Forums / Discussion / General

After surviving in office despite comitting biological warfare on the elderly and mentally handicapped, Andrew Cuomo has to face down the one thing that can reliably end a democrat's career: metoo

And that was dropped as quickly as it was thought up.

This is another part of a decades-long grift against Republican voters.

I find it quite interesting the evolution of how January 6th is being viewed. It wasn't insurrection, it wasn't a coup, it wasn't sedition, it was a riot. And even now if you look through how a lot major media's evolution of language has gone, from almost always calling it to an insurrection, to starting to call it a riot since June. Because anything else would imply something it's not, and never was. Even Insider , which has a list of 600 or so people so far charged, is left leaning, and still calls it an insurrection shows that not a single person that has so far been charged has been charged with sedition. Not a single one. The vast majority? Obstruction of government, trespassing, theft, and at worst, assault.

But I understand the political importance of over-stating the January 6th riot. By painting it as “worst attack on our democracy since the Civil War” (ah yes, worse than 4 Presidential assassinations, 5 assassinations attempts, Pearl Harbor, 9/11, etc got it) nor did it come “dangerously close to succeeding in upending “American democracy.” How the hell are you a US Representative and have such dismally small understanding of how the US government functions? Like I get it from the perspective of the laymen and the idiots in the Jan 06 riots to think that they could but to believe that it was actually close? Really, so y'all poo-poo the gun-totters out there about any hope of stopping a tyrannical government with your arms, but a large virtually unarmed crowd was about to topple the US government?

The rhetoric is bombastic because it's all political. The Democrats want the GOP to own the riots going into the mid-term elections. What a perfect cudgel to use on them as well and especially if any of the GOP members or voters that align or aligned themselves with Trump. Referring to them as traitors and insurrectionists, enemies to the State. Not particularly that far different than the attempts by the GOP to use the antifa riots last year as a cudgel against the Democrats going into the Presidential election. Let's just be honest about it. There was no existential threat to the US Republic in January 06, and anyone who thinks there was is either using it as political cudgel, or is utterly ignorant about how our government even functions. It's just politics man.

Last addendum:
Trump should absolutely be charged with inciting a riot. He should be prosecuted for it, and in my opinion should serve time for inciting a riot. And I strongly suspect that if those were the charges earlier this year for impeachment rather than using the word "insurrection", it would have happened.

I doubt a court would set the precident of such a low bar for an incitement charge, not with what the rest of the political spectrum was openly shrieking during the preceeding 4 years.

You know what? I barely even care if Trump doesn't pay for whatever crimes he may or may not have committed as long as he is never relevant in politics ever again.

I just don't want to see him again, he kind of helped a lot with the 2020s being such a shitty decade and I am sure he would fuck the political landscape even more turning everything into a shit storm if he ever comes back to any kind of power. I am so glad he is gone

Trump is going to be relevant in politics for decades to come. That is not something anyone of us can get away from. Nor is this relevancy is going to fade away because only one particular party is pushing for it. Both parties are heavily influenced by him. And no matter how much hatred people have for him the reality is that the Trump era policies, domestic and international, are so deep, so effective (for good or bad) that I doubt any administration in the near future can undo it.
To put it into perspective (and I called it last October as well):
Not a single tariff on China has been lifted by the Biden Administration. Not even a single one is on the table, and in fact, the bitterness that our political system and country has towards China has only expanded. Biden did not reverse the pull out of Afghanistan, and it's going to be largely on him to deal with the consequences of that. Even the Iran Nuclear Deal, which Biden effectively co-authored under Obama, is not going to be brought back to the table in any realistically similar way: much to the embarrassment to Biden if anyone calls him out on it. It was a bad deal then, and any new deal will be far worse, especially with what's going on right now in the Straights of Hormuz. And even the Infrastructure bill that is currently introduced is heavily inspired of what Trump was proposing in 2018, with just more bells and whistles. NATO is funded more than ever before, and it's not going to go back.

And he'll remain in political spotlight for a few years as well, due to the massive popularity he had in certain segments of society, and that popularity directly translates to influence on the political level. This is especially true since under Trump there has been a fairly sizable surge in minority voters going to the GOP – larger than ever before.

And if you think he'll remain relevant to the GOP? The Democrats are banking on their hatred for him for the next 3 years. America is divided permanently, and Trump was symptom, not the cause of the division. Only realistic solution going forward is a federated system, dividing the country into regions that are mostly self governing. There is no way forward otherwise. I cannot forsee a Democrat or a Republican unifying the country unless there is some major external war happening. And honestly, that's what it is really going to take. Because clearly, a global medical crisis such as the Pandemic was certainly not enough – given that it was politicized literally from day one. Ironically, 45 years from now, people will look back at the Trump's presidency far differently (and probably more positively) than they do today.

People underestimate how many people are just straightfowardly racist, as in "I hate black people" type of racism.

People think its rare but…not really, it's not that rare

If the US's political turmoil in the past few years (decade?) only leads to status quo, that's just kicking the can down the road for another issue. Personally, I'm not thrilled, because I've just met another American who thought he should make veiled threats about how the US has 'been too patient' with other nations.

I wouldn't care as much about him, if Trump supporters weren't so aggro. It reminds me of a quote about the old political class after Napoleon's defeat, when they tried to re-institute everything back to the way it was:

“They had learned nothing and forgotten nothing.” – Talleryrand

Wierd, that quote works much better for the current admin than the previous one.

You know, what with them being a restored oligarchy that the individual trump had originally displaced; they certainly exhibit complacency in thinking they can just go back to the previous norm like nothing happened and they are making attempts to visit retribution on those that would resist thier restoration.

Well to be fair, "forgotten nothing" is rather hard to apply to Biden.

Funny, because trump is part of that oligarchy

Yeah even disregarding everything else Trump is rich, he is part of the elite

You'll notice that while I think Trump and his base are aggressive enough to keep on doing the same mess over again (and are so hostile that they are thus impossible to work with), I don't have particularly high view of the Democrats either.

"Nothing learned" also applies to Trump, current supporters and his former supporters as well however, as do the labels of oligarchy. Two sides of the same coin, the Republicans and Democrats who want to forget about Trump and go for Corporations, as well as the fringe extremists who are still up in arms, a real powder-keg. Same problems, same proposed 'solutions'

"Forgotten nothing" is to refer to the acrimony, the hate and resentment that hasn't gone away. Even with everything's that been done, there's hasn't been an improvement to the hostility of rhetoric at all since 2016. Even a pandemic couldn't solve it.

Well, we'll see if the US will have the weight to focus outwards come 2024.

In opposition to Trump the establishment played a prohibitive amount of capital; not just money but credibility: public trust in journalists, scientists and doctors is blown by thier politicization. They even spent the illusions of partisanship; taking their Hitlers of yesteryear to thier breast: Bush, Romney and Mccain, just because they made words against Trump.

They wouldnt have fought him so hard if he was just another member of thier club. Whatever you might think are his "real motives" the lengths gone shows that he is considered a defector by the establishment.

There's more to being part of an oligarchy than sharing a tax bracket.

Yes all those evil scientists, telling the truth when it hurts your feelings
and the only thing they don't like about trump is that he doesn;t keep his mouth shut about his corruption and true feelings
"There's more to being part of an oligarchy than sharing a tax bracket.
nope, that pretty much sums it up, if the oligarchy were all completely aligned the us would be even worse off, but instead they're more concerned with money and appearance

I don't think you two are using that term in the same way.

Greyblades seems to mean "the political establishment" when he refers to the "oligarchy". Career politicians, the long-standing institutions of both major political parties, and the fourth estate were all certainly thrown a curveball when Trump decided to run – and not under the banner of a third party this time.

You seem to mean "the economic establishment" when you say "the oligarchy"; or more bluntly, "anyone who's rich". Trump is, all things considered, very rich, and with money comes lots of quiet influence, and half the time you hardly need to spend a dime to get it. Especially when you're ratings incarnate.

While there's certainly crossover between these oligarchies, they're very much not the same entity.

On the other hand Trump was at best just replacing one oligarchy with another one known for being highly corrupt.

He ain't no saviour either way

.pic.twitter.com/hWPZw8xGIM

— Dave Rubin (@RubinReport) July 27, 2021

So tell me, which truth here do you think hurt my feelings?

"Vaccinated should wear masks, but do not need to"

where's the lie

and I bet you that first clip is 100% taken out of context. Because, y'know, Dave Rubin is a schmub.

I do not understand why you would think fixating on one comment would somehow counter the 20 odd self contradicting definitive statments, especially when the whole point is not the truthfulness of the individual statements but that the man pushed opposite positions at different times.

Nor do I understand what sort of out-of-context would lead to such a radical switching of position that doesnt involve either duplicity or incompetence enough to impact public credulity of medical authority.

You seem to be grasping at straws, not very well if I am any judge.

Climate change:IPCC report is code red for humanity

God I'm scared for the future… I wanna be hopeful so bad but it's so hard

Personally I took a "welp we are fucked" stance a long time ago so… yeah

The "nobody now of what it's made tomorow" is a better stance to this kind of prediction.

We're very likely just overall fucked, but it's no reason to give up
keep fighting untill the very end

I predict in the near future that many of the Politicians and Public Figures that previously went all out denying Climate Change and Global Warming are going to suddenly start talking about how there was nothing we could have done about it.

Its a self fulfilling prophesy because nothing could had been done about it, because they kept denying it even existed.

It sucks

It's only hard because the doom-and-gloom scenarios sell and most news reports read the most disastrous predictions of the IPCC prediction models. And while Climate Change is real, and it would require significant capital, public and private to make major significant changes, the reality is that there is already a lot of private-endeavors that are being introduced to offset the worst of the emission problems. The best government can do is work in tandum, not against, industry, encourage it via regulatory policy and tax-lienancy, but not react to the radical elements of society that are demanding over-night changes that are disastrous long term.

I really dislike the way the IPCC reports on the situation and how it is then reflected in news media. The news media in general is terrible at it, often they present major problems as a result of climate change rather than poor policy – something I am very intimately familiar with in California. Our governor, and many in his administration and the state blame much of historic fires we've been having to Climate Change, while completely disregarding the fact that we've slashed the fire-combating budget across the state, we've had horrible fire management policies, effectively setting the state to be a major tinderbox for an ecological system that is dependent on natural forest fires. But I digress.

Case in point in the IPCC report they clearly state that they are neutral to the different RCP and SSP scenerios.

And yet…If you look at the mentions of each:

The overwhelming majority of the scenario mentions are of the least likeliest scenarios by the IPCC. Almost half talk only about the 8.5 scenario. Less than 20% of the report talks about the most likeliest scenario and one that is if we stay the course with no change in policy or industry standards, for better or worse.

Even the IPCC itself acknowledges that the RCP 8.5 very low because there has been changes in the energy sector. I.e. This means that because the world IS going more into cleaner energy (green energy, gas, nuclear, reduction in coal use)

So it's not particularly neutral in addressing each scenario.
In fact, this has been a consistency with IPCC reports.

RCP8.5 mentions in AR5 (the previous report) were 31.4% of total scenario mentions, that has increased to 41.5% in AR6 (the current report. Meanwhile focus on more realistic scenarios (4.5 & 6.0) dropped from 44.5% to 18.4%.

But here is where it get's even more interesting, because the IPCC report often goes against the very narrative that the news media will sell you.

On flooding:

Effectively, there is low confidence that there is a global trend in increased flooding. There is confidence that colder areas are experiencing seasonal flooding at earlier or different points than before. And some places are experiencing more flooding, while others are experiencing far less. But over all flooding intensity has low confidence. per IPCC's own words.

In fact, there is low confidence that humans are even responsible for any increase in global flood flow:

On droughts:
Before the IPCC would only generalize "drought" now they use 4 categories, meteorological, agricultural, ecological, and hydrological. Here is what they say about this:

This suggests that the problem with droughts is less to do with human influence on the climate, and more to do with poor water and land management. (medium confidence)

There is low confidence that there has been any increase in winter storms, thunder storms, lighting, or tornados. Despite what they will say.

So again, read the actual report, rather than the news that reads and interprets the report for you. You'll find, just like last time, that there is an overwhelming amount of focus on the worst scenarios, on the worst predictions, with the least likeliest happening.

So hopefully, that will calm you down a bit.

And yes, even status quo is unrealistic because the US emissions have been consistently falling, our transformation into EVs, and cleaner energy (slow and painful, much because of both the old-guard fossil fuel barons, and the ideologically driven environmentalists who despise nuclear). The same is happening across the world, even in China. India is discussing turning itself emission free in 30 years. There are plans to build massive solar power systems in the Sahara driven by private investment from Gulf-Arab states, and Spain. There is also the dedicated forestry being done in Mexico, and primarily in Africa, where the very underappreciated Green Line of Africa is going to do a lot for the ecological turbulence they are seeing.

There is good news. A LOT of it. But good news is never sexy.

And I'll accuse them of wanting to kill off humanity.

So now apple is going to be scanning through your photos allegedly for cp
wonder how long till they start deleting anything anti corporate

I imagine they won't be reporting the CP of their own CEOs just a hunch

If the major phone providers who use Android OS do the same I guarantee you you're gonna be seeing a lot more MutaPhones

Wouldn't be suprised if google's doing it already

Governor Cuomo resigned…
For all the wrong reasons.

Still

It's fun to remember that Cuomo-sexual was a thing and the people wanting him to run for president.

Newsom too.

I wanted to clarify somethings I mentioned in the IPCC regarding how abused the truth and facts around Climate Change (which is real btw) is used, specifically in California.
Of the top 10 largest wildfires in California history, 7, were in the last 3 years. The Dixie fire, which is currently happening, is the second largest. Of the top 10, 5 were in 2020 alone. In 2018, while not the largest, but the deadliest fire in California history, the Camp Fire, destroyed an entire small town of 50,000 people. I do not exadurate when I say destroyed an entire town. Every single structure burned down. The town is gone. Completely.

In September of 2020, our Governor pitted the blame largely on the Climate "crisis" as he called it. When Donald Trump said that the fires were a reality of bad forest management and not warming temperatures, Governor Newsom responded with "I’m a little bit exhausted that we have to continue to debate this issue. This is a climate damn emergency. This is real and it’s happening. This is the perfect storm."

The Little Hoover Commission, an independent state oversight agency, produced a report in 2018 regarding Forest Management in Sierra Nevada (the mountain ranges in central california where a bulk of these fires occur.) The commission looked at how California, as a state, responded to the drought and bark beetle infestation which devastated 129 million trees that died from 2010.

"During its review, the Commission found that California’s forests suffer from neglect and mismanagement, resulting in overcrowding that leaves them susceptible to disease, insects and wildfire. The Commission found commitment to long-lasting forest management changes at the highest levels of government, but that support for those changes needs to spread down not just through the state’s massive bureaucracy and law- and policymaking apparatuses, but among the general public as well. Complicating the management problem is the fact that the State of California owns very few of the forests within its borders – most are owned by the federal government or private landowners."

MIT's TechnologyReview provided a good explanation of some of the poor fire management practices in perspective: "Decades of rushing to stamp out flames that naturally clear out small trees and undergrowth have had disastrous unintended consequences. This approach means that when fires do occur, there’s often far more fuel to burn, and it acts as a ladder, allowing the flames to climb into the crowns and take down otherwise resistant mature trees."

Indeed. Since the early 20th century, the density of a lot of these trees has increased exponentially, due to an over-reliance on total fire suppression.

"As much as 20 million acres of federal, state, or private land across California needs “fuel reduction treatment to reduce the risk of wildfire,” according to earlier assessments by the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection and other state agencies. That’s nearly two-thirds of the state’s 33 million acres of forests and trees, and six times the area that has burned so far this year.

This “treatment” can include prescribed burns set under controlled conditions--ideally, spaced out geographically and across the year to prevent overwhelming communities with smoke. It can also mean using saws and machines to cut and thin the forests. Another option is “managed wildfire,” which means monitoring fires but allowing them to burn when they don’t directly endanger people or property."

It doesn't however help that our Governor, who, in 2019 allocated $355 million for wildfire prevention and resource management slashed it to $203 million in 2020 -- a decrease of more than 40%. This year, as the recall process started putting pressure on Newsom he reversed course and increased the budget again.

But let's go back to the fires. What started them? The deadliest fire in California's history, the Camp Fire, was started by faulty power lines by the state's utility company PG&E.

In fact, between 2014 and 2017 over 1500 fires were started by faulty power lines from PG&E. The Camp Fire, and the current Dixie Fire (2nd largest in california) are a result of these powerlines as well. The company pleaded guilty to manslaughter of over 80 people.

And yet. ABC10 did an investigation looking into how Governor Newsom's office crafted a law protecting PG&E financials. His office hired private laywers in New York to craft a law called AB1054 which was drafted in Spring of 2019. The law resulted in PG&E to obtain official state safety certification for the company for the next 2 years. Adding to the AB1054 language was the California Public Utilities Commission (CPUC). Prosecutors say that CPUC harmed the Camp Fire criminal investigations. At the time, the agency waived a $200 million fine to help PG&E exit bankruptcy. In 2018 Newsome received $208,400 in political contributions from PG&E to win the 2018 run for government.

We come full circle to the infamous French Laundry incident which ignited the recall effort of the governor. The hypocrisy of going out to fine dining w here a plate of dinner starts at $350 dollars, during a mandated lockdown screamed of hypocrisy of going against his own COVID safety advice. "I was only human" he said then, while hundreds of thousands of restaurant owners are losing their livelihoods in his state. "A birthday party for a friend I've known for almost 20 years" he said. The friend? Jason Kinney, a lobbyist for the Axiom Advisors group, who's major client in PG&E bankruptcy was a committee of companies to whom PG&E owed money. This includes: The Davey Tree Expert Company, Deutsche Bank, the IBEW 1245 union, and NextEra Energy Inc.

Even though PG&E existed bankruptcy more than a year ago the restitution money to the victims of the Camp fire which burned down the town of Paradise never came. This is because the bankruptcy plan approved by the Governor didn't pay PG&E victims cash in full. The bankruptcy rolled their restitution into a trust fund to settle civil damages for money than a dozen other PG&E wildfires.

But the fuckery doesn't end there. In June of 2021 thousands of victims of PG&E fire victims watched as a retired judge in charge of paying them delivered the following message:

"It's important for you to want PG&E to do well." The judge, John Trotter, earns $1,500 an hour from the victim's settlement to """"manage"""" their money. Here's the reason: half of the victims $13.5 billion settlement was supposed to come from holding and selling shares of PG&E stock. The victims were nearly $2 billion short on stock value when Trotter made the video. Since PG&E admitted that the Dixie Fire may have been caused by their power lines…the stock plummeted.

Absolutely climate change increases the risk of fires, especially in tandum with the drought (which is partially an engineering man made issue), and a beetle infestation. But in reality, the fires California has is much more owed to shitty forest management. And it's disingenuous, and insidious for our governor, who is protecting a company that literally killed over a hundred people, by starting these fires, who slashed the fire management budget by 40%, the year when we had 5 of our largest fires, to sit there and get flustered and angry to say, with a straight face, that this is a climate change problem.

Climate Change is a problem. It certainly impacts the drought, and exacerbates the risk. No doubt about this. But to blame it entirely on man-made issues like poor management, cronyism, protection for shit companies? No. It damages the credibility of the need for addressing and mitigating the effects of Climate Change, by allowing bad actors to use it as an excuse to cover up their own bad policies. It's transparent, it's blatant, and it's damaging to the cause.

I agree.
Still think we are in a utterly terrible position: from endless worldwide political chaos to covid as an eternal pandemic with the economy going to shit and soon into global warming actually entering disaster mode.

The only way things could be worse is if ww3 happened somehow… And I mean that kind of is still on the table

A non nuclear WW3 COULD improve things by destroying the elite, and superpowers, and while it's extremely unlikely there is a chance no matter how insane the leaders are, like how the european fron in ww2 never used gas despite the massive reserves they had
obviously it would be an utterly horrifying thing to happen, but at this point maybe it's the only chance things could get better

VP on Afghanistan: "We will leave in 2014."

— Joe Biden (@JoeBiden) October 12, 2012

It was a typo, he meant 2114

You say that but after biden pushed back the departure date the taliban got a propaganda coup and now it looks like they're gonna have trouble not getting kicked out before september

Kabul has fallen to the Taliban, one of the final wars of the Bush administration truly ends. It ends not with a bang, but a whimper.

That administration was why I switched from an admiration of the US to a searing distrust. It's hard to believe it now, but the US were the hegemon at the time, and had bigger ambitions after these wars. They had what seemed at the time like an army of supporters and sycophants to justify it and silence naysayers in politics, and a media and industrial machine that seemed to be united on left and right.

Whether Afghanistan is the graveyard of empires or not, the US may have spent political capital, lives, capital and influence they may not get back.

Maybe instead of giving 20+ years worth of money and humans lives or bombing weddings and journalists for kicks the United States could have done something useful or good.

It is 1919. The world's most feared imperial military leaves Afghanistan in a disgrace that heralds its coming irrelevance. It is 1989. The world's most feared imperial military leaves Afghanistan in a disgrace that heralds its coming irrelevance. It is 2021. The world's most fea pic.twitter.com/WIus2gdqDz

— 🗯 (@samthielman) August 13, 2021

I knew it was a stupid idea to leave NOW when the taliban are still around, and now they’ll reverse all the gains the people there got.

You say that as if there was a point the Taliban would go away. They're a guerilla army, they'll always have someone to fill their power vacuum.

I feel I must congratulate dubya on recently graduating to only second biggest fuckup president of the 2000's

Really? Out of the moltey crew of Bush who started the whole wars and is thus by far the worst, Obama who still drone striked while preaching about change (and whose withdrawal of Irak led to ISIS), and Trump, who well … the only thing I agree with Trump is about leaving, Biden's the one who finally pulled the plug.

Bush is by far the worst. I don't get democrats or republicans who try to bury his 20 year fiasco for their candidate du jour.

Well, those of us that wanted this, watch the Monkey's Paw take away the Olympic Gold in Curling.

Bush didnt drive warlords to the taliban and wreck the morale of the afghan government's millitary by breaking an agreed withdrawl date just to deny credit from the previous administration.

Bush didnt proceed to waste the extra time he wanted and allowed american wargear up to and including apache helicopters and state of the art drones to be captured by the taliban.

Bush didnt leave 80000+ afghans who had aided the americans over 19 years in the lurch with hundreds already having so far been executed by the conquering taliban as collaberators.

Bush took 5 years to really fuck up. Biden took 7 months.

The Bush adminstration's failure to properly set objectives beyond nebulous "democracy" means that the wars could never be 'won'. In fact, much of the problems that other presidents had to face were from his administration's mistakes. Bush turned the Ba'athists of Iraq into the very insurgency they fought, and helped instill the same corrupt government that would fail so badly in Afghanistan. He is responsible for the rotten foundations, and no matter how much anyone works, any building on a swamp will do nothing but sink.

The troops were supposed to withdraw on May 1rst with the Trump date, are you saying they would have done better with less time? That factors 20 years in the making could be explained only by that?

Bush diverted resources from Afghanistan to Iraq and in the long term ensured that both the Taliban and ISIS are better equipped then before the US went there. Some "War against Terror", for the Taliban were already parading around equipment they took from NATO even before they took control of the country. The wars should never even have taken place.

Bush and his nonsense in the lead-up to the wars alienated allies with his repeated lies (instead of giving one of the many reasons to oppose Saddam and other terrorists), undercut institutions the US were in control of and made the whole process a shambolic venture, making it impossible to have any legitimacy. His wars also killed millions, and allowed war-crimes of torture and mass killing (such as the recently pardoned Blackwater mercenaries). A humanitarian disaster.

Bush's legacy and fuck ups haunted relations and the world decades after, I wouldn't even say 5 years considering his mistakes started even before 2003 and made present disasters all but inevitable.

In fact, the only point I want to amend is that while Bush is responsible for all this, this was truly an American fiasco, and that parties which both supported this and then both wanted to exit are pointing fingers at each other truly shows that it's a crumbling Empire.