Politics

[Toph]

I've barely kept from crying all day. I'm scared. My friends ad family are terrified.
My sister hasn't been outside by herself in weeks since that "pussy" video has given that anal pimple's supporters free reign on women, and her sister has now been stalked, harrassed, and attacked. (This is NYC)
My brother's transgender friends have received deaththreats in the last 24 hours. (This is here in texas)
Our VP Elect wants to fund gay conversion therapy.

I'm not afraid of that orange scrotum. There are enough people in congress on both sides who hate him enough to make him even more impotent than they did Obama. And unlike Trump, Obama was competent. Trump can't string together a coherent sentence.
But I am terrified of Trump's supporters who now feel their racism, sexism, and homophobia have now been vindicated and they have free reign.
And Texas is not well known for it's protection of basic human rights.

[Fortmax2020]

Unfortunately we had similar experiences here post-Brexit. Even *if* the leading figures aren't directly endorsing the bigotry etc it's the enabling atmosphere they create that is the most dangerous.

Strangely I feel less worried about Trump - he is clearly incompetent and despised by his own party and vice versa to the level nothing will get done - but very much concerned by the deplorable he surrounds himself with.

[Toph]

Even if Clinton had managed to pull it off, not much would be different now. It was way too close. The homophobic racist sexist bigots now feel vindicated and at liberty to do as they please.
Even if Clinton had won, the cockroaches think they own the kitchen now.

But his running mate, mike pence is the genuinely horrifying one.
He wants to not only fund, but enforce gay conversion therapy. He's put in anti-abortion laws so strict that only in the most extreme life threatening situations could the mother have one, and even then she would be legally punished, and also forced provide a funeral for the remains (even if it's barely more than an egg). The indiana legislature stopped that one, though.
He wants to repeal many civil rights. That's all scratching the surface.
He is the GOP's platform come to life, and taken to the extreme.

It's basically only a matter of time before Trump follows in Nixon's footsteps. And when that happens, it's President Pence. And I think that was the GOP's endgame all along, supporting Trump.

[Bogatan]

Nov 10, 2016 8:20:47 GMT Toph said:

Even if Clinton had managed to pull it off, not much would be different now. It was way too close. The homophobic racist sexist bigots now feel vindicated and at liberty to do as they please.
Even if Clinton had won, the cockroaches think they own the kitchen now.

But his running mate, mike pence is the genuinely horrifying one.
He wants to not only fund, but enforce gay conversion therapy. He's put in anti-abortion laws so strict that only in the most extreme life threatening situations could the mother have one, and even then she would be legally punished, and also forced provide a funeral for the remains (even if it's barely more than an egg). The indiana legislature stopped that one, though.
He wants to repeal many civil rights. That's all scratching the surface.
He is the GOP's platform come to life, and taken to the extreme.

It's basically only a matter of time before Trump follows in Nixon's footsteps. And when that happens, it's President Pence. And I think that was the GOP's endgame all along, supporting Trump.

As paranoid as that sounds I kind of think theres an element of truth. Not so much an end game though, as salvaging something from the wreck.

The way I see it
-Trump either goes exactly as expected, which hopefully means only 4 years in office, but thats still 4 years to destroy obamacare, lgbt rights and make the supreme court very rightwing at the very least. Even then the Democrats have to find a candidate that appeals to voters next time.

-Trump is worse than expected in which case one way or another he doesnt last 4 years and Pence steps in. This does seem the best case for the Republicans.

-Trump isn't nearly as bad as the left fear, still not a great 4 years but weakening his support amongst white men opens the door for democrats.

I am curious just how much support he will get from congress. They control the lot so theres no excuse for things not getting done. So one way or another republicans are responsible for the next two years at least. No excuses which is kind of refreshing.

[Fortmax2020]

Apparently he has appointed a hard-core climate change denier to head up environment agencies. Ugh.

[Toph]

www.aol.com/article/news/2016/11/10/donald-trump-has-called-for-a-major-federal-agency-to-be-elimina/21603523/

Now he's calling for the Department of Education to be abolished.

[Fortmax2020]

The rumour going around yesterday was he might keep it but appoint Ben Carson (that we'll known education expert) to head it up. I'm not sure which is worse.

If more educational setting power is devolved to local groups (which it already is compared to most countries) creationist and alt-history groups will be emboldened and push their agendas more. And historically this has only ever resulted in court case after court case forcing things back on track.

[Toph]

Texas is full of these backwards meddling morons that insist science in schools should be abolished, and creationism taught because "Freedom of Religion."
And since they hold an amazing amount of power, they dictate what goes into school text books. They've already retconned the Civil War into "The War of Northern Aggression," and written out most of the slavery parts, teaching instead that it was about taxes.

What makes this bullarky particularly bad, is texas is so large, that book makers won't make seperate books. Texas dictates what's taught in schools in most states, because book makers can't afford to run sets of non-texas books for other states.

I wish I had the money to leave the country, but I swear. It's like the Y2K bug flipped a stupid switch in white people all over the world.
You guys aren't doing much better than we are. I've been hearing that france and a few other european countries are falling into the same horror rabbit hole that our countries have. Russia's always been a shitshow, and Australia's always been Global Florida.
Canada's relatively sane, but their economy is directly tied to ours. When our's tanks, america drags them with us.


Who's up for Mars?

[The Doctor]

*reads the news about the effects of Brexit on the economy*

TAKING OUR COUNTRY BACK BY MAKING OURSELVES POORER! CONTROLLLLLLLL!!!!

-Ralph

[Fortmax2020]

We will be poor and happy!

[Philip Ayres]

Now we have thrown off the yoke of our European Overlords?

[legios]

We can't have British laws being decided by unaccountable foreign rich people. Not when they are supposed to be decided by international corporations and the international banking sector! We need to make HSBC Sovereign in Britain again!

Britteeeerrrrrnnnnn!

Karl

[legios]

In more serious political news, I see Nigel Farage is comparing the US to the UK and saying that the difference is that in the US the revolution has happened, and all the old politics and old politicians have been thrown out. Whereas in the UK the old politicians have been reshuffled and he is expecting another seismic shift in politics if they don't "deliver properly".

Yep, basically it seems to be a claim that unless the government of the UK do exactly what he and "the people" wants they should be removed from power and a new government installed. So, at what point does this become incitement to revolution? If anyone on the other side had said this the Daily Heil would already be calling for them to be hanged for treason I suspect.

Karl

[The Doctor]

Nov 24, 2016 15:56:24 GMT Philip Ayres said:

Now we have thrown off the yoke of our European Overlords?

Thing is, by this point you would think Those In Charge might think: "Hey, just voting for The Thing has wiped out the economy more than the 2008 financial crash so maybe we should stop this all now before we really push the Article 50 button" but no they're too busy going: "Get rid of the foreigners!" Are we now so racist as a country that we are actively colluding in deliberately making ourselves poorer? Why? It's like a madness from a poorly written satire!

Cynically, I fear people won't really start to notice until buying Marmite costs more. Sigh.

-Ralph

[Fortmax2020]

Now I'm suspicious of that 50p off Marmite voucher I used this evening!

[Andy Turnbull]

I shake my head at what is coming out over the last few weeks.

Farage is an absolute clown, and needs to be told in no uncertain terms by I don't know the leader of the current ruling party maybe to shut his mouth. He has no mandate whatsoever.

Andy

[The Doctor]

Nov 24, 2016 19:16:41 GMT Fortmax2020 said:

Now I'm suspicious of that 50p off Marmite voucher I used this evening!

That's how it starts!

-Ralph

[Fortmax2020]

I must think of my family before you!

[The Doctor]

*sharpens Toblerones*

-Ralph

[Fortmax2020]

*loads 175 choc orange cannon balls*

[legios]

Earlier today I posted then deleted a long-winded post about the motivations of some of those involved in the "Leave" on a corporate level. However, I think that - of all people - Nick Clegg has already covered what I was trying to say in much fewer words. (following quote taken from here ):-

Speaking on BBC Radio 4's World at One, he criticised what he called the "almost hysterical fervour of the hard
Brexiteers" to turn Britain into "a low regulation, low tax, enlarged offshore Singapore for which they have no
mandate".

End quote. The low regulation and low tax elements in particular are what I was trying to get at in my abandoned post - there are a lot of corporate interests that like the idea of a Britain without pesky things like the right to sick pay, parental leave, limits on the hours that people can be made to work etc, and where low tax rates make it a convenient place to park profits whilst they park their costs elsewhere so as to avoid being taxed anywhere at all. A lot of these interests see a precipitate departure from the EU as one very much in their interests - which are far from the same thing as the interests of British citizens...

Karl

[legios]

Aaaan whilst I'm here - the latest log being stacked on the fire of the inevitable independence referendum...

Linkety-Link

Hold onto the hats ladies and jellyspoons...

Karl

[Andy Turnbull]

So we have a new leader of UKIP in Paul Nuttall - how long for I wonder. Also given that the Tories have reclaimed the right, they are destined to dwindle and fizzle out. I wonder how many will slink off back to the BNP.

Trump claiming without evidence that he would have won the vote if the illegal votes weren't counted. The man is an absolute tit, and it's an absolute disgrace that the US media and political system is not calling him to account properly.

[Bogatan]

Trumps amazing. He claims there were millions of illegal votes against him, while saying the left should accept the result and not be requesting recounts over possible vote tampering.

And in his mind that makes sense.

[Fortmax2020]

It's the solution his mind has had to create to sooth his ego that he lost the the popular vote by 2 000 000 votes.

[legios]

Nov 28, 2016 17:56:04 GMT Bogatan said:

Trumps amazing. He claims there were millions of illegal votes against him, while saying the left should accept the result and not be requesting recounts over possible vote tampering.

And in his mind that makes sense.

Yep, it makes perfect sense to him - in his mind he was the rightful winner of the election before it took place, and he won the electoral college so that means that the election must have been fair because the right person won and is president. The popular vote doesn't decide anything so therefore it doesn't matter that people cheated and he didn't win that because it doesn't make you president. Whereas if he had lost the electoral college then clearly there must be something wrong with the election because an opponent cannot win because Trump is a winner and so it would have to be questioned until the rightful winner was declared.

It is a kind of sub-disorder of what I refer to as "Clancy Syndrome" (The idea that the legitimacy of a President of the United States is determined by their party alleigance - If a President is a republican then they are legitimately and rightfully the president of the US, if they are a Democrat then they are an illegitimate, illegal, President and have to be suffered and worked around until they can be removed by a legal, legitimate one). In this case it is more that for Trump he is the rightful President, so any irregularities in the election don't matter because it still gave the correct result - except to demonstrate the evils of the peoples who opposed him and tried to prevent him getting his rightful prize.

Karl

[legios]

Nov 28, 2016 13:05:05 GMT Andy Turnbull said:

So we have a new leader of UKIP in Paul Nuttall - how long for I wonder. Also given that the Tories have reclaimed the right, they are destined to dwindle and fizzle out. I wonder how many will slink off back to the BNP.

\sarcasm

Apparently Paul Nutall wants them to replace Labour. I presume that he actually means he has some delusion about becoming the party with the second-largest number of MPs (hint - unlikely to happen, just because UKIP is hemmoraging members at the same kind of rate Labour has been gaining them does not mean that there is an inverse ratio to the number of seats the two parties will gain) rather than taking Labour's place as either a centre-rightish or a leftish party (depending on whether they stay where their MPs mostly are, or move in the direction of their leaderships politics). I can't really see UKIP moving leftwards in any great hurry...

/sarcasm

Karl

[The Doctor]

Frightening, frightening stuff:

www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2016/dec/05/amber-rudd-says-eu-nationals-in-post-brexit-uk-will-need-form-of-id?CMP=fb_gu

It's only a short walk from 'making them have ID' to 'put them in camps', or have we forgotten what happened in Germany in the 1930's?

-Ralph

[Fortmax2020]

Don't they all already have ID to travel around Europe and/or a passport as well?

[Bogatan]

Less frightening, more ongoing stupid surely.

Everybody already needs some form of Id when starting a job etc so I'm not quite sure why this is news. If anything its good that it doesnt sound as though they are planning on deporting every EU citizen as the crazier end of the spectrum want.

More ridiculous to me is the fact they continue to include students in the migration figures. Heaven forbid the figure not looking as bad as people want to believe.