Damn, man. If Critch catches you leaving Proclaimers references right out in the open where anyone can trip over them, he's going to gut you, turn you inside out, and make a haggis out of you.

For the record, I've never understood Critch's animus against the Proclaimers. You'd think he'd be proud of the only popular entertainment product to come out of Scotland in the last 1000 years besides Mel Gibson.

Think you are missing the Hondurans, Guatemalans and Salvadorans.

TBF, don't remember Obama doing too much either.

Obama didn't campaign on it. And he didn't endlessly complain about it and act like there is nothing he can do to stop it.

They can pass what they want. Had no problem getting that tax for the rich and corporations through. Should be able to muster up the same energy to something that is supposedly important to his voters.

Fact is that they don't want to seal up the borders. Big business would be hurt and they call the shots in this country. It's now just used to stir up racial division and scare old people into voting for them. Then they'll continue to do nothing and bring up the same scare tactics in 2 years.

We've had that a few times going back to Bush2, but the far right doesn't want an immigration compromise, so it doesn't happen. Right now there's a majority for something similar to what Bush wanted, but the far right will throw a fit if it's considered and make sure it never reaches the floor of the House or Senate.

So not only were explosive devices found at Democratic donor George Soros house yesterday, but also in the Clintons and Obama's mail:


https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/24/n...tons-mail.html

But remember, shouting at people in restaurants is the height of incivility.

god what I wouldn't give for the pee tape right now. It's like a dream that you remember, but is just out of reach from being able to repeat.

I'll be happy with a deeper dive into his financial history.

What's the deal with that and lack of MSM reporting? Is it wait till after the mid-terms or after Mueller's findings?

I really want to avoid jumping on the bandwagon of bashing the right for this, because there are radicals on both sides. That being said it’s hard to not believe Trumps rhetoric didn’t embolden whomever did this. Not that it matters to his base. They will just buy in to the conspiracy that this was a set up to help the blue wave before the election.

Man, there is nothing Trump won't lie about.

Lots of stuff going on this morning.

These are horrific times we live in.

It blows my mind there are smart people who refuse to connect the dots that this divide began when Trump took over.

These dummies think Obama, Clinton, and Soros just get all excited when a package comes and open it themselves.

This divide predates Trump. Do you think we were all living in harmony before then?

I agree with you but Trump has taken it up 2+ notches.

This confuses me as well. If the bomber did any sort of research s/he would know that packages sent to former presidents get screened. I thought this was common knowledge.

Now CNN is being evacuated. I was watching it at the time and they had the fire alarm go off while they were interviewing someone about the packages sent to Obama and Clinton. Initially the interviewer was dismissive of the alarm.

Did you just move to the country two years ago? Of course there has always been a divide, but if you dont notice a difference in the last two years not sure what to tell you. Perhaps my post should have been more clear.

CNN in NYC got a suspicious package as well.

One sent to the White House as well...

(never mind - now CNN is reporting that there wasn't)

Exactly. It's been ramped up to multiple times what it was before. The hatred for journalists, for one, has never been this bad in my lifetime.

Because we have never had a president who outright violates the first amendment the way trump does.

CBS is saying that a package may have been mailed to former DNC chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz

If only there had been a massive special edition of a major city newspaper published in the last month on the Trump family financial history. Oh wait.

I wonder if these attacks will galvanize democrats to get the vote out next month.

That or it was returned to that office since that was the address listed on the mailings to Obama and Clinton

Assume you are referring to Freedom of Speech/Press?

Because of him parroting "Fake News" and his attacks on MSM (excluding Fox) all the time? TBH, I don't see it rising to level of violating.

If the Dems weren't already galvanized to vote next month, this probably wouldn't add much.

FWIW, I've decide to vote Dem all the way down this year. Don't think it'll make much of a difference in GA though. It's really nothing to do with policies etc., its got everything to do with Trump the person.

How about him saying nfl teams should cut anyone who protests the anthem? You don’t think that violates the first amendment?

San Diego Union-Tribune staff, others evacuate after suspicious package spotted - The San Diego Union-Tribune

Apparently they share the same office building as Kamala Harris

I don’t think it matters anywhere. The silent majority is real and will be out November 6th.

I think I just heard that only the George Soros package had a DWS return address.

Probably, not sure how any court would rule on it (e.g. does Trump constant BS, lies, exaggerations, bravado etc. come into play?). In a big scheme of things, that incident is relatively small.

Got it.

Only a small violation of the first amendment so let’s forget it. It’s not like there is a pattern of him suggesting violence against the media or protesters. 🙄

Unless Trump is threatening to use the government to punish teams that don't cut kneelers (or target the kneelers themselves), it doesn't violate the first amendment.

Ordering that or threatening government sanctions of some kind would, stating his opinion about what NFL teams should do wouldn't.

We're pretty close to Trump defenders just saying out loud, "Look, you can't hold him accountable for the stuff he says. He's too ignorant to know what he's saying."

Dola: (I've *almost* gotten one of my can't-stand-trump-but-voted-for-him-because-supreme-court buddies to say it. Working on him. ;))

I understand the first amendment but if you don’t think he goes the line we can agree to disagree.

That is a better example than the NFL protests. I can see that.

This brings up the question, is how Obama treated Wiki leaks a violation (or a threat to) also?

It’s all a pattern and goes back to my original point of never having a president who acts this way.

New York governor Cuomo is saying that a suspicious package was sent to his office.

Coincidentally I am prepping a lecture on the Palmer Raids:


At the end of April, some 30 Galleanist letter bombs had been mailed to a host of individuals, mostly prominent government officials and businessmen, but also law enforcement officials.[2]

Only a few reached their targets, and not all exploded when opened. Some people suffered injuries, including a housekeeper in Senator Thomas W. Hardwick's residence, who had her hands blown off.[2] On June 2, 1919, a second wave of bombings occurred, when several much larger package bombs were detonated by Galleanists in eight American cities, including one that damaged the home of Attorney General A. Mitchell Palmer in Washington, D.C.[2]

At least one person was killed in this second attack, night watchman William Boehner, and fears were raised because it occurred in the capital.[2][3][4] Flyers declaring war on capitalists in the name of anarchist principles accompanied each bomb.

Greg Gianforte assaulted a reporter in Montana. Pleaded guilty to misdemeanor assault.

When he won a special election for his House seat in the aftermath, Trump hailed it as a "great win for Montana."

Rallying on behalf of Gianforte last week, he said "any guy who can do a bodyslam, that's my kind of guy."

Nowhere, in any of that, did he so much as utter the words "Greg should not have done that."

Nah. He bodyslammed a reporter, so it's fine. It's fine. We're all fine, here. How are you?

The news media is all "fake news" unless it's Fox and Friends, so who cares about a piddly thing like whether or not your tacit acceptance of - and public embrace of - violence against the press undermines the First Amendment? If they were REAL journalists, they'd be fellating Trump on Fox, amirite?

Rough day on the stock market. Thanks, Obama!

So you are saying this incident violated the first amendment?

I'll ask the same question as above, is how Obama handled Wikileaks a violation (or threat to)?

TBH, I don't really know. That's the example that I can think of that (may) rises to the level of freedom of press.

Add Maxine Waters to the list of people who got packages

Markets erased all the gains they made this year.

Obviously this is due to Obama, Soros and the Clintons being in the news headlines today. Those a-holes.

You joke, but Kudlow has already said the problem is that investors fear a Democratic House.

dola


I'm sure the conservative outrage over data security is coming any minute.

Yup, it hurts. Nasdaq is in correction territory. We are due for a bear market.

Hopefully it'll be quick, get it out of the system so we can start going back up.

trump's official statements on today, are the equivalent of your older sibling saying "stop hitting yourself, stop hitting yourself."

Andrew Gillum tonight: "I'm not saying Mr. DeSantis is a racist. I'm saying the racists think he's a racist."

This senate race has me torn. No way I vote for Hawley. But at the same time, I dont see myself voting for McCaskill.
Hawley is flat out shady. I dont trust this guy at all.
I dont trust McCaskill either. But she seems to be more in line with a couple of the things I believe in. But I dont trust her either.


Its hard to vote when you sont trust wither party or the people they throw out there.

I need to research 3rd party cansisates.

Obviously not sure how today’s events will play out, but one more fun 1920’s parallel:

“But the Klan was easily at its most popular in the United States during the 1920s, when its reach was nationwide, its members disproportionately middle class, and many of its very visible public activities geared toward festivities, pageants, and social gatherings. In some ways, it was this superficially innocuous Klan that was the most insidious of them all. Packaging its noxious ideology as traditional small-town values and wholesome fun, the Klan of the 1920s encouraged native-born white Americans to believe that bigotry, intimidation, harassment, and extralegal violence were all perfectly compatible with, if not central to, patriotic respectability.

Ideologically, the Klan blended xenophobia, religious prejudice, and white supremacy together with a broadly conservative moralism.

Presenting itself in part as a Christian moral reform organization and in part as a vehicle for entrenching the economic and political power of white Anglo-Saxon Protestants, the Klan flourished with the promise that energetic white nationalism and traditional morals would hold back the tides of modernity and ensure that forces scheming to undermine the authority of native-born white Americans would be kept at bay.

But the violence was not the attraction for most members of the Klan. Indeed, most would likely have disavowed their support for such activities, and many surely did not consider themselves to be mean-spirited racists at all.”
The Rise and Fall of the Second Ku Klux Klan - The Atlantic

A government official, or would-be government official, assaulting a member of the press as that journalist is exercising his First Amendment rights as a member of the free press is a violation.

The President of the United States praising and encouraging, explicitly or tacitly, acts of violence against a free press is absomotherfuckingLUTELY a violation of the First Amendment.


1) Get the fuck out of here with your whataboutism. "B-b-but Obama" is not a reasonable response to "[Republican] did a fucking odious thing."

2) Did Obama, at any time, lay hands on Julian Assange, any member of Wikileaks, or any of the alleged leakers? Did he encourage anybody to commit acts of violence against the same, or applaud anybody who did?

If your conflation of Trump with Obama here is because Chelsea Manning got a disproportionately long sentence under the Espionage Act compared with other convicts of the same, you are grasping at the thinnest possible straws trying to cover Trump's ass for, again, some fucking odious behavior.

I'm not answering your question. Answer it your own damn self, and the next time you're inspired to engage in whataboutism, fuck off instead, okay?

If people carry on voting for this clown, I have no idea how the world works any more.

Trump attacks opponents, media, threatens violence and war, over a period of (at least) four years
Trump lies about basically everything, claims reports pointing out the truth are lies and attacks
Fucktards in the country (we love the uneducated) pick up the one and in some cases the rhetoric itself, with some cases of violence towards journalists, now political opponents
Trump says we should respect all people
Trump says the media should stop the aggressive lying

I’m not going mad am I?

He is the single worst thing to happen to world politics in my lifetime.

All of the other despots, madmen and tyrants were in areas where this was common, but Trump has brought a destabilising, aggressive leadership with scant attention to the truth to a supposedly leading, educated and developed country that was ‘the policeman of the world’. It will change politics and the country for years if not decades to come, and I donkt think it will be in the ‘we must never let this happen again’ way.

Regardless of political leanings or policy belief, the character of the country has been irreversibly changed for the worse in at least the short-medium term.

Please just vote him down and eventually out.

From your lips Alex...


I've purposedly not been watching polls or analysis much this month. I remember how sad and depressed I was after the 2016 election and I don't want to feel that way again. Worse yet I don't want to see Trump win if the electorate comes through for him again in the midterms. I think the lie count is over 4,000 now. How could any American want that for their country, their leader? I just don't get it, and I don't want to be proven wrong again.

I don't disagree that Gianforte being physically taken down for doing nothing but asking his questions was a violation so agree with first paragraph.

Tying Trump to it for his recent praise to this incident from June 2017 is not a connection I would make and hence my phrasing of "this incident". If you want to tie Trump's overall, constant barrage against the press as a violation, that I can agree with per #13491.


Per #1, I was responding to Lathum's post in #13579. I countered with Wikileaks as possibly comparable. It's reasonable to counter in a debate with another example that may show the supposition is incorrect. (I use "possible" and "may" because I'm not convinced it was a violation myself but there is a healthy debate about this out there).

Quote:

Originally Posted by Lathum View Post Because we have never had a president who outright violates the first amendment the way trump does.

Per #2, did he "lay hands" or "encourage anybody to commit acts of violence" as the criteria for violation of first amendment is a narrow definition. Doesn't "prosecute" also fit?


No, didn't think about Chelsea Manning. Was thinking about Assange.


I thought you did a partially eloquent job of answering the question already. Thanks for your contribution.

If you beat up a protester at Trump’s rally, he’ll cover your legal fees. | The New Republic

took 2 seconds to find an example of Trump encouraging violence and offering to pay for the legal fees.

I get that part.

My response was Assange is being "prosecuted" (not sure if that is the legal term) for his Wikileaks. Violating first amendment isn't just "lay hands" or "encouraging anybody to commit acts of violence", its also prosecuting the journalists or leakers isn't it?

Trump on twitter doubling down on the fake news being responsible for the divide and not his own rhetoric. I’m sure his base will lap it up.

I guess this goes in here. It's government related.


China's hidden camps - BBC News


This is what a government that is focused on Law and Order at all costs looks like. As horrible as it sounds, from another perspective you could argue that this could just as easily happen in the US under the right circumstances. This is pretty much right up Jon's authoritarian wet dream right here. I think it's a valuable read, not just to see what an actual large scale government cover up and hush looks like, but to understand the reason's why something like this happens and what a government determined to find a solution looks like in the 21st century.

Of course they will.

It's your fault that you reported on the fact that I praised the body slamming of a reporter. :banghead:

Thanks, good read. The bottom part caught my eye.

Quote:

But while the system of profiling and control has been likened by some to Apartheid, clearly that is not entirely accurate. Many Uighurs do have a stake in the system. In reality a better parallel can be found in China's own totalitarian past. As in the Cultural Revolution, a society is being told that it needs to be taken apart in order to be saved.

Your article reminded me of the Rohingya plight. They are considered illegal/stateless and definitely in a world of hurt. Both are Muslims minorities. There were also some terrorist activities by the Rohingya that the government reacted to. But instead of retraining camps, its more force/kick them out.

What Forces Are Fueling Myanmar’s Rohingya Crisis?

The definition of terrorist activities is typically in the eyes of the beholder.

Even in the US, the minority, especially an oppressed minority, might have justification to stand up for itself through any means necessary to get a seat at the table of equality and what is right. If the government has no desire to see that happen, then they are labeled terrorists and we move on with them having that label.

You could argue that the entire US Revolution was lead by terrorists who upended a lawful government. In modern day times, we would be seen as dangerous and in need of controlling, because we upset the stability of the time. In fact, an even more modern example, is trump's recent use of mobs and his goal to paint political opposition as unhinged, and dangerous. Another way to put as people who are upsetting the kind of stability he desires. trump has no desire to see stability and equality, he seeks stability through control, which is a hallmark of a totalitarian/authoritarian government. Today's modern day terrorist is another man's freedom fighter. It's all in the name of why. Look for any repressed group, and you'll find a parallel.

Biden and Robert DeNiro get packages as well.


And Grassley didn't want a full FBI investigation on Kavanaugh, but now he wants a full one done of two of the people who came forward during that time, Michael Avernati and his client Julie Swetnick.


400 Bad Request

Assange is in hiding because the UK has a warrant for his arrest on charges of rape and sexual assault. Nothing about being prosecuted for Wikileaks.

Weren't the rape charges dropped a little while ago?

From the wiki.

Julian Assange - Wikipedia

You may be right that Assange is in the embassy because he was running away from the rape and assault charges.

However, I'm pretty sure he had plenty to fear from extradition and US prosecution.


And per the charges, all he has to do is avoid visiting Sweden again.

I'd assume procuring classified documents would be a bit different than a free speech issue.

Just some random googling (trying to pick ones that I recognize, ACLU is in one quote but there's plenty others out there).

A lot of healthy discussion about the situation with wiki leads being a first amendment issue. So yeah, for many its a valid concern.

https://www.wired.com/2017/04/us-cha...freedom-trial/

WikiLeaks and the First Amendment | HuffPost

U.S. v. WikiLeaks: Can Assange be prosecuted? - US news - WikiLeaks in Security | NBC News

My answer to this sentiment is always the same: the real issue is that 40%+ of the electorate are, by and large, not particularly excited by Trump -- it's just that they think the alternative is worse. That's the real problem, and barring a literal act of God I don't think it is fixable.

Silly media still covering this “bomb stuff”.

Is this fucking asshole for real?

They have just arrested a man in Florida for some part in the bombings. News conference around 2:30 ET

Yeah because its more and more likely its a conservative/Republican supporter behind them, so have to downplay and ridicule the media over it before the election.

Yea. One look at that dude’s van says it all.

nevermind

The best take I saw:

This van is what Steve Bannon would turn into if he was a Transformer.

Ladies and Gentlemen,

#FloridaManFriday

I kind of figured that when the grand master plan was sending crude bombs made from internet instructions directly to political figures and then not a single one detonated - all roads would lead to a Florida van.

The strangest thing to me was all those US Soccer stickers all over the van next to the Trump stuff.

And now we begin the transition from False Flag to Lone Nut.

An unconfirmed name.

Internal Error

Major trump supporter on my timeline claiming the caravan is paid for by dems and the bombing is a set up because even a bit would be more subtle. Nothing matters. There is literally no level of lunacy he or his supporters can get to that will make people turn on him. They will continue to claim set up. It is really an unbelievable time we live in. History will look back on these likely 8 years as the biggest stain on our nation and the reason for our likely demise. Winning.

My new go-to argument winner!

Not surprised at all. Trump could flat out admit he colluded with Russia and they won't care.

They have pictures of him at Trump rallies too already. Seems to be a bit of a minor celebrity amongst them

I've seen several retweets from people who had posted pics from the last couple years where they'd seen this van and posted about it because of how ridiculous it is, with a "IT'S THAT VAN!" post today.

That dude's twitter page is as craptastic as you would expect. There's a tweet to Jeff Flake which seems to suggest he's threatening to burn his house down.

The wording and phrasing remind me of a certain JasonGreatWhiteFootballLeagueOCT

LLLLOOOOOVVVEEE IT

Well I'm glad that he isn't representative of a typical trump supporter, thereby absolving trump (or his admin) of any responsibility.:rolleyes:

Almost as many tweets today about the new Timeless finale movie announced today than MAGABomber tweets :) Coming in late December, 2 hour movie to end the show on a good note (Though its trying to find a new network)

He threatens a lot of people on it. Twitter once again doing a bang up job policing their service.

Kind of an interesting twist. In Florida the Governor can reinstate your voting rights if you're a felon. Scott typically only reinstates white Republicans. If this guy voted in 2016, it would appear that Scott had to reinstate his voting rights despite his lengthy criminal record all because of his political affiliation.

Florida felon voting rights: Who got theirs back under Scott? - News - The Palm Beach Post - West Palm Beach, FL

Well..was Obama responsible for the Congressional baseball game shooter?


Both sides have nuts. Both sides have zealots. Equal amounts on both sides.



To suggest otherwise is to wave the flag blindly of your chosen side.

John Oliver actually did a piece on this. Gov. Scott constantly asks about the person's faith before making his decision as well. And then he basically decides on a whim whether to do it or not.

After the arrest was public Trump spoke to a group that started yelling George Soros and Lock him up. Trump chuckled and said Lock him up.

Both sides have zealots, but Trump is instigating violence and demonizing his opponents. There's a reason Sayoc targeted a wide range of victims, they were all targets of Trump's attacks.

Again, as has been quoted other places, at no time did Obama tell people to go out and attack opponents. At no time did he refer to the opposition as "crazy", "unhinged", "dangerous", or praise physical violence against or facilitate conspiracy theories about Republicans who were out to get him. None at all.

This isn't a both sides argument here.

To say otherwise lacks a fundamental understanding of supporting facts, logic and understanding fallacies.