appealed, and in September 2015, the appeals court upheld the dismissal, writing that Ramos "never alleges that any basic fact contained in the article about his guilty plea is actually false."
"The appellant was charged with a criminal act," the court wrote. "The appellant perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant plead guilty to having perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant was punished for his criminal act. ... He does not appear to have learned his lesson."
Marquardt, the former publisher of the Capital Gazette, told the Baltimore Sun that he wasn't surprised Ramos was identified as the suspect because he began harassing the newspaper's staff shortly after the 2011 article was published. www.nbcnews.comThe Capital Gazette shooting was personal, but if you look a little deeper, the shooter's beef with the paper was that it reported facts about him. He sued it for defamation, lost because he not only failed to show that it had published any falsehoods, but in the appeal decision, the judge found that he didn't even allege that anything the offending article contained was false. That was two and a half years ago. Its pretty reasonable to correlate the increasing hostility towards journalism in this country with any individual's willingness to escalate their beef with journalists into violence. And on the flip side, it's an entirely detestable act to place a crazy shooting up a newspaper years after they published an article at the feet of Trump. You don't want to go down this road. This is the kind of mind-bogging logic that puts the baseball shooter at the feet of anti-GOP rhetoric that makes the left the reason the shooter shot up a baseball stadium. This is where people blame you for being part of the anti-cop rhetoric that inspires leftists to assassinate police officers. It's pretty reasonable to correlate the increasing hostility towards GOP Congressmen in this country with any individuals to escalate their beef with the GOP into violence It's pretty reasonable to correlate the increasing frequency of calling GOP members Nazis in this country with any individuals inspired to shoot Republican Congressmen Just to re-purpose your conclusion to other acts that will be brought up, should more people adopt your logic. You're exploring a very deep and dark pit. I'm probably not the right sympathetic voice to relay this to you, considering last month you accused me of being a threat to your very life and celebratory if you died. But all the same, I hope you get the message. The absolute narcissism of making Ramos in Annapolis, Maryland all about Trump in Washington, DC will end very badly for all parties involved. And on the other flip side, at some point you do have to start attributing responsibility to higher authorities when they use inflammatory rhetoric that encourages and potentially normalizes violence. What is that point? Ramos doesn't cross it (at least from what I've seen) but if someone directly says "I shot up the enemy of the people" does Trump share any blame at all? You extrapolate beyond individual responsibility of authorities towards some greater concept of right and left here. It actually feels a lot like with SHS, where one person kicking someone out of their restaurant for being lying scum who hates people like them into some grand gesture against "the right." (considering whether general sentiment is linked to violence, as Kyadytim does, is also an entirely different kettle of fish from individual violence, but I assume you were just treating that as a jumping-off point) You probably know enough of it yourself. Why do you say "potentially normalizes violence" instead of "it normalizes violence?" It's like you know all the "inflammatory rhetoric" is basically just your characterization of something that escalates tensions, and itself could be used against Black Lives Matter, the media, special interest groups like the SPLC, and all sorts of people and organizations. That level of fog is precisely why we do not carelessly attribute responsibility beyond the individual when he or she has a private grievance and a history of lunatic aims. The best course is to permit hateful speech is not a general incitement to violence. Let me know when Trump says, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" He's smart enough to not cross the line. The count of dead journalists because Trump supporters knew he was really calling on them to take matters into their own hands is quite low. If you want threats of violence, and I don't know if you do, but those are directed at Trump and his officials just as at journalists and opposition politicians. The "share of the blame" argument is complex, because you can regress that one back five decades. I don't think you can make the case that Trump "encourages violence" against journalists. We've had an entire American history of slurs back and forth between branches of government, media, constituencies, and all he's done is insult and give fiery speeches. Your argument basically asks the reader to separate out the many speakers about what's ruining America, and say that this one will actually be seized upon to rationalize their violence. I disagree. The tradition is old and Trump's attacks on the media are vicious but stale. If you're the kind of crazy that theorizes his gun will right the wrongs Trump supposedly points out, the issue is the crazy, not that he selected Trump instead of Schumer, the SPLC, Everytown, or Ta-Nehisi Coates to be his springing board. I draw the line at actual incitement to violence. Not "inflammatory rhetoric" as gets tossed around so easily these days (probably even predates the latest racist-sexist-homophobic-Islamophobic-xenophobic tripe that gets robbed of its meaning these days). I think the history of American politics teaches that the rhetoric was never really tame from founding to today. So whether speech crosses the line is an inherent property of the speech, rather than any consequentialist argument based on what the speech inspires? I think that is dangerous because it implies a large-scale unawareness on the part of the people making speech-if there are "crazies" out there on the border of snapping, *something* pushes that particular crazy over the border. To totally abdicate even personal responsibility (let alone legal responsibility) for all the crazies that follow you paves the way to dangerous precedent, as you point out. As I said before, the Ramos situation is not one of those situations, but I think Trump would absolutely pull those levers if he thought he could get away with it (witness: "I'd like to punch him in the face"). They're just smaller levers for now. If someone cited something I posted here as motivation to kill Paul Ryan, I'd be like "shit, I feel terrible" and would say as much. I don't think Trump would even do that. That's my view of it. If you're triggered by Trump's media attacks, or media attacks on Trump officials, or SPLC, or Everytown, or Ta-Nehisi Coates, that's on you. They are absolutely within their rights to level the most blistering criticism of their opponents that they want. Anything less amounts to arguments for restricting free speech because the lunatics have all the power over your rights. I don't really know what you're on about with "shit, I feel terrible." You do know you can feel terrible that a looneypicked your bullshit to go off of without bearing moral guilt or innocence, right? Or please quote me whatever you thought meant that.
See, I think if they have an expectation that their "blistering criticism" will prompt the crazies to cross the line, they have a moral obligation to refrain from that speech, even if not a legal one. If they could look into the future in that case, they should pick a different line of blistering criticism. And I don't trust Trump to do that. Do you? The idea that people wouldn't refrain from speech that might tip the crazies in order to win elections is horrifying to me, actually. There's this weird fatalistic view that their speech is powerless to sway the inevitably murderous crazies which seems so strange to me (but does gel quite well with the right's views on public violence in general, I suppose).
The second part is just saying it's incredibly depressing that we have a leader who would almost certainly feel perfectly fine with someone taking his quotes as a command to murder and go on about his day.
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On July 03 2018 07:20 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2018 06:01 Danglars wrote:On July 03 2018 05:39 TheTenthDoc wrote:On July 03 2018 05:18 Danglars wrote:On July 03 2018 04:51 TheTenthDoc wrote:On July 03 2018 04:19 Danglars wrote:On July 03 2018 03:59 Kyadytim wrote:Court records show that Ramos pleaded guilty in July 2011 to criminal harassment in Anne Arundel County, where the Capital Gazette is based. A 90-day jail sentence was suspended, and Ramos was placed on 18 months' supervised probation.
Five days later, the Capital Gazette published a column headlined "Jarrod wants to be your friend," profiling the woman who said she was the victim of Ramos' harassment. The article is no longer on the newspaper's website, but it was reprinted in full in the court documents.
In the column, the woman, whose name was withheld, claimed that Ramos, a former high school classmate, tracked her down on Facebook and then harshly harassed her through email for as long as two years.
The column quoted her as saying that Ramos urged her to kill herself and that the bank where she worked put her on probation because of "an email from Ramos and a follow-up phone call in which he advised them to fire her."
The column said she was laid off a few months later and "believes, but can't prove, it was because of Ramos."
In July 2012, Ramos, representing himself, sued the Capital Gazette; Eric Hartley, a former reporter who wrote the column; and Thomas Marquardt, the newspaper's publisher at the time, in Prince George's County Circuit Court alleging defamation. He filed a longer complaint in October 2012, two months after the statute of limitations for the alleged defamation had expired, adding an allegation of invasion of privacy.
The circuit judge dismissed the complaint in 2013, saying: "There is nothing in those complaints that prove that anything that was published about you is, in fact, false. It all came from a public record. It was of the result of a criminal conviction. And it cannot give rise to a defamation suit."
Ramos appealed, and in September 2015, the appeals court upheld the dismissal, writing that Ramos "never alleges that any basic fact contained in the article about his guilty plea is actually false."
"The appellant was charged with a criminal act," the court wrote. "The appellant perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant plead guilty to having perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant was punished for his criminal act. ... He does not appear to have learned his lesson."
Marquardt, the former publisher of the Capital Gazette, told the Baltimore Sun that he wasn't surprised Ramos was identified as the suspect because he began harassing the newspaper's staff shortly after the 2011 article was published. www.nbcnews.comThe Capital Gazette shooting was personal, but if you look a little deeper, the shooter's beef with the paper was that it reported facts about him. He sued it for defamation, lost because he not only failed to show that it had published any falsehoods, but in the appeal decision, the judge found that he didn't even allege that anything the offending article contained was false. That was two and a half years ago. Its pretty reasonable to correlate the increasing hostility towards journalism in this country with any individual's willingness to escalate their beef with journalists into violence. And on the flip side, it's an entirely detestable act to place a crazy shooting up a newspaper years after they published an article at the feet of Trump. You don't want to go down this road. This is the kind of mind-bogging logic that puts the baseball shooter at the feet of anti-GOP rhetoric that makes the left the reason the shooter shot up a baseball stadium. This is where people blame you for being part of the anti-cop rhetoric that inspires leftists to assassinate police officers. It's pretty reasonable to correlate the increasing hostility towards GOP Congressmen in this country with any individuals to escalate their beef with the GOP into violence It's pretty reasonable to correlate the increasing frequency of calling GOP members Nazis in this country with any individuals inspired to shoot Republican Congressmen Just to re-purpose your conclusion to other acts that will be brought up, should more people adopt your logic. You're exploring a very deep and dark pit. I'm probably not the right sympathetic voice to relay this to you, considering last month you accused me of being a threat to your very life and celebratory if you died. But all the same, I hope you get the message. The absolute narcissism of making Ramos in Annapolis, Maryland all about Trump in Washington, DC will end very badly for all parties involved. And on the other flip side, at some point you do have to start attributing responsibility to higher authorities when they use inflammatory rhetoric that encourages and potentially normalizes violence. What is that point? Ramos doesn't cross it (at least from what I've seen) but if someone directly says "I shot up the enemy of the people" does Trump share any blame at all? You extrapolate beyond individual responsibility of authorities towards some greater concept of right and left here. It actually feels a lot like with SHS, where one person kicking someone out of their restaurant for being lying scum who hates people like them into some grand gesture against "the right." (considering whether general sentiment is linked to violence, as Kyadytim does, is also an entirely different kettle of fish from individual violence, but I assume you were just treating that as a jumping-off point) You probably know enough of it yourself. Why do you say "potentially normalizes violence" instead of "it normalizes violence?" It's like you know all the "inflammatory rhetoric" is basically just your characterization of something that escalates tensions, and itself could be used against Black Lives Matter, the media, special interest groups like the SPLC, and all sorts of people and organizations. That level of fog is precisely why we do not carelessly attribute responsibility beyond the individual when he or she has a private grievance and a history of lunatic aims. The best course is to permit hateful speech is not a general incitement to violence. Let me know when Trump says, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" He's smart enough to not cross the line. The count of dead journalists because Trump supporters knew he was really calling on them to take matters into their own hands is quite low. If you want threats of violence, and I don't know if you do, but those are directed at Trump and his officials just as at journalists and opposition politicians. The "share of the blame" argument is complex, because you can regress that one back five decades. I don't think you can make the case that Trump "encourages violence" against journalists. We've had an entire American history of slurs back and forth between branches of government, media, constituencies, and all he's done is insult and give fiery speeches. Your argument basically asks the reader to separate out the many speakers about what's ruining America, and say that this one will actually be seized upon to rationalize their violence. I disagree. The tradition is old and Trump's attacks on the media are vicious but stale. If you're the kind of crazy that theorizes his gun will right the wrongs Trump supposedly points out, the issue is the crazy, not that he selected Trump instead of Schumer, the SPLC, Everytown, or Ta-Nehisi Coates to be his springing board. I draw the line at actual incitement to violence. Not "inflammatory rhetoric" as gets tossed around so easily these days (probably even predates the latest racist-sexist-homophobic-Islamophobic-xenophobic tripe that gets robbed of its meaning these days). I think the history of American politics teaches that the rhetoric was never really tame from founding to today. So whether speech crosses the line is an inherent property of the speech, rather than any consequentialist argument based on what the speech inspires? I think that is dangerous because it implies a large-scale unawareness on the part of the people making speech-if there are "crazies" out there on the border of snapping, *something* pushes that particular crazy over the border. To totally abdicate even personal responsibility (let alone legal responsibility) for all the crazies that follow you paves the way to dangerous precedent, as you point out. As I said before, the Ramos situation is not one of those situations, but I think Trump would absolutely pull those levers if he thought he could get away with it (witness: "I'd like to punch him in the face"). They're just smaller levers for now. If someone cited something I posted here as motivation to kill Paul Ryan, I'd be like "shit, I feel terrible" and would say as much. I don't think Trump would even do that. That's my view of it. If you're triggered by Trump's media attacks, or media attacks on Trump officials, or SPLC, or Everytown, or Ta-Nehisi Coates, that's on you. They are absolutely within their rights to level the most blistering criticism of their opponents that they want. Anything less amounts to arguments for restricting free speech because the lunatics have all the power over your rights. I don't really know what you're on about with "shit, I feel terrible." You do know you can feel terrible that a looneypicked your bullshit to go off of without bearing moral guilt or innocence, right? Or please quote me whatever you thought meant that. See, I think if they have an expectation that their "blistering criticism" will prompt the crazies to cross the line, they have a moral obligation to refrain from that speech, even if not a legal one. If they could look into the future in that case, they should pick a different line of blistering criticism. And I don't trust Trump to do that. Do you? The idea that people wouldn't refrain from speech that might tip the crazies to win elections is horrifying to me, actually. There's this weird fatalistic view that their speech is powerless to sway the crazies which seems so strange to me. The second part is just saying it's incredibly depressing that we have a leader who would almost certainly feel perfectly fine with someone taking his quotes as a command to murder and go on about his day.
Nope. Generally speaking, the measure of your morality is not what the least psychologically stable person might make his or her next cause for personal participation. I gave something like five examples of people and organizations that might inspire somebody sometime. You'd basically have to adopt a police state with the most Orwellian speech codes to overcome a moral burden of that sort.
I'm also not going to buy the word of a psychic who knows how Trump will respond in a hypothetical circumstance of your making. Everybody projects their paranoia onto the president these days. I don't consider that to be a good sign of mental health either.
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On July 03 2018 07:20 TheTenthDoc wrote:Show nested quote +On July 03 2018 06:01 Danglars wrote:On July 03 2018 05:39 TheTenthDoc wrote:On July 03 2018 05:18 Danglars wrote:On July 03 2018 04:51 TheTenthDoc wrote:On July 03 2018 04:19 Danglars wrote:On July 03 2018 03:59 Kyadytim wrote:Court records show that Ramos pleaded guilty in July 2011 to criminal harassment in Anne Arundel County, where the Capital Gazette is based. A 90-day jail sentence was suspended, and Ramos was placed on 18 months' supervised probation.
Five days later, the Capital Gazette published a column headlined "Jarrod wants to be your friend," profiling the woman who said she was the victim of Ramos' harassment. The article is no longer on the newspaper's website, but it was reprinted in full in the court documents.
In the column, the woman, whose name was withheld, claimed that Ramos, a former high school classmate, tracked her down on Facebook and then harshly harassed her through email for as long as two years.
The column quoted her as saying that Ramos urged her to kill herself and that the bank where she worked put her on probation because of "an email from Ramos and a follow-up phone call in which he advised them to fire her."
The column said she was laid off a few months later and "believes, but can't prove, it was because of Ramos."
In July 2012, Ramos, representing himself, sued the Capital Gazette; Eric Hartley, a former reporter who wrote the column; and Thomas Marquardt, the newspaper's publisher at the time, in Prince George's County Circuit Court alleging defamation. He filed a longer complaint in October 2012, two months after the statute of limitations for the alleged defamation had expired, adding an allegation of invasion of privacy.
The circuit judge dismissed the complaint in 2013, saying: "There is nothing in those complaints that prove that anything that was published about you is, in fact, false. It all came from a public record. It was of the result of a criminal conviction. And it cannot give rise to a defamation suit."
Ramos appealed, and in September 2015, the appeals court upheld the dismissal, writing that Ramos "never alleges that any basic fact contained in the article about his guilty plea is actually false."
"The appellant was charged with a criminal act," the court wrote. "The appellant perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant plead guilty to having perpetrated a criminal act. The appellant was punished for his criminal act. ... He does not appear to have learned his lesson."
Marquardt, the former publisher of the Capital Gazette, told the Baltimore Sun that he wasn't surprised Ramos was identified as the suspect because he began harassing the newspaper's staff shortly after the 2011 article was published. www.nbcnews.comThe Capital Gazette shooting was personal, but if you look a little deeper, the shooter's beef with the paper was that it reported facts about him. He sued it for defamation, lost because he not only failed to show that it had published any falsehoods, but in the appeal decision, the judge found that he didn't even allege that anything the offending article contained was false. That was two and a half years ago. Its pretty reasonable to correlate the increasing hostility towards journalism in this country with any individual's willingness to escalate their beef with journalists into violence. And on the flip side, it's an entirely detestable act to place a crazy shooting up a newspaper years after they published an article at the feet of Trump. You don't want to go down this road. This is the kind of mind-bogging logic that puts the baseball shooter at the feet of anti-GOP rhetoric that makes the left the reason the shooter shot up a baseball stadium. This is where people blame you for being part of the anti-cop rhetoric that inspires leftists to assassinate police officers. It's pretty reasonable to correlate the increasing hostility towards GOP Congressmen in this country with any individuals to escalate their beef with the GOP into violence It's pretty reasonable to correlate the increasing frequency of calling GOP members Nazis in this country with any individuals inspired to shoot Republican Congressmen Just to re-purpose your conclusion to other acts that will be brought up, should more people adopt your logic. You're exploring a very deep and dark pit. I'm probably not the right sympathetic voice to relay this to you, considering last month you accused me of being a threat to your very life and celebratory if you died. But all the same, I hope you get the message. The absolute narcissism of making Ramos in Annapolis, Maryland all about Trump in Washington, DC will end very badly for all parties involved. And on the other flip side, at some point you do have to start attributing responsibility to higher authorities when they use inflammatory rhetoric that encourages and potentially normalizes violence. What is that point? Ramos doesn't cross it (at least from what I've seen) but if someone directly says "I shot up the enemy of the people" does Trump share any blame at all? You extrapolate beyond individual responsibility of authorities towards some greater concept of right and left here. It actually feels a lot like with SHS, where one person kicking someone out of their restaurant for being lying scum who hates people like them into some grand gesture against "the right." (considering whether general sentiment is linked to violence, as Kyadytim does, is also an entirely different kettle of fish from individual violence, but I assume you were just treating that as a jumping-off point) You probably know enough of it yourself. Why do you say "potentially normalizes violence" instead of "it normalizes violence?" It's like you know all the "inflammatory rhetoric" is basically just your characterization of something that escalates tensions, and itself could be used against Black Lives Matter, the media, special interest groups like the SPLC, and all sorts of people and organizations. That level of fog is precisely why we do not carelessly attribute responsibility beyond the individual when he or she has a private grievance and a history of lunatic aims. The best course is to permit hateful speech is not a general incitement to violence. Let me know when Trump says, "Will no one rid me of this turbulent priest?" He's smart enough to not cross the line. The count of dead journalists because Trump supporters knew he was really calling on them to take matters into their own hands is quite low. If you want threats of violence, and I don't know if you do, but those are directed at Trump and his officials just as at journalists and opposition politicians. The "share of the blame" argument is complex, because you can regress that one back five decades. I don't think you can make the case that Trump "encourages violence" against journalists. We've had an entire American history of slurs back and forth between branches of government, media, constituencies, and all he's done is insult and give fiery speeches. Your argument basically asks the reader to separate out the many speakers about what's ruining America, and say that this one will actually be seized upon to rationalize their violence. I disagree. The tradition is old and Trump's attacks on the media are vicious but stale. If you're the kind of crazy that theorizes his gun will right the wrongs Trump supposedly points out, the issue is the crazy, not that he selected Trump instead of Schumer, the SPLC, Everytown, or Ta-Nehisi Coates to be his springing board. I draw the line at actual incitement to violence. Not "inflammatory rhetoric" as gets tossed around so easily these days (probably even predates the latest racist-sexist-homophobic-Islamophobic-xenophobic tripe that gets robbed of its meaning these days). I think the history of American politics teaches that the rhetoric was never really tame from founding to today. So whether speech crosses the line is an inherent property of the speech, rather than any consequentialist argument based on what the speech inspires? I think that is dangerous because it implies a large-scale unawareness on the part of the people making speech-if there are "crazies" out there on the border of snapping, *something* pushes that particular crazy over the border. To totally abdicate even personal responsibility (let alone legal responsibility) for all the crazies that follow you paves the way to dangerous precedent, as you point out. As I said before, the Ramos situation is not one of those situations, but I think Trump would absolutely pull those levers if he thought he could get away with it (witness: "I'd like to punch him in the face"). They're just smaller levers for now. If someone cited something I posted here as motivation to kill Paul Ryan, I'd be like "shit, I feel terrible" and would say as much. I don't think Trump would even do that. That's my view of it. If you're triggered by Trump's media attacks, or media attacks on Trump officials, or SPLC, or Everytown, or Ta-Nehisi Coates, that's on you. They are absolutely within their rights to level the most blistering criticism of their opponents that they want. Anything less amounts to arguments for restricting free speech because the lunatics have all the power over your rights. I don't really know what you're on about with "shit, I feel terrible." You do know you can feel terrible that a looneypicked your bullshit to go off of without bearing moral guilt or innocence, right? Or please quote me whatever you thought meant that. See, I think if they have an expectation that their "blistering criticism" will prompt the crazies to cross the line, they have a moral obligation to refrain from that speech, even if not a legal one. If they could look into the future in that case, they should pick a different line of blistering criticism. And I don't trust Trump to do that. Do you? The idea that people wouldn't refrain from speech that might tip the crazies in order to win elections is horrifying to me, actually. There's this weird fatalistic view that their speech is powerless to sway the crazies which seems so strange to me. The second part is just saying it's incredibly depressing that we have a leader who would almost certainly feel perfectly fine with someone taking his quotes as a command to murder and go on about his day. Lets remember Trump casually mentioned Hillary might have to be assassinated if she won.
“If she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks,” Mr. Trump said, as the crowd began to boo. He quickly added: “Although the Second Amendment people — maybe there is, I don’t know.”
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https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/02/us/gun-immigration-protest-womp-womp.html?action=click&module=MoreInSection&pgtype=Article®ion=Footer&contentCollection=U.S.
At about noon on Saturday, Mr. Sealy began heckling a gathering of approximately 150 to 200 people at a public park in Huntsville, a city of about 190,000 people in northern Alabama.
The event was one of dozens of “families belong together” events held in cities across the country to protest President Trump’s “zero tolerance” immigration policy, which included separating families and children who arrived together at the U.S.-Mexico border. The president signed an executive order on June 20 to end the practice, but more than 2,000 children remain separated from their parents.
Shortly after the rally in Huntsville’s Big Spring Park got started, Mr. Sealy, identified as a former high school teacher by the local station WAFF-TV, began marching back and forth between the crowd and a gazebo where organizers and speakers were seated.
He was holding a placard that said “Ice, ice baby,” a reference to the acronym for Immigration and Customs Enforcement, while singing an unrelated song by that name by the artist Vanilla Ice.
According to videos recorded by people attending the rally, Mr. Sealy also yelled “womp womp” several times, repeating the sad trombone sound that was thrust into national discourse during the debate over the Trump administration’s immigration policy.
While appearing on Fox News on June 19, Corey Lewandowski, Mr. Trump’s former campaign manager, said “womp womp” when he heard a story about a 10-year-old girl with Down syndrome who was taken away from her mother in South Texas.
One video recorded by a person at the rally shows Mr. Sealy circling the gazebo, repeatedly shouting “womp womp” as Kerry Holder-Joffrion, an Episcopalian priest, starts to speak. “The uniting force of love is greater than the force of hatred,” she said, raising her voice to be heard above his.
Lt. Michael Johnson of the Huntsville Police Department said in an emailed statement after the arrest that Mr. Sealy started a fight with a protester and then pushed the protester, who knocked Mr. Sealy to the ground.
Mr. Sealy got up, pulled out a concealed Glock handgun and “waved it around visible to the crowd of protesters,” the officer said. Mr. Sealy then re-concealed the weapon and was walking away when he was arrested by the police who were monitoring the event, Lieutenant Johnson said.
What happened to that civility that the right was talking about? What kind of hate and delusion would drive a man to wave a gun at people protesting kids being taken away from their parents? Personally one of the most surprising things about this story is that he was let go on bail, after he threatened to kill people while waving around a gun. Is it normal to let basically anyone go fre until their hearing regardless of what crime they are being charged with? And also, will he have his guns removed and lose the right to own weapons after proving he is incapable of having a weapon and being civil with it? Or will he get to keep them because that's what the NRA and the right want?
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EPT
